As Constance approached Lee Hill Farm on Sunday morning, she was aware of activity outside the farmhouse – vehicles on the driveway, harsh noises, doors opening and closing, voices raised and receding – but the thick hedge which ran along the roadside impeded her vision. As she turned the corner into the lane, the shapes and colours resolved themselves into an old-fashioned Land Rover, an open-backed truck and a police car drawn up close to its front bumper.
While the police car was empty and she saw the figures of two uniformed officers disappearing along the lane, Constance could hear rustling coming from the far side of the pick-up, suggesting that someone or something was in there. She bypassed the door of the house, continued beyond the police car and around the truck. It took her a moment to process what she saw.
Mark sat cross-legged in the back of the open trailer, his face stained with tears. An olive green tarpaulin had been draped over a great, sprawling, lumpy mound. Mark held something in his lap, his hands supporting it, his fingers spread wide. As she peered in closer and her brain finally made sense of what she saw, she felt her late breakfast rise into her throat; it was the head of a cow.
The door of the farmhouse opened and Rachel emerged. She stood beside Constance, who had turned away and was taking deep breaths, trying not to think about what she had just seen.
‘Mark,’ Rachel called out to her husband. ‘Enough now. Come inside.’
Mark sat where he was. He didn’t move or appear to register her words.
‘What happened?’ Constance whispered to Rachel.
‘Someone let the cows out,’ Rachel said. ‘I was shopping, Mark was working on the other side of the farm. First thing we knew, the police called, said the cows were running around on the road and two of them had been hit. The other dead one was taken off somewhere. I think it was really mashed up. We got three of them back safely. Mark insisted they bring this one back here. It’s Klara, his favourite. Lucky no one was killed, really. Mark might have preferred that to the cows, though.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘Kids, maybe? I mean, cows can’t open the gate themselves, can they? Although Mark’s been a bit edgy recently. I don’t know if he argued with someone and this is the result. He’s not always the easiest person to talk to.’ Rachel’s fingers clawed at her neck. ‘Help me get him down, will you? He can’t sit here all day.’
Rachel clambered up onto the back of the trailer, edged around the carcass and rested her hand on Mark’s shoulder. He finally focused on her.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Come inside. You can’t do anything for her now.’
Constance helped them both climb down and she followed behind as Mark was led into the house, through the hallway and into the kitchen. He slumped down into a chair and didn’t move. Rachel put the kettle on and set out a teapot and some mugs. Then the doorbell rang.
‘That’s probably the police,’ she said. ‘They went to look at the field and the gate. Can you keep an eye on Mark while I’m gone? I don’t want to leave him.’
‘Sure,’ Constance agreed, although she would have preferred not to be alone with him in this obvious state of distress, especially now that she knew a little of his background from Adrian.
She poured Mark some tea, pushed it towards him and sat down herself. He didn’t speak at first. He kept staring back out of the window towards the trailer and the dead cow. Then he took the tea and looked at Constance.
‘I know people think they’re only cows,’ he said, ‘and you’ll say they were going to end up on the plate anyway, but it was such a cruel thing to do. They must have been terrified out there on the road, with the cars and lorries whizzing around them, lights flashing and horns hooting.’
‘Do you have any idea…’
‘I know who it was,’ he said. ‘I know exactly who it was. Rosa. It was that bitch, Rosa.’
‘Are you sure…’
‘She even came here to tell me, well not what, but to expect something. So much for being a vegan.’
‘Whoever it was probably didn’t realise they’d get hurt.’ Constance wanted to say something conciliatory, without giving too much away just yet. But it was rapidly dawning on her that this latest awful event couldn’t be a coincidence.
Mark stared at her then, wide-eyed. ‘I’m no lawyer,’ he said, ‘but I know, if you do something really stupid, because you don’t think about the consequences, that doesn’t get you off. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Yes you’re…’
‘I mean, if that’s wrong, then someone should sue your colleague who defended me when I was a kid, ’cos that’s what he told me, that’s what they all said. That being young, being impulsive, being “reckless” – that’s the word they used – none of that would help. She warned me, Rosa did, that something was coming, but I never expected this.’
‘Will you tell the police you think it was Rosa?’
Mark gave the shallowest shake of his head. Constance was about to ask him why he wouldn’t report Rosa, if he suspected her, and then she thought back to the courtroom and Rosa’s testimony, how she had looked unsettled when she told everyone Mark had driven her home from the meeting. She and Judith had joked about it. And Mark coming to court two days early on the day Rosa was giving evidence, and how Rosa had reacted when she’d seen him at the door. Should she say something? Judith wouldn’t hold back. And Judith had sent her to probe and poke around.
‘Did something happen,’ she said, ‘when you took Rosa home?’
Mark stared at her again and colour flooded his cheeks. Then he looked towards the window, although this time Constance saw him look around the truck, most likely checking to see where Rachel was. Then he stared at his hands. Constance didn’t need him to answer.
