On the way to Ringham Edge, they had to slow down as they came up behind a tractor towing a trailer stacked high with bales of straw. Golden flakes spiralled off the load and drifted across the windscreen of the car.
‘When we get to the farm, I think we should make a point of trying to see all the Leach family,’ said Cooper. ‘What’s the purpose of that?’
‘There’s something wrong there.’
‘We’ve had no reports of anything wrong.’
Cooper glanced at her face, thinking again how thin she was becoming. It made her look gaunt and haunted
303
rather than tough and angular, as she had been when she arrived a few months ago from West Midlands. Fry’s hair was shorter, too, as if she had taken scissors to it and hacked off a couple of inches in a bored moment. There was one other thing that Cooper noticed about Diane Fry, though. She never mentioned his father now, not since that first time they had met. Sergeant Joe Cooper meant nothing to her. He wondered what Fry did these days when she went off duty. He wondered what she would be doing tonight, after work. But, for once, Cooper found that his imagination failed him completely. He had already agreed to go out for a drink with Todd Weenink that night. Weenink called it ‘a session’, which meant he intended to drink a lot of beer. Cooper wasn’t really looking forward to it. He would miss a rehearsal for the police male voice choir, and it was getting to their busiest time of year, when they performed at community halls and old people’s homes in the area. Besides, he had seen how morose and aggressive his colleague could become under the influence of alcohol. But they were partners, and Cooper understood that these occasions were necessary, a kind of bonding. He thought Weenink had no one else to talk to since his marriage had ended. His relationships with women were probably not noted for their conversation. ‘A session’, he sensed, was code for Weenink needing someone to talk to, an admission that he was feeling lonely. That was why Cooper couldn’t refuse.
304
In the crew yard at Ringham Edge Farm, Warren Leach spoke to his sons in a voice thick with suppressed anger. ‘Bring that beast down here,’ he said. The boys stood open-mouthed; Dougie was close to tears. They both knew about the death of animals. They had both seen the huge pit that the excavator had dug behind the barn a while ago, and had heard the shots as the ewes were dispatched one by one. Afterwards, they had crept out of the house to stand in horrified fascination on the edge of the newly turned earth. They had tried to imagine the lifeless bodies of the sheep below their feet; they had pictured them lying on their backs with their eyes blank and their thin legs stiff and pointing upwards, and the wet soil thick in their fleeces and in their mouths. ‘No. Please, Dad,’ said Will. Leach lost his temper at the pleading tone, driven beyond patience. ‘Am I talking to that wall? Now shift your arses and get that beast down here! Do as I say! If I have to say it again, I’ll be saying it with this belt.’ Will pulled Dougie’s arm and dragged him reluctantly away. Leach dug into an old canvas satchel and checked the captive bolt pistol that Keith Teasdale had given him. The steel casing of the gun was heavy and solid in his hand. ‘Bloody animal,’ he muttered to the gun. ‘Draining money from me like water. Not any more.’ There was no one in the yard to hear him. He was thinking of the day they had bought the calf at Edendale cattle market. It had been Yvonne herself who had
305
I
^
picked it out, and it had been her idea to buy it for the boys. It had been a fine young animal, too, and would have made a handsome heifer. But for weeks, Leach had found he couldn’t bear to see the calf. Its eyes rolled at him accusingly, like the eyes of another bloody martyr; its coat gleamed with the gloss of an extravagance that he couldn’t afford. Now he couldn’t even stand the thought that the animal was on the premises. He couldn’t concentrate on any of the pressing problems that were piling up on him because of the time he spent dwelling on the calf. It had to be disposed of before he could work out how to get the farm and his life out of the mess they were in. It had to go. It was standing in his way. ‘We’ll sort this out once and for all,’ he said, and snapped a cartridge into the gun. Finally, the boys dragged the calf, protesting, on a rope halter into the yard. ‘Dad ‘ ‘Just shut up. Just bloody shut up!’ He snatched the halter from Will’s hand and led the calf a few feet away. The boys stood fixed to the spot, unable to take their eyes away. Dougie winced and put his hand to his mouth to stifle a cry as his father lashed out with a boot to take the calf’s front legs from underneath it. The animal folded up on to its knees in the dirt with a frightened gasp. As it struggled to regain its feet, Leach stood astride its neck to pin it down and grasped its halter firmly in his left hand. Then he pulled the gun from his pocket and centred the barrel against the top of the calf’s skull, in the centre of its forehead.
306
He worked the barrel through the hair and adjusted the angle between the horn buds. He needed a clear path for the bolt to penetrate the layer of bone and enter the brain. The calf, sensing the uselessness of its struggles, suddenly relaxed in his grasp, resigned to an inexplicable end. ‘It has to be done,’ said Leach. ‘It can’t go on like this any longer. You’ve got to understand these things. It’s part of your education.’ Leach looked up at the boys. But he barely saw their faces. Instead, he saw a small cloud of dust behind their heads. It was drifting above the stone wall that bordered the lane. Then he became aware of the noise of an engine, and a second later a red Toyota bounced through the pothole by the gate and entered the yard. Leach kept the barrel pressed to the calf’s head, fingering the trigger. He smiled at the thought of the look that would be on his visitors’ faces, when he pulled the trigger in front of them. Then he recognized Ben Cooper at the wheel of the Toyota and saw Diane Fry get out of the passenger seat as the car slid to a halt. She had a clipboard in her hand, and she didn’t seem to notice the boys or the calf as she walked up to Leach. Surprised, the farmer let go of the animal. It scrambled away, leaving him standing straddle-legged, with the bolt pistol still in his hand. ‘Mr Warren Leach?’ said Fry. Leach stared at her, making a tiny, abrupt movement of his head that she could take for a nod.
307
IqqI’Acting Detective Sergeant Fry, Edendale Police. According to our records, you do not have the required licence entitling you to possess that captive bolt pistol.’ Leach looked at the gun, baffled. ‘I must have forgotten to get one.’ ‘We have to apply the rules, I’m afraid, sir.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘You’re in possession of an unlicensed weapon.’ She held out her hand. ‘You’ll be given a receipt. Then you can reclaim the weapon if and when you obtain the appropriate licence.’ ‘I don’t believe this. Do you think I’m going to give my gun to you just like that?’ Fry raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Are you refusing to surrender an unlicensed weapon, sir?’ Ben Cooper got out of the car and ambled towards them. He nodded at the farmer. ‘Give it up, Mr Leach. Be sensible.’ The three of them looked at each other for a minute. Fry was beginning to get impatient. Cooper could see her muscles tense. He turned to the boys waiting to one side with wide eyes. ‘Better clear off, lads,’ he said. ‘You really don’t want to see this.’ ‘No,’ said Leach. He turned the pistol round and gave it to Cooper. Fry began to fill in a receipt. ‘Now, if you’ve quite finished,’ said Leach, ‘I’ve got work to do.’
308
22
Out of tradition, Ben Cooper and Todd Weenink started their evening at the Wheatsheaf. There were three pubs that stood close together around the market place, and three or four more down the side streets that they could take in without walking more than a few yards. But the Wheatsheaf had a whole range of guest beers on the bar, strong ales with names like Derbyshire Black and Old Sheep Dip. Weenink was the one drinking harder and faster, and he soon reached the stage where he wanted to share his personal insights. ‘There’s just no excitement in the job any more,’ he said. ‘Every day you come into work and they tell you to go and detect a burglary or something.’ ‘Several burglaries,’ said Cooper. ‘Six burglaries and four car breakins. Every morning.’ ‘And a criminal damage or two, as well.’ ‘That’s it. The same day after day. It’s mind numbing. We don’t even get a good ram-raid
