‘Let’s go and find Mr Keith Teasdale,’ said Cooper. A police constable and an RSPCA inspector stood chatting by the door, their uniforms almost identical but for the policeman’s helmet. The RSPCA man looked like a farmer himself and nodded amicably at the customers walking past. Above their heads were posters advertising fertilizers and animal feeds.
Inside the building, market workers were channelling cattle through a complicated network of steel pens towards the sale ring. As Cooper and Weenink entered, a group of bullocks turned on each other and engaged in a shoving match in the passageway. Side by side, two of the animals completely filled the passage, and their flanks were squeezed against the five-foot high steel bars of the pens on either side. Yipping and shouting, the attendants flicked their backs with sticks until they went in the right direction. Then steel gates were shut along the passageways with a series of loud clangs.
At the back was the sale ring itself, surrounded by
234
tiers of wooden benches like a miniature amphitheatre. Rows of farmers lined the benches, while others pressed against the steel tubular sides of the ring, their boots resting on a wooden platform like men propping up the bar at their local pub. Above them, the low girders supporting the roof of the mart were covered with roosting starlings.
In the ring were four men, booted and overalled, with sticks in their hands to keep the beasts moving through. The exits and entrances were just wide enough for men to squeeze through, but too narrow for animals desperate to escape from the claustrophobic confines of the ring and the circles of watching, predatory eyes.
Cooper stopped to examine the next lot coming in. They were store cattle, down from the hill farms, destined to go to arable land in the east for fattening and breeding. Some were spattered with mud and faeces; others had rear hooves that had grown into long, curved toes like Persian slippers, and they hobbled as they moved.
Some of the beasts went to press their faces against the steel sides of the ring to gaze back towards the holding pens until the men drove them away, making them parade for the buyers to see the way they moved. Then the animals would panic and skid on their own excrement on a concrete surface perfunctorily scattered with sawdust. The larger cattle made the men slip behind wooden barriers in front of the auctioneer’s podium to escape injury.
As Cooper watched, one animal refused to be directed
235
V
to the exit gate, and it ended up in the ring with the next beast. They circled and barged each other in confusion as the men set about them.
‘Jesus, Ben, I think I’m going off beef all of a sudden,’ said Weenink.
Cooper saw one or two farmers he recognized. Bridge End Farm was his brother’s business, but he had been to enough auctions and farm sales with Matt to be familiar with some of the names and faces. There were a few who seemed to turn up wherever farmers got together. These events were their social life, as well as their livelihood.
The first farmer shook his head when asked about Keith Teasdale. The second did the same. Cooper continued to work his way through the crowd, followed by Weenink. The auctioneer was Abel Pilkington himself, and his voice never stopped. He rattled out his litany: ‘Forty, forty, forty. Five. Forty-five, forty-five. Fifty where? Fifty, fifty, fifty. Am I missing anyone?’ It became a continuous, semi-audible stream of figures, amplified and distorted by the microphone. It was impossible to see anyone bidding, but Pilkington had each beast sold in a matter of seconds and the next one on its way in.
‘Aye, that’s Teasdale over there,’ said an old farmer at last. ‘He’s working in the ring, see.’
The man at the entrance gate to the sale ring looked either tired or bored. There were bags under his eyes and he moved with less energy than the others, though he was younger than some. He was a dark, thin man with heavy black stubble and a Mexican-style mous
236
tache and a shifty look in his eye. His entire skill lay in the timing of the opening of the gate. He barely used his stick unless an animal threatened to pin him against the side of the ring.
Cooper was beginning to feel light-headed with claustrophobia and the intensity of the noise. Most of the audience seemed to be shouting and chattering constantly to each other all around the ring, ignoring the auctioneer, while weighing up the animals from the corners of their eyes. There was a continuous bellowing of animals waiting to be driven into the ring or marshalled back into their pens. Gates clanged and cattle transporters started up outside. At times, the auctioneer could barely be heard above the din.
The sun came out and shone through the Perspex roof. The heat in the ring rose several degrees as it hit the dirty floor and sweaty bodies.
‘How do we get him out of there?’ said Weenink. ‘I’m not going in that ring. Not without body armour and a riot shield.’
Cooper tapped one of the attendants on the shoulder and showed him his warrant card.
‘We need to speak to Keith Teasdale. Tell him we’ll see him in the car park, where his van is.’
They stood and watched as the man exchanged a few words with Teasdale. The bullocks in the ring circled, sniffing at the hands of the spectators. Even three feet away, Cooper could feel the blast of the breath from the animals’ nostrils. One lumbered too close to the buyers, and they stood back, pulling their arms in to avoid getting them trapped against the steel bars. One
237
bullock released a stream of green diarrhoea that hit the concrete and splashed an old farmer’s trousers. He seemed not to notice. Teasdale looked up at the detectives when the other man pointed. His face was expressionless, but he nodded briefly. Cooper and Weenink were glad to get out into the open air. While they waited, they read the signs on the outside wall of the office, which advertised farm sales. Farmers seemed to be selling off everything - their stock, their equipment, their land, their homes.
Back at the ring, the next lots were going in. Twoweekold calves that could barely walk were being sold for the price of a couple of pints of beer. DCI Tailby turned over the interview reports from the officers who had dragged themselves round a series of pubs in the back streets of Edendale. He suspected there would be some expense claims following the reports soon.
‘So it looks as though Sugden’s alibis will stand up,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid so; said DI Hitchens. ‘Typical. Motive, but no opportunity.’ ‘A bit like fish and no chips.’ ‘If you say so, Paul.’
‘Do you want the latest news on Martin Stafford?’ asked Hitchens.
‘Fire away.’ When Hitchens and Fry had entered his office, Tailby had been sneaking a crafty smoke of his pipe, to ease the ache in his head from staring at the
