The Wood Beyond Page 3

  Myra took the photo from him and said, ‘Poor sod. Can’t have been more than twenty-two or-three. What was he in?’

  ‘West York Fusiliers. That’s how I found out about the Yorkshire connection.’

  ‘She really hated uniforms, didn’t she?’ said Myra dropping the picture back in the drawer. ‘I still remember how sarky she got when I joined the Brownies.’

  ‘Think of how she must have felt with Dad playing soldiers in the TA once a week. Not to mention him turning out a Hang ’em and Flog ’em Tory.’

  ‘Still voting for the revolution are you, Peter? Funny that, you being a cop. Now that was really the last straw for poor old Ada, wasn’t it?’

  She sounded as if the memory didn’t altogether displease her.

  ‘At least it got her and Dad on the same side for once,’ said Pascoe, determined not to be lured back into a squabble. ‘He told me he hadn’t subsidized me through a university education to pound a beat. He wanted me to be a bank manager or something in the City. Gran saw me as a reforming MP. She was even more incredulous than Dad. She came to my graduation thinking she could change my mind. Dad had given up on me by then. He wouldn’t even let Mum come.’

  Despite his effort at lightness he could feel bitterness creeping in.

  ‘Well, you got your own back, getting yourself posted up north and finding fifty-seven varieties of excuse why you could never make it home at Christmas,’ said Myra. ‘Still, it’s all water under the bridge. Gran’s gone, and I bet Dad bores the corks off their hats down under boasting about my son the chief inspector.’

  ‘You reckon? Maybe I’ll resign. Hey, remember how you used to beat me at tennis when I was a weedy kid and you had forearms like Rod Laver? Got any of those muscles left?’

  Between them they manoeuvred the secretaire out of the cottage and up onto his roof rack. He strapped it down, with a waterproof sheet on top of it.

  ‘Right,’ said Myra. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now you push off. I’ll finish the inventory and start sorting her papers. You’ve got to be back here tomorrow morning to meet the house clearance man, remember?’

  Pascoe had been delighted when Myra volunteered for this task, being justly derided by his wife as probably the only man in Yorkshire who could haggle a price upwards.

  Myra, a terrier in a bargain, bared her teeth in an anticipatory smile.

  ‘Don’t expect a fortune,’ she said. ‘But I’ll see we’re not cheated. You’re not expecting me to sell that, are you?’

  That was a plastic urn in taupe. Were Warwickshire’s funerary suppliers capable of a bilingual pun? wondered Pascoe.

  ‘No, that goes with me.’

  ‘You’re going to do what she asked with the ashes then?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Funny, with her hating the army so much.’

  ‘It’s a symbolic gesture, I assume. I won’t try to work out what it means as I’d prefer to be thinking holy thoughts as I scatter them.’

  ‘It’s still weird. Then, so was Gran a lot of the time. I shouldn’t care to spend the night in this old place with her ashes on the mantelpiece. You sure you won’t change your mind and come over to us? Trevor would be delighted to see you.’

  Pascoe, who had only once set foot in Myra’s executive villa and found it as aesthetically and atmospherically appealing as a multi-gym, said, ‘No, thanks. I’ve got a lot to do and I’d like to be off at the crack.’

  They stood regarding each other rather awkwardly. Myra looked untypically vulnerable. Me too maybe, thought Pascoe. On impulse he stepped forward, took her in his arms and kissed her. He could feel her surprise. They’d never been a hugging and kissing family. Then she pressed him close and said, “Bye, Peter. Safe journey. Give my love to Ellie. Sorry she couldn’t make it. But I know about kids’ colds when they’re that age.’

  And I know about urgent business appointments with important clients, thought Pascoe. At least Rosie really had been snuffling in bed when he left.

  And perhaps Trevor really did have an urgent deal to close, he reproved himself.

  He gave Myra another hug and let her go.

  ‘Let’s not make it so long next time,’ he said.

  ‘And let’s try not to make it a funeral,’ she replied.

  But neither of them tried to put any flesh on these bones of a promise.

  He stood in the porch and watched her drive away. He felt glad and sad, full of relief that they’d parted on good terms and full of guilt that they hadn’t been better.

  He went inside and addressed the urn.

  ‘Ada,’ he said, ‘we really are a fucked-up family, us Pascoes. I wonder whose fault that is?’

  He worked hard on the inventory till mid-evening then made a neat copy of it to leave for Myra. He’d need another copy to send to Susan in Australia.

  One thing he felt certain of. His eldest sister might not be able to fly halfway round the world for her grandmother’s funeral, but she would expect any money making the journey in the opposite direction to be accounted for down to the last halfpenny. The will, of which Pascoe was executor, left various legacies to Ada’s favourite causes and the residue to be divided equally between her three grandchildren. Whether this even-handedness had postdated his fall from grace, Pascoe wasn’t sure, but he was glad that in this at least the old accusation of favouritism was clearly given the lie. Not that there was much – Ada had lived up to her income and the cottage was rented. But Pascoe had seen blood shed over far smaller amounts than were likely to be realized from Ada’s estate and he’d already arranged to have all the paperwork double-checked by Ada’s solicitor, a no-nonsense woman called Barbara Lomax, whose probity was beyond aspersion.

