A Death to Record by Rebecca Tope Page B

calf came from somewhere.
    Deirdre stared at her. ‘Are you the relief milker?’ she asked.
    ‘Sort of. I’m Lilah Beardon, Gordon’s girlfriend. You’re Mrs Watson, aren’t you?’
    ‘Deirdre – yes.’
    ‘Well, look, you’ll have to be my witness that this was all a stupid accident. The police are going to go bananas at me when they see what I’ve done. Cows trampling all over their evidence. Mind you, that tape was ludicrously flimsy. They’d probably have broken through it anyway. You’d think someone would have told them this was the gathering yard, wouldn’t you?’
    Deirdre gave a forced laugh, still bewildered by what she’d seen. ‘They probably worked it out for themselves. I doubt if you’ve done anything too awful. Not after the cows trampled it all yesterday in any case. Do you think this is where Sean was attacked?’
    ‘Well, they obviously think it’s important. They’d taped off the area to include the barn door. Isn’t that where Sean was found? I’m still very hazy about the details.’
    Deirdre nodded. ‘It’s very strange coming back here again after yesterday. Doesn’t seem alot of point to it, really. But Gordon insisted.’
    ‘Did he? Did they let you speak to him?’
    ‘Not really. We were both together in the office for a few minutes with the policeman, and he made it clear he wanted the recording to go ahead as normal. Why – do you think they expected us to conspire together somehow?’
    ‘They’re supposed to keep witnesses separate,’ Lilah said. ‘Now, let’s get this show on the road.’
    Deirdre cast her eyes skywards for a second, in a moment of exasperation that Lilah found mildly offensive. ‘That’s what everybody says,’ Deirdre explained. ‘I must have heard it a hundred times, just before milking starts.’
    Lilah couldn’t see why this should be a problem, but she didn’t say anything.
    ‘Could you describe the policeman?’ she asked, a few minutes later. She already knew what was coming. It had been one of her first panicky thoughts. But she hadn’t checked it out until now.
    ‘Very tall. A long face, mid-brown hair, blue eyes …’
    ‘I thought so,’ nodded Lilah.
     
    Working with a woman always unsettled Deirdre. When she started the job, she had asked, ‘Are there many herdswomen these days?’
    ‘Very few,’ her Field Manager had replied. ‘They’ve got more sense.’
    It was a memorable remark, but Deirdre didn’t quite believe it. It had nothing to do with sense – it was something altogether more visceral. Docile in the face of exploitation, dependent and patient, the cows were necessary victims in the dairy industry. Something about this tension, this dubious morality, disturbed women very much more than it did men.
    The demands of the milking and recording always kept conversation to a few brief snatches, much of it concerning the animals surrounding them. Lilah abandoned any attempt to feed them according to their yields, as was the usual routine; Deirdre assured her that none of them was on antibiotics and their milk therefore to be discarded. ‘That’s a relief,’ Lilah said. ‘Have you ever let antibiotic milk into the tank?’
    ‘Once,’ Deirdre admitted. ‘I’m covered by insurance, but I never want it to happen again. You should have seen the herdsman’s face.’
    ‘It wasn’t here?’
    ‘No.’
    Deirdre was noting down the yields directly onto the parlour sheets, risking them getting mucky or wet, to save time. Lilah was surprisingly quick, given that she had never milked these particular cows, nor any at all for over a year. When Deirdre commented, she smirked and said, ‘Like riding a bicycle, I suppose.’
    ‘A lot of them aren’t giving as much as they should,’ Deirdre noted. ‘Must be because you’re strange to them.’
    ‘What exactly happened?’ Lilah finally permitted herself to ask, as the recorder sealed her boxes and started to pack away her equipment. Deirdre told her the story in a