Abattoir Blues Read Free Page A

suppose. But I was born on a farm and grew up on one, dammit, until I was twelve.’
    ‘I see,’ said Annie. ‘Is there any bitterness between you and the other local farmers?’
    ‘I wouldn’t really call it bitterness. More envy. They tease me, make fun of me, exclude me from their little cliques, but that’s just their way. You know Yorkshire folk. God knows how many years before they finally accept you, if they ever do.’
    ‘Any recent disputes, arguments?’
    ‘None that I can think of.’
    ‘Nor me,’ Patricia said.
    Annie made a note to have a chat with Frank Lane and his ‘tearaway son’ later. Intelligence had it that those responsible for the recent surge in rural thefts used ‘scouts’, usually local delivery drivers, or itinerant labourers, who built trust by helping out the farmers with maintenance, crop-picking or vermin control, as the seasons demanded. A tearaway son could easily get involved in such a racket if the price was right. Or if drugs were involved. There were plenty of cannabis farms around the region. Not that Annie saw any harm in having a few tokes now and then. After all, she had grown up surrounded by the stuff in the artists’ colony outside St Ives, where she had lived with her father and a constantly shifting cast of bohemian types and plain ne’er-do-wells, maybe even a minor drug-dealer or two. But it wasn’t just a couple of spliffs that bothered the police; it was big business, big profit, and that was what drew the nastier type of international criminals and gangs. It was hard to turn a blind eye to them.
    ‘Do you have any security alarms?’ Annie asked.
    Beddoes snorted. ‘What, up here? Waste of bloody money, like I told the constable earlier. Any self-respecting criminal would be long gone before a patrol car got up here, even if one happened to be free when you needed it.’
    He was probably right, Annie realised. Once she had as much detail as she could get from John Beddoes, there seemed little reason to stay. Annie stirred herself and gave Doug Wilson the nod. ‘We’ll be in touch as soon as we know anything,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have a quick shufti around outside before we leave.’
    ‘Right you are,’ said Beddoes. ‘Please keep me informed.’
    ‘We will.’
    Patricia Beddoes lingered behind her husband, her hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Beddoes,’ said Doug Wilson, ever the polite young man.
    ‘You’re welcome. Goodbye.’
    Once they had put their rain gear on again, they squelched over to the garage where John Beddoes had housed the tractor. PC Valentine had examined it earlier, of course, and they saw nothing he hadn’t mentioned in his report. It looked like a crowbar job, Annie thought. The entire metal housing had been prised from the wooden door, and the heavy padlock that lay in the mud was still intact. Annie took a photo of it in situ with her mobile phone, then dug a plastic bag out of her pocket and carefully picked up the lock using the end of a pencil and dropped it in the bag.
    ‘A kid could have broken into that garage in five seconds,’ Annie said in disgust. ‘Come on, Doug. We’ll send some CSIs to poke around in the mud when we get back to the station. There’s no hurry.’
    ‘Poor Beddoes,’ said Wilson, as the windscreen wipers slid into action and the police Volvo shuddered to life.
    ‘Oh, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him. That BMW over there looks new to me. And as you said, it’s an expensive tractor.’
    Annie made herself as comfortable as possible in the passenger seat, rubbing at the steamed-up window beside her. Unlike Banks, whom she felt always needed to be in control, she didn’t care who was driving. In fact, all the better if it wasn’t her. She didn’t like driving, especially in this weather. And there were too many arseholes on the roads these days, no matter what the weather. This week wasn’t starting out well, she thought. It was only mid-morning on Monday, but