Unti Peter Robinson #22 Read Free Page A

grateful he was able to help at all.”
    â€œWhat makes you call his son a tearaway?” Annie asked.
    â€œOh, he’s always been a handful, ever since he was a nipper. Mischievous imp. He got into some trouble with the police a while back.”
    â€œWhat sort of trouble?”
    â€œFrank wasn’t specific about it, but I think it was something to do with a stolen car. Joyriding. Got probation, community ser­vice, something like that. I didn’t like to say anything to Frank, but to be honest, the lad always seemed a bit of a shiftless and mischievous sort to me, if truth be told. He doesn’t live at the farm anymore, but he turns up now and again to see his father.”
    â€œCapable of stealing a tractor?”
    â€œI’m not saying that. I don’t think he’s basically dishonest.” Beddoes took a deep breath. “Just misguided. Frank calls me a hobby farmer. Laughs at me behind my back, like they all do. It’s true, I suppose. But I was born on a farm and grew up on one, dammit, until I was twelve.”
    â€œI see,” said Annie. “Is there any bitterness between you and the other local farmers?”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œAny recent disputes, arguments?”
    â€œNone that I can think of.”
    â€œNor 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 laborers, 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 this 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.
    â€œDo 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 realized. 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.”
    â€œRight you are,” said Beddoes. “Please keep me informed.”
    â€œWe 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.
    â€œYou’re welcome. Good-­bye.”
    Once they had put their rain gear on again, Annie and Doug Wilson 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 prized from the wooden door, and the heavy padlock