Death of an Innocent by Sally Spencer

ambition to see me end up wearin’ a collar an’ tie to work.’
    The old farmer nodded sagely. ‘Well, maybe your dad was right, at that,’ he conceded. ‘There’s so much of the work done by machines these days that there’s little room left for a bit of honest hard labour.’ He paused for a second. ‘So you’re writin’ a story, you say?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t see what use we can be to you. We’re too far away from Dugdale’s to have heard anythin’ here.’
    â€˜I appreciate that you can’t tell me anythin’ about the murders, but I was wonderin’ if you could give me any background information on Mr Dugdale himself,’ Woodend said.
    The old farmer’s eyes hardened. ‘I haven’t spoken to Wilf Dugdale for over forty years,’ he said.
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜An’ if we both live for
another
forty years I won’t be speakin’ to him in that time either. So if you’re lookin’ for background information, as you call it, then you’d better take yourself off somewhere else.’
    A white-haired woman appeared in the porch behind Turner. ‘We weren’t expectin’ company,’ she said.
    â€˜He’s not company,’ her husband told her. ‘He’s one of them reporters, writing a story on Wilf Dugdale. I told him we didn’t know nowt.’
    The old woman ran her eyes quickly up and down Woodend. ‘So you’re a reporter, are you?’ she asked.
    â€˜That’s right,’ Woodend agreed.
    The old woman nodded, though it was plain to him that she didn’t believe a word of it. ‘You’d better come inside then, hadn’t you?’ she said.
    â€˜We can’t help him, so what’s the point of that?’ her husband asked. ‘He’d just be wastin’ his time as well as ours.’
    â€˜You’re probably right,’ Mrs Turner agreed. ‘But while he’s wastin’ it, he can get a good, strong, hot cup of tea down him – an’ by the look of him I’d say he could use one.’
    The old man shrugged. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted.
    â€˜That’s the trouble with you, Jed Turner,’ his wife said good-naturedly. ‘You never
do
think of things like that.’ She turned back to Woodend. ‘Come inside, lad, an’ get some of that chill thawed out of you.’
    She went back into the house, and the two men followed her. The living room lay immediately beyond the porch. It had a flag floor, broken up occasionally by pieces of carpet which looked as if they were nothing more than mill off-cuts. There was a battered oak table under the window, and a number of mismatched armchairs arranged around a blazing log fire. The air near the doorway was almost as cold as it was on the outside, but nearer the easy chairs the fire threw out a semicircle of heat which was far more welcoming than anything a central heating system could have possibly produced.
    This was how Dugdale’s Farm should have looked, Woodend thought. This was
exactly
how it should have looked.
    â€˜Sit yourself down, then,’ Mrs Turner said.
    Woodend lowered himself into a creaking leather armchair with bits of horsehair sticking out of the arms. Mr Turner simply stood where he was – his backside to the fire – as if he were uncertain what to do next.
    â€˜You might as well take the weight of your feet, an’ all, Jed,’ Mrs Turner said. She smiled at Woodend. ‘I won’t be a minute makin’ the tea. The kettle’s always kept just off the boil in this house.’
    Jed Turner, after some hesitation, sat down on a chair at the extreme edge of the semicircle. He did not offer to resume the conversation they had begun outside, and since Woodend did not wish to push him for any more information until his wife returned, they sat together