‘Look. She came here on Thursday. Rachel made her tea, like this, like she does for everyone. Served her cake even…’
‘I don’t think it was Rosa who did this,’ Constance said.
‘What do you know about any of it?’
Mark had raised his voice and Constance was anxious to calm him. She glanced out of the window. Rachel had now reappeared, talking to two police officers – a woman and a man. The woman pointed along the track towards the field where the cows were usually kept, while the man made notes. She looked again. The first one was Sergeant Thomas, which was surprising, as they were so far from her patch.
‘I…I can’t say,’ she said, ‘but I think it was someone else – the same person, in fact, who torched Rosa’s café, and when she came here, Rosa really was trying to warn you.’
Mark’s face clouded over.
‘Whoever it was, we’re…taking steps to make sure they will be punished,’ but even as Constance said this, she was anxious not to raise expectations too high. How could they possibly prove who let Mark’s cows out, unless… She started to formulate a theory which involved Sergeant Thomas, but didn’t get very far before Mark intervened.
‘It wasn’t just us – me and Rosa,’ he said. ‘Susan, the prof, she told me someone killed all her flies.’
‘Killed her flies?’
‘Turned up the heat, made them all hatch, spoiled her research. She was pretty upset.’
‘Oh.’
‘You won’t tell Rachel that…you think they’re all connected, the things you told me about,’ he said, eventually.
Constance marvelled at how obvious it was that Mark was skimming around the edges of what had clearly happened with Rosa. ‘It’s not my business to interfere,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait till she comes back in and then I’ll go.’
Mark stumbled over to the sink and began to wash his hands, rubbing at each palm with the thumb of the opposite hand. Then, as the water gushed out of the tap, he began to splash it over his face, then on to his neck and arms and all over his t-shirt, until he was soaked through. He switched off the water, pulled his sodden shirt over his head and stood, arms either side of the sink, his chest heaving up and down.
Constance stared too. Instead of pale skin – the indent of the vertebrae, the ripples of a few muscles – Mark’s back was covered in an image of an oak tree, majestic and stately, sprouting from splayed roots, which began their journey just above the line of his low-slung joggers. But it was no ordinary tree; its trunk was replaced by a twisting, double helix, snaking and meandering and thrusting its way upwards either side of his spinal column. A veritable tree of life.
He turned and saw Constance staring at him. He pushed past her, shuffled to his room and returned a moment later wearing a clean t-shirt. He sat down and finished his tea.
‘Why did you come here today, anyway?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t the trial almost over?’
Constance was pleased to return to polite conversation, but she could not forget what she had just seen and it confused her. She’d noticed the inking on Mark’s wrist the first time they’d met but had not viewed it as reflecting any strong sentiment; she’d interpreted it as humorous. Given he was clearly not religious, she’d seen it as Mark’s idea of a joke. And the stylised cow’s face staring out from his forearm, readily apparent on Zoe’s version of the video – another light-hearted picture.
But the tree was different; it was sprawling, urgent, vital. It told her that Mark Sumner was not a clown or a man who skipped through life lightly. That all of this, the cows, the land, the farm, was his lifeblood too, so fundamental to him that he had etched it permanently on his body. He had told her that, when he gripped her hand and made her engage with Klara, back in April. He had explained it again, when he referenced the sacrifice he felt he made, with the slaughter of every cow. He had said it a third time, in court on Thursday, but she hadn’t really been listening. She hadn’t understood. Not till now.
‘I had some questions, about the Ambrosia project,’ she said, berating herself, as she spoke, for so underestimating Mark. His past history of violence, his devotion to his livestock and now his obvious allegiance to this higher calling – all of those things told her he was capable of killing Brett Ingram, if he had a good enough reason. And she knew he and Rachel had a secret, a secret that, in Mark’s own words, might benefit from Brett being out of the picture. ‘Diana told me all about it,’ she continued, her heart leaping into her throat.
‘She did? So why come to me, then?’
Constance heard loud footsteps on the flagstones outside, then the front door opened and slammed shut and, a moment later, Rachel appeared in the kitchen.
A wary look descended on Mark. ‘Have they gone?’ he asked.
‘It’s the strangest thing,’ Rachel said, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘You’ll never guess.’
‘What?’
‘You remember those old CCTV cameras they put in a while back, when we had that spate of fly tipping?’
‘I didn’t think they worked any more.’
‘Me neither, but the woman police officer said they were serviced only yesterday. Now they’ve taken away the film. She’s almost certain they’ll have something. That’s good, I suppose.’ She stared at Constance, waiting for her to speak. ‘I’m pleased you were here to help out,’ she said, when Constance didn’t volunteer anything, ‘but I’m sure you must be very busy and want to get back.’
Constance looked across at Mark. She didn’t know what Rachel knew about Ambrosia. She wanted to ask more questions, but she didn’t want to betray his trust. Then again, she knew something that he really didn’t want Rachel to know about. That might just make him more talkative than he might otherwise have been.
