A Death to Record by Rebecca Tope

you this afternoon?’
    Ted shook his head. ‘Doubt it. As far as I could tell, he went straight from the house to the office after dinner, and got talking with the recorder until they started milking.’
    ‘As far as ’ee could tell?’
    He frowned painfully. ‘You know how ’tis up there; all those buildings, like a maze. You could have five people working there and they’d never see each other. If someone wanted to creep round unseen, it’d be easy. Gordon could have gone out of his back door, past the calf-pens, through the shippon and into the gathering yard without me or the recorder seeing him. The recorder always parks right outside the parlour, where you can’t see anything that’s going on. Even the old granny very likely wouldn’t have caught sight of Gordon or Sean from her window, if they stayed in the far corner of the yard.’
    Jilly felt her confidence ebbing. Who could trust the police to notice the obvious? If they discovered that Ted had been dodging in and out of the buildings and around the yard all afternoon, with nobody to vouch for what he’d been doing, things might get very unpleasant. ‘Then you’ve got to say you were hedging or ditching or something, in one of the top fields – all afternoon,’ she decreed.
    He pulled away from her. ‘Gordon did tell me I should have a look at the ditch along TopLinhay. If I said that’s where I’d been, he’d never doubt it.’
    She nodded her satisfaction, before changing tack. ‘And what about Eliot?’
    Ted sank against the sofa cushions behind him. ‘Why bring Eliot into it? He doesn’t come to Dunsworthy any more.’
    ‘Because someone, sooner or later, is sure to tell the police that Sean knew Eliot. Anything that happens to Sean is something to do with Eliot, you know that.’
    Ted’s eyes closed again. ‘Then we’d best hope Eliot was at work all day,’ he said.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Dunsworthy farmyard at six next morning was an all-female arena. Lilah was on the tractor, scraping mucky straw from the cows’ sleeping quarters, while the animals milled about in the gathering yard. Strands of police tape had been strung across a section of the yard, with the intention of safeguarding a spot where the previous evening’s searches had found blood on the ground. The forensics team had stayed until almost midnight, with searchlights and photographers. It hadn’t taken them more than an hour or so to find a likely murder weapon in the shape of a three-pronged garden fork, thrown down onto a pile of straw in a different barn from the one containing Sean’s body. They hadalso found – with considerable good fortune – enough blood outside to identify the site of the actual attack.
    By the time they left, a scenario had emerged that seemed to fit with their findings. Sean had been attacked with a fork in the gathering yard. This yard was bordered on two sides by the barn in which the body had been found and the milking parlour. Over a hundred cows had been through it subsequent to the attack on Sean, and it was liberally strewn with manure and mud. Nonetheless, a distinct trail of blood had been detected, leading from a featureless point in the yard to the door of the barn. The victim had dragged himself – or been dragged – the twelve yards of the trail, entered the barn and died there. The tape had been strung across that corner as a matter of routine, but the team had gathered just about all the samples and pictures they needed. Little more could be added to the accumulating hypothesis of what had happened until the pathologist made his report.
    Lilah’s mind had been in turmoil ever since Claudia had phoned her at eight-thirty the previous evening, telling her what had happened. It had taken a long time to absorb the facts and their implications. Bewilderment, panic and rage all flooded through her. ‘How on earth could they think it was Gordon?’ she demanded finally.
    Claudia had sounded distant. ‘Because he was on the spot,