Bernard Knight - According To The Evidence

The householder, Aubrey Evans, was the first one they spoke to. He came into the room and sat at the table between the inspector and John Nichols, who had a notebook at the ready. Aubrey wore a thick check shirt buttoned at the neck, his brown corduroy trousers held up by wide red braces.

‘Let’s start again at the beginning, Mr Evans,’ began Arthur in a mild voice. ‘You run the farm, but it actually belongs to your father?’

‘He’s kept the freehold of the land, but he’s given me a lifetime lease on this house, just as he has to Jeff in regard to the cottage next door.’

‘What happens when he dies?’

‘It’s all arranged with the lawyer. He’s leaving the land to me, as he doesn’t want it split up. It’s been in the family since Noah’s Ark was afloat. He’s giving the freehold of the cottage to Jeff.’

‘And what about the business?’ queried Crippen.

‘My cousin and I split the farming two ways, then we’ve got a partnership that runs the agricultural repair business. Jeff and I have got a third each, the other thirty-odd per cent is Tom Littleman’s.’

He stopped as if a new thought had just struck him. ‘No, we’ve got half each now, with him gone.’

‘His family will surely inherit his share?’ suggested Nichols.

The farmer shrugged. ‘He hasn’t got any family. Lived alone, not married and I’ve never heard of any other relatives. He came from up in England somewhere after the war.’

Crippen’s lined face developed a few more furrows. ‘He’s the dead man here, so I’ve got to know everything about him. How come he became one of your partners?’

Aubrey stretched out his legs, his feet encased in thick socks. Even at this fraught time, he couldn’t come into the parlour in his work boots.

‘Worst thing we ever did, taking him on! When we began building up the repair business six years ago, we needed a real mechanic for the engine work. Jeff’s cousin had been in the army through the war, in the REME, mending trucks and tanks. Tom Littleman was a pal of his, and when we wanted someone he suggested him.’

‘So he’s been here about six years?’ asked the sergeant.

Aubrey nodded. ‘He worked for us as an employee for a couple of years and was fine before he really took up the booze. Later, when my father gave us the farm and we set up a partnership, we took him on as a partner rather than pay him wages.’

He sucked on a hollow tooth. ‘And regretted it ever since!’

‘Was he that unreliable, then?’ asked the sergeant, who was making notes as Aubrey spoke.

‘Unpredictable, he was! Sometimes as good as gold, for he certainly knew his stuff with machinery. But he’d been getting slacker and slacker – coming late, sometimes not turning up at all.’

‘Just because of drink?’

‘I suppose so, no reason otherwise. But he’d show up drunk some mornings, then get ratty when we told him off. He gave that poor kid Shane a hard time.’

Aubrey leaned back in his chair and scratched his head. ‘My dad was always sounding off about him, said we should never have taken him on. He warned us that he was going to be trouble. We’ve kept trying to buy out his share, but he wasn’t having any.’

‘So, really, it’s quite handy that he’s gone?’ said Crippen with an air of false innocence.

The implication was not lost on the farmer, and he scowled at the detective. ‘We didn’t want the bugger killed, if that’s what you mean,’ he said sullenly.

Arthur Crippen changed tack. ‘Let’s go through what happened yesterday and the previous evening,’ he said placidly. ‘When did you last see Littleman?’

‘About five o’clock that evening. I drove down to the barn to pick up Jeff, as we were going to an NFU meeting in Brecon. Shane was just knocking off, and I wanted to check that the brakes had been finished on that Major. The owner had been getting shirty because we’d promised to have it ready for him the previous day.’

‘And it wasn’t finished?’

‘No way. Tom hadn’t turned up at all on Monday and he was even late coming that day. I tore him off a strip, as the owner had been bawling down the phone at me, threatening to take his work elsewhere.’

‘You had a quarrel, then?’ suggested the sergeant.

‘We were always having shouting matches, either me or Jeff. But Tom always had some excuse – or he just shrugged it off. Drove us bloody mad, it did!’

John Nichols wrote rapidly in his notebook as the DI continued.

‘When you left, Littleman was still working on the tractor? How far had he got, d’you know? Was it jacked up then?’

Aubrey shrugged. ‘I didn’t really notice, to be honest. See, I do the farming and Jeff splits his time between that and seeing to the machinery side, especially since Tom became so unreliable.’

The questions went on for a few more minutes, but there was little else that they could get out of the man, apart from how Shane had rushed up to fetch him and how he had rung the police in Sennybridge the previous morning. As he got up to leave, Crippen had one last question.

‘You said that you and your cousin went into Brecon for a National Farmers’ Union meeting the night before. What time did you get back here?’

‘The meeting finished about half eight. We went for a couple of pints in the Boar’s Head and got home about ten, I suppose.’

When he reached the door, the inspector asked him if he would send his wife in for a word.

Aubrey stared at him. ‘What d’you need her for? Betsan never went near the damned barn!’

‘Just routine, Mr Evans. She might have noticed something about Littleman, you never know.’

The farmer grunted something and left the room. A few moments later his wife appeared, and the two police officers stood while she sat down. Betsan Evans was in her mid-thirties and was still a good-looking woman, slim and straight-backed, with a long face framed with dark hair. Though a hard-working farmer’s wife, she had an innate elegance that could be envied by many women living a softer city life. She wore a blue wrap-around pinafore dress above lisle stockings and house slippers.

Betsan sat calmly with her hands in her lap and waited for the inspector to speak.

‘We won’t keep you long, Mrs Evans,’ he said. ‘Just a few points to try to clear up this nasty business.’

‘Is it definite that someone killed Tom?’ she asked in a flat voice. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘I’m afraid it looks that way. How long have you known him?’

Betsan looked up sharply at this, a movement that was not lost on the two detectives. ‘Known him? Well, since he came here, about six years back. Out of the army, he was. Good with machines, that’s why Aubrey and Jeff wanted him here.’

‘We’ve heard he was a heavy drinker. Is that right?’

She nodded. ‘He got worse these past two years. He was fine when he first came.’

‘Any idea why?’ asked the sergeant.

She shook her head vigorously. ‘He never said much about himself, and we never got under his skin, as they say. Don’t even know if he had any family, he never mentioned them.’

‘Not married, then? Did he have any lady friends?’

Betsan shrugged, just as her husband had. ‘Not that we knew about. He lived eight miles away in Brecon. Used to come on a motorbike every day, so we didn’t know what he got up to when he wasn’t here.’

‘Never see any strangers hanging about, maybe talking to him?’ hazarded Nichols, running out of things to ask this quiet woman. ‘Didn’t gamble on the horses or perhaps had debts to someone?’

Again she twitched her shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t know, would I? I didn’t see much of him. He didn’t come up here to have his dinner; he used to bring his food with him – often in a bottle!’ she added with a touch of bitterness.