But Mark answered her question for her. ‘Constance here was asking about Ambrosia,’ he said, his voice flat again. ‘I think she’s bluffing, pretending she knows more than she really does. Because if Diana had told her everything, there’d be no need to come and ask us, would there?’
Constance stood up. This was all getting too much. She’d survived all week on little sleep, she’d run herself ragged following endless leads which had gone nowhere, and while the dead cow in the trailer outside had almost floored her, it was Mark’s tattoo and the raw energy she sensed throbbing inside him which made her fearful for her own safety. She did want to know their secret, what they grew in those greenhouses out back, but not enough to put herself at risk. She’d just have to admit to Judith that she had failed. Only Rachel stood between her and the door.
‘Brett was good to us,’ Rachel said, raising a hand to hold her back. ‘Mark inherited the farm, but it was failing – the beef side of the business is not so lucrative…’
‘Rache, we don’t have to tell her anything…’
‘We owe it to Brett to get it all out there. I never wanted secrets anyway.’ Rachel turned to Constance again. ‘Mark was in prison. When he came out and inherited the farm, you can imagine that people weren’t exactly falling over themselves to give him credit. Brett gave us a wonderful opportunity, to be involved in a global project. We’d receive government funding and there was the potential to be at the forefront of something new and exciting.’
Constance hesitated. With his wife at his side and fully clothed, Mark did not seem quite so menacing. And she was finally getting the answers she wanted.
‘What was it?’ she asked, struggling to keep her voice strong.
‘Gene-edited crops,’ Rachel said.
Constance sat down again. ‘Is that like…’
‘It’s not the same as genetically modified,’ Rachel explained. ‘With genetically modified crops, you mix species, you “mess with nature”, and that’s why people don’t like it. Gene editing is completely different, much safer, much more natural. You just snip little bits of DNA out and that changes things. It makes plants more resistant to drought or pests, or they produce three times as much fruit. Imagine: the same dusty plot of land you’ve always farmed can suddenly grow more food, with less water and no pesticides. Replicate that a few times over and you could eradicate world hunger.’
‘It goes further than that, though,’ Mark joined in now. ‘There are enormous health benefits too. They’re working on a strain of wheat with reduced gluten, oil without saturated fats and vegetables with additional vitamins.’
‘Is this all public knowledge?’ Constance asked. She’d never heard of gene-edited food, but she wasn’t always on top of every new development.
‘The tools have been around for a few years and they’re legal in the USA and other countries,’ Rachel explained. ‘But the European Court decided a couple of years back that gene-edited food should be treated the same as GMO, so that meant it wasn’t allowed anywhere in Europe. It was a huge blow to all of us and we almost gave up. But Brett told us to persevere. We’d already had the Brexit vote, so he said to wait. Because if we’re not part of Europe, that case is irrelevant. And now it looks like it’s going to be made legal here, after all.’
‘Is that what you wanted to talk to Brett about so urgently?’ Constance asked.
‘There was a Defra consultation which closed in March and Brett had his ear to the ground,’ Rachel said. ‘I wanted to know which way it was going to go. Mark was meeting Brett anyway, so I asked him to find out how the wind was blowing. Our future depended on it. It still does.’
Constance began to appreciate the significance of what she was being told and she could hardly contain her excitement and relief.
‘Are you saying this was the real Ambrosia project then? Diana said it was about boycotting junk food, although she did also say you were involved.’
‘It was all part of Brett’s plan for a radical shake-up of what people eat, to guide them to make properly informed choices. The junk food was one strand – and an important one. But that was about stopping what other people did. This – the gene-edited food – this was what Heart Foods itself was going to take forward. It would have been the main focus for the future of the company. Brett’s real, positive contribution to feeding the world. If it happens – if it’s approved – it will change everything. Corn with more starch, lettuce which never goes brown. It can be used on animals too; cows producing more milk and with no horns so they can’t injure each other, pigs resistant to diseases which kill hundreds of thousands of piglets every year, super-sized salmon. And it’s all natural. It’s all products which we could achieve by traditional farming – just speeded up.’
‘And you’re growing these crops here?’
‘We are. We have three fields set aside. You saw the greenhouses out the back, the first time you came. We’re not allowed to sell the crop to retailers, but the government buys it from us at a commercial rate and checks it out. If…when we go live some time this year, they want to be able to reassure consumers that it’s all safe.’
‘Do you think any of this had anything to do with Brett’s death?’ Constance asked them both.
Mark looked at Rachel before answering. ‘That’s what your barrister was asking me in court. Did he have enemies? You think someone bumped him off because of this – food wars, like in some Colombian drug cartel?’
‘You both seem to have known Brett well, better than I understood. I thought you might have some ideas.’
‘Food is big money. We all know that.’ Rachel took Mark’s hand as she spoke and squeezed it affectionately. ‘Everyone has to eat. And people will make and lose fortunes if we get the approval we want. But I’d still like to think that in this country we don’t kill people just because we don’t like what they say or believe in. Maybe I’m just an idealistic fool.’