‘Sean,’ she said, ‘what made you think Mr Rawson was dead when you first found him?’
‘What made -? Oh, I get it. Well, I’ve seen a dead man before. There was an old homeless bloke who died there months ago, some down and out. I thought… well, I thought it would be the same this time. Except I got a new phone.’
23
DI Hitchens was waiting for Fry expectantly when she came out of the interview room. She felt faintly grubby, and depressed by what Sean Crabbe had done with his life.
‘So, Diane. Can I tell the Super we’ve got a result?’ said Hitchens with a grin.
Fry wished for all the world that she could say ‘yes’. She very much wanted Superintendent Branagh to hear that DS Fry had brought the Rawson case to a successful conclusion. And she knew that her DI wanted to give her that opportunity.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘But we’ve finally got a suspect in custody,’ protested Hitchens.
‘Yes, sir. The trouble is, I believe he’s telling the truth.’
A file would have to be prepared on Sean Crabbe for the Crown Prosecution Service before a decision was made on any charges he’d face. Fry supposed that theft would be on the list, given the confession. And perhaps perverting the course of justice, which was a CPS favourite.
Meanwhile, Becky Hurst and Luke Irvine had been doing their research, and the extent of the picture they were building up was alarming. Listening to them give their reports, DI Hitchens looked as though he might be starting to feel out of his depth.
‘It’s back to square one, then,’ he said. ‘If Sean Crabbe is telling the truth, the answer must lie in Patrick Rawson’s business activities. Someone he got the wrong side of.’
‘And there must be plenty of those.’
The DI listened carefully to the results of the visits to Hawley’s abattoir and the meat distributors.
‘So we could be talking seriously big money here,’ he said.
‘The value of the horse industry has been estimated at three and a half billion pounds,’ said DC Hurst, reading eagerly from her notebook. ‘Bookmakers alone generate an annual profit of more than a billion from horse racing. Owners of leading stallions can charge hundreds of thousands for a single mating, and a stallion can cover two hundred mares in a season. Big money, all right.’
‘Given all those vested interests, who’s going to be bothered in the least about what happens to the failures?’ said Hitchens. ‘Let the French and Belgians eat them, if they want to. Why not?’
‘It’s not just the French and Belgians any more,’ said Fry, remembering all too clearly the packing line at R amp; G Enterprises.
‘Did you know horses have the intelligence and sensitivity of a seven-year-old child?’ asked Hurst.
But Fry wasn’t impressed by that. Seven-year-old children could be obnoxious, certainly – but they didn’t usually shit on your shoes for no good reason.
‘We were told at the abattoir that they pay as much as eight hundred pounds for a large thoroughbred,’ added Cooper. ‘That’s an attractive proposition for an owner faced with the expense of disposal by some other means. It can cost anything from a hundred and fifty pounds for collection and processing by a renderer, to seven hundred and fifty or more for euthanasia by a vet. And there aren’t many animal sanctuaries for racehorses. It’s way beyond the pockets of most animal charities.’
‘And, much though they claim to love horses, the British public are far more concerned about the welfare of stray cats and dogs.’
‘Oh, yes. Try slaughtering those for meat, and see what sort of outcry you’d get.’
‘Live export of horses for slaughter isn’t actually illegal,’ said Hurst. ‘But there haven’t been any exports for several years. The government put a mandatory minimum value on any horse exported abroad. It’s intended to be an amount more than any horse slaughterer would be willing to pay. In effect, it allows the export of racehorses, but blocks the live trade in food animals.’
‘But horses of higher value must be exported for competitions and breeding.’
‘Yes. And no doubt some of them end up joining the slaughter trail somewhere else in Europe.’
‘What about horse passports?’ asked Hitchens.
‘Just a minute, I asked that,’ said Hurst. ‘Since March 2006, any horses sent to abattoirs in England must have a passport before they can be slaughtered. They contain details of any medications given to the animal, to ensure certain drugs don’t enter the human food chain. There’s a section in the passport where the owner can declare whether a horse is intended for human consumption or not.’
‘So if you don’t want your dobbin turned into horse steaks or salami, you can say so.’
‘In Section Nine of your horse passport, yes. The rules are pretty strict on identification and so on. The valuation certificate has to be issued by someone on the DEFRA list, and is only valid for a month.’
‘Are these rules working?’
‘Yes. Apparently, European Union legislation could overturn the regulations at any time. If the restriction were removed, the main market would be the horse abattoirs in southern Italy. Live animals would be on the road for days before slaughter.’
‘When you think of that, Hawleys and those UK horsemeat distributors start to look like a godsend,’ said Cooper.
‘So,’ said Hitchens. ‘What’s the outcome of all this? Are horses being stolen to be sold for meat? What do we think?’
‘We don’t actually have any evidence of that.’
‘But it must be a suspicion, given all the links in the chain.’
‘You know, Horse Watch have an entire list of stolen equines that have never turned up anywhere,’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, I do know that.’
‘Well, chances are, those animals have gone through someone like Rawson. The dealer will either sell them on to a new owner, or he’ll make a few hundred pounds on the carcass at the horse slaughterer’s. Patrick Rawson is at the centre of this somehow. He has connections with the abattoir, he’s a partner in R amp; G Enterprises. We know he has a history as a dodgy horse dealer. The number of people who might have wanted to kill him is beginning to look endless.’
‘Yes, just about every horse owner or animal lover in the country,’ said Fry. ‘But if Trading Standards couldn’t get enough solid evidence against him to put him in court after a five-year investigation, how would some animal rights group find out enough to target him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have we traced the source of the video footage you were sent, Ben?’ asked Hitchens. ‘That would give us a line on the animal rights people.’
‘Becky has been helping me on that,’ said Cooper. ‘But at the moment, it looks as though it could have been almost anyone. The video is available on the internet, for members of the public to download and distribute.’
Hitchens shook his head. ‘The internet makes things so damn difficult. Well, we must at least have identified all the calls on Rawson’s mobile phone?’
‘Yes,’ said Fry. ‘Apart from Hawleys, and Mr Gains at R amp; G Enterprises, there were three calls to the number of Michael Clay, one to Senior Brothers at Lowbridge. And two calls each way to an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile.’
‘This was on Monday evening?’
‘Right. There were no calls logged on Tuesday morning.’
‘Do you think there could have been a woman involved?’
‘It might have been anyone – a customer, a seller… who knows?’
Hitchens looked thoughtful. ‘I’m still not clear how the operation works. How do horses end up as meat when they’re not supposed to?’
‘It’s not clear to me, either. I suppose we could mount an undercover operation.’
‘How?’
‘We send someone in as a horse owner with an animal to sell.’
‘Who could we use for that?’
‘I’d be willing to give it a go, sir,’ said Fry.