ground, and I did not understand why my brother had done so.’
‘You took it up with him.’
‘Of course I did. He was my brother.’
‘And?’
‘He glossed over it. He’d actually bought that land some twenty years ago from a neighbour, and he said he’d never really felt it was part of the farm, so when he was offered a good price he chose to get rid of it.’
‘And that satisfied you?’
‘Look, my brother and I were different people. His kind of farming was more of its time… instinctive…’
Merrily said, ‘What does that mean, Mr Bull?’
‘He’d often follow his feelings rather than agricultural economics. Farming was in his blood. He used to laugh at my business degree – in a good-natured way, I should add.’
‘Was he superstitious?’
‘What a ridiculous question.’
Annie Howe said, ‘Is it possible that your brother supplied bulls to Mr Jones?’
‘As for that suggestion-’
‘But he did keep Herefords.’
‘You know he did. What are you doing, Chief Inspector – trying to prove in front of your subordinate that us being old friends in no way prejudices your inquiries?’
‘We were friends of friends,’ Annie Howe said. ‘That was all.’
Subordinate. Merrily smiled. At least it showed that Sollers had no idea who she was. She turned the smile on him.
‘The boss doesn’t have anything to prove to me, Mr Bull.’
A faintly amused twitch at the corner of Annie’s mouth, but it didn’t last.
‘You feel happier now about your neighbours, Mr Bull? Magnis Berries?’
‘And I certainly don’t see how that -’
‘I’m told you’ve been a regular visitor. In a manner of speaking.’
‘I like to keep an open mind about these things,’ Sollers said.
‘What things?’
‘Polytunnels. Much condemned.’
Howe nodded.
‘And the migrant workers? You suggested to my colleague, DI Bliss, that migrant workers might be at least partly responsible for the increase in rural crime.’
‘I was saying all kind of things that night. I’d just seen my brother’s butchered body. And I’m sure your colleague exaggerated my comments.’
‘We’ll come back to that, if you don’t mind. How well do you know Ward Savitch?’
‘We’re acquainted.’
‘What do you think of him?’
Another odd question.
‘I’m just interested,’ Annie Howe said.
‘He’s just a rich man in search of an identity. Wants to recreate the countryside as somewhere that makes him feel welcome. Lots of them around, in the so-called New Cotswolds, some of them TV celebs, like Smiffy Gill. And now they have an official voice.’
‘Countryside Defiance.’
‘Ostensibly the voice of the local people. In fact financed and run by incomers for incomers. I believe it began as a kind of business-class social networking site on the Internet. Then various resources got pooled, and they were away. Good luck to them.’
‘But you’re their figurehead, and you’re not an incomer.’
Sollers bent forward, ear stud winking.
‘I’m their much-prized well-known local person, who can get them into both grass-roots farming circles and hunt balls.’
‘And what’s in it for you?’
‘I don’t like being treated like a suspect, Annie.’
‘This is really not how I talk to a suspect, Mr Bull, but if that’s how you want to-’
‘Some of us need incomers. They buy meat from my farm shop, they eat in my restaurant…’
‘And I suppose it means you get to dictate some of Countryside Defiance’s policies?’
‘Don’t like the word dictate. They listen to me.’
‘Influence, then. The campaign against rural policing, for example?’
‘The campaign for rural policing.’
‘Which particularly targets DI Bliss.’
Sollers snorted.
‘Man’s a liability, as I’m sure your masters are beginning to realize. A crass little man, who was particularly insensitive on the night my brother died.’
‘Why do you think that was?’
‘Because he’s in the wrong place. Because he has no sympathy with country people.’
‘Especially,’ Annie Howe said, ‘when they’re shagging his wife.’
Merrily knocked her cup over.
Annie Howe said, ‘That was Mrs Bliss, wasn’t it, on her way out as we arrived? The woman you identified as a neighbour. Not exactly a close neighbour. Well, in a manner of-’
‘Don’t you fucking sneer at me, Annie. Kirsty and I… we’ve known each other many years, long before her marriage to that…’
‘Oik?’
‘… which had turned sour long before she and I got together again.’
‘And your wife…?’
‘My wife knows. We’ve had separate lives for some time, but we’re being responsible about it. We’ll stay married until the children leave home.’
Merrily righted her cup, pulled out a tissue to mop up the coffee. Bloody hell.
‘And Kirsty’s family also know,’ Sollers said, relaxed again now. ‘And approve. Everyone who needs to know knows… except, presumably, for Bliss.’
Annie Howe said nothing, but something in her face quite visibly flinched.
‘Too busy hiding his own indiscretions,’ Sollers said.
Annie Howe had started to say something. It appeared to catch in her throat. For a moment she looked almost nauseous, and maybe Sollers glimpsed that, too; he slid lithely away from the stove, switched on more lights.
‘My information is that a physical relationship between serving police officers in the same division is normally frowned upon to the extent that, should it become known about, one of the officers is immediately put on the transfer list. Who would you rather left Hereford, Annie: Bliss, or-’
‘I think you should consider…’ Annie Howe’s voice cold, even for her ‘… very carefully before you continue.’
The lights were unhealthily bright, halogen hell. Sollers dragged out a chair and sat down directly opposite them.
‘Bliss?’ he said. ‘Or Sergeant Dowell?’
Annie Howe was motionless.
‘Pot… kettle… black,’ Sollers said.
‘You have any proof of this, Mr Bull?’
‘Mrs Bliss has been aware of it for quite some time. And she should know, don’t you think?’
Annie was silent for a couple of seconds.
‘Yes,’ she said quite slowly. ‘She should know.’
‘And all this,’ Sollers said, ‘relates to the murder of my brother how?’
‘Did your brother know?’
