“Don’t you think it looks a bit suspicious? Just after I visit you and let you know I’ve talked to Malcolm Hackett, an old business associate of yours, and that we’ve found Michael Lane, a witness to the murder of Morgan Spencer, you and your wife make a run for it.”

“We weren’t ‘making a run for it.’ ”

“It looks like that to me,” said Banks. “Wouldn’t you agree, Gerry?”

“Certainly would, sir. I mean, it’s not everyone takes a fragile vase off the mantelpiece on holiday with them, or a pair of antique silver sugar tongs.”

“That vase happens to be a valuable antique, too. And given what occurred last time we were away, I’d say we were more than justified in taking a few valuables with us.”

“Really, Chief Inspector,” said Cassandra Wakefield, fingering her pearls, “it does seem a remarkably thin context for detaining my client and interfering with his basic freedom of movement.”

“Morgan Spencer stole your tractor, didn’t he?” Banks said to Beddoes.

“Did he? I can’t say it surprises me.”

“You know Morgan Spencer, then? Earlier you said you had no idea who he was.”

“I didn’t know him well. Not personally. Only that he was a mate of the Lane boy. I’ve seen him around. Thick as thieves. Look, you know all this. Why am I here?”

“You’re here because we believe you’re one of the men running a lucrative international criminal activity dealing in stolen farm equipment and livestock. Your partner Malcolm Hackett, aka Montague Havers, who is currently being questioned by my colleagues in London, took care of the export side, and you supplied the raw materials from the North Yorkshire region. That is, tractors, combines, Range Rovers, lambs, whatever. You employed a number of ­people at various levels, including Ronald Tanner, Carl Utley, Kenneth Atherton, aka Kieran Welles, Caleb Ross and Morgan Spencer. Your wife, Patricia, may be involved. Police have also picked up Mr. Havers’s chief operators in Lincolnshire and Cumbria. More arrests are expected to follow. Plenty of ­people are talking.”

“Really?” said Beddoes. “Where’s your proof of all this?”

That was a thorny issue for Banks. He didn’t really have any proof. A deeper dig into Beddoes’s finances would probably turn up anomalies, but that would take time. Michael Lane’s word alone wasn’t good enough, but it was a place to start.

“We also believe,” Banks went on, “that Morgan Spencer was murdered partly because he stole your tractor, and partly because his colleagues, especially Atherton, had got fed up with him. He talked big, wanted a bigger role, more money, and he thought he was demonstrating his ability to get creative and play with the big boys by stealing an expensive tractor. Unfortunately, it turned out to be yours.”

“So someone steals my tractor and I’m the criminal?”

“Kenneth Atherton killed Morgan Spencer with a bolt pistol he stole from Stirwall’s Abattoir around the time he was fired nearly two years ago. He has also committed an earlier murder with the same weapon. We have matching prints from the weapon.”

“This is fascinating,” said Beddoes, “and nothing you can tell me about Spencer surprises me, but it has nothing to do with me, apart from the fact that the little creep stole my tractor.”

“Why did you do it, John?” Banks asked. “Why did you get into the business in the first place? Surely you had everything going for you. The life you always dreamed of. Enough money not to have to struggle like real farmers. Was it just the money? You weren’t that badly off, surely? Did Havers make you an offer you couldn’t refuse? Did he have something on you from the old days? Insider trading?”

Beddoes laughed.

Cassandra Wakefield shot Banks a puzzled glance. “Are you going to charge my client with insider trading in the eighties? I fear that may be even more difficult a case to bring than the one you’re struggling for at the moment. Go ahead, though. I’m sure the trial would be a lot of fun.”

“Someone heard Atherton say to Spencer, ‘You went too far. You stole the boss’s fucking tractor’ just before he killed him. What do you make of that?”

“Nothing,” said Beddoes. “I was probably somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean at the time.”

“But why would he say it? It’s an odd thing to say just before you kill someone, isn’t it? ‘You stole the boss’s fucking tractor.’ Now, neither Morgan Spencer nor Michael Lane, who overheard this, and whose return had you packing your bags and running for the British Virgin Islands, knew who this boss was until they heard that, of course. After all, it was your tractor Atherton was referring to, and Lane had an inkling that Spencer might try to nick it to prove himself to his masters. The problem was, Spencer didn’t know you were his master. You were too high and mighty to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. Your orders went through Tanner.”

“Lane’s a lying little bastard, always has been,” said Beddoes. “He had every bit as much to do with . . .”

“To do with what, John? Your business enterprise? As much as Morgan Spencer?”

“Spencer was a pushy little half-­caste. He—­”

Cassandra Wakefield tapped her client on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.

“They’re trying to pin a murder on me,” Beddoes protested, turning red. “I’m no killer. All right, I’m no saint, either, but if Atherton killed Spencer, it was because he was getting too big for his boots. And Atherton is a fucking psycho. It was a private vendetta, nothing to do with me.”

“The boss’s tractor, John?”

“He must have misheard. Lane. He’s had it in for me ever since I moved to the farm. His father wanted the land, but I outbid him.”

“I can see that might give Frank Lane a motive for killing you, but he hasn’t. Why would Michael care? He was just a kid then.”

“I don’t know. Some kids are born evil. You can tell. All I ever did was give him a clip around the earhole.”

“If Spencer didn’t know you were the boss, then Lane probably didn’t, either. The problem was that he knew who the tractor belonged to. Spencer had told him he was going to steal it while you were away in Mexico. Lane just put two and two together. What it added up to scared him, and he made off.”

“This is nothing but speculation,” said Cassandra Wakefield.

“We’ve got a witness statement from Michael Lane.”

“Not enough.”

“They never accepted me,” said Beddoes.

Cassandra Wakefield narrowed her eyes. Banks and Gerry looked at him quizzically.

“What?” Beddoes said. “Why are you looking at me like that? You’re just the same. You’re just like the other bloody farmers. They laughed at me behind my back, called me a ‘weekend’ farmer, made fun of me. I was better than the lot of them put together. I was a Master of the Universe.”

“It was a long time ago, John,” said Banks.

“I’m saying they didn’t respect me. My own neighbors. And I’d grown up on a farm. It was in my blood.”

“Is that why you did it? Went into business with Havers.”

“I knew I’d show them somehow.”

“By stealing their livestock and equipment?”

“It’s all they bloody care about.”

Cassandra Wakefield dropped her pencil on the table. “Enough,” she said. “I think we should end this interview right now.”

“Getting a bit too close to the bone for you, is it?” Banks said.

“My client needs a break. He’s been under a lot of stress lately. PACE regulations call for—­”

Banks raised his hand. “Fine. Fine,” he said. “Interview suspended at 9:27 p.m. To be continued.” He called to the uniformed constable at the door. “Take him back to his cell, Nobby.”

“Yes, sir.”

The constable took Beddoes by the arm. He stood up and went without resisting.

Cassandra Wakefield looked at her watch. “You’ve got another nineteen hours or so to come up with some real evidence, otherwise my client walks.”

“I don’t think so,” said Banks. “He’s already admitted to theft of farm equipment.”