  He boxed up some books that interested him or might interest Ellie and scrupulously made a note on the inventory. Next he started sorting out Ada’s papers, starting with a rough division into personal/business. He was touched to find every letter he had ever written to her carefully preserved, an emotion slightly diluted when he realized that this urge to conservation also included fifty-year-old grocery receipts.

  His stomach rumbled like distant gunfire. It seemed a long time since the salmon sandwiches. Also he felt like stretching his legs.

  Taking a torch from the car he strolled the half-mile to the village pub where he enjoyed a pint and a pie and a reminiscent conversation about Ada with the landlord. As he walked back he found he was knee-deep in mist drifting from the fields, but the night sky was so bright it felt like his head was brushing the stars. The pub telly had spoken of severe weather with gales and sleet in the north. Dalziel was right, he thought with a smile. The soft south really did begin after Sheffield.

  He resumed his work on the papers but found that his starry stroll had unsettled him. Also after a while he realized he was more aware than a rational man ought to be of the screw-top urn squatting on the mantel shelf. In the end, slightly ashamed, he took it out to the car and locked it in the boot. As for the papers, home where he had a computer, a calculator and a copier, plus a wife who knew how to work them, was the place to get Ada’s affairs sorted. It was time for bed.

  Getting his clothes off was an effort. His limbs felt dull and heavy and the air in the tiny bedroom, though hardly less sharp than the frosty night outside, seemed viscous and clinging. The cold sheets on the narrow bed received him like a shroud.

  Sleep was a long time coming …

  … a long time coming – maybe because I wouldnt take any rum – no shortage here – how the lads ud lap it up!

  And when it did come darkdream came too terrible as ever – only this time there was more – this time when the muzzles flashed and the hot metal burnt I didnt scream and try to wake but went right through it and came out on the other side and kept on going – heart pounding – muscles aching – lungs bursting – like a man running from summat so vile he wont stop till he falls or knows he has left it far behind.

  In the end I had to stop – knowing somehow it were
nt just miles Id run over but years – seventy or eighty of them maybe – near clean on out of this terrible century – and Id run home.

  Where else would a frightened man run to?

  O it were so good Alice! Fields so fresh and green – woods all bursting with leaf – river running pure and clean with fat trout shadowing all the pools. Away yonder I could see mucky old Leeds – only now there werent no smoke hanging over it – and all that grimy granite were washed to a pearly grey – and shooting up above the old quiet chimneys were towers and turrets of gleaming white marble like a picture in a fairy tale.

  As for Kirkton it were just the same as I long to be back in only so much better – with all them tumbledown cottages alongside Grindals turned into gardens – and the mill itself had big airy windows and I could see lasses and lads laughing and talking inside – and that old bog meadow out towards Haggs Farm that used to stink so much was all drained and the river banks built up so thered be no more flooding – and High Street seemed wider too with all them slimy cobbles that broke old Tom Steddings head when his horse slipped covered over with level tarmac – and the Maisterhouse away through the trees with its red brick glowing and its pointing gleaming like it were just built yesterday.

  Even St Marks looked a lot more welcoming cos the parson had ripped out them gloomy windows that used to terrify us kids with their blood and flames – and in their stead hed put clear new glass which let sun come streaming through like spring water. Even the old tombstones had been cleaned up and I took this fancy to see my own – only I thought on that Id not be buried here with tothers of my name but far away across the sea where none would ever find me – and soon as I thought that I felt myself being hauled back to this awful place.

  But I werent going easy and I fought against it and hung on still and peered over the wall into the schoolyard to see the kiddies playing there all so happy and strong and free – and I wondered whether any on them was descended from me – and I thought I saw a familiar face – then came the sound of a distant crump like they was blasting out at Abels Quarry – only I knew they werent – and a voice a long way off saying some poor sods catching it – and I didn’t want to blink though the sun was shining straight into my eyes – but I had to blink – and though it was only a second or even less when I opened my eyes again sun were gone and kiddies were gone and all I could see were the night sky through the window red and terrible as that old stained glass – and all I could hear were the rumble of the guns – and all I could feel was the straw from my palliasse pricking into my back …

  Pascoe awoke. Had he been dreaming? He thought he had but his dream had gone. Or had it? Did dreams ever go? Our present was someone else’s future. We live in other men’s dreams …

  He closed his eyes and drifted back to that other place.

  … but Ill try to keep them dream children bright in my mind my love – you too – and tell little Ada about them – I still cant credit a bible heaven spite of old padre preaching at me every other day – so unless this lots going to teach us summat about the way we live here on earth wheres the point of it all eh?

  Wheres the bloody point?

  vi

  Wanwood House had had pieces added to it in the modern Portaloo style, but basically it was a square solid Victorian building, its proportions not palatial but just far enough outside the human scale to put a peasant in his place. Thus did the nineteenth-century Yorkshireman underline the natural order of things.

  His twentieth-century successors were more self-effacing it seemed.

  ‘Don’t advertise much,’ observed Dalziel looking at a discreet plaque which read ALBA PHARMACEUTICALS Research Division. ‘And there’s nowt on the gate.’

  ‘Might as well have put a neon sign on the roof for all the good it’s done them,’ said Longbottom ringing the bell.

  The door was opened by a man in a dark green uniform with the name ‘PATTEN’ and a logo consisting of an orange sunburst and the letters ‘TecSec’ at his breast. He was leanly muscular with close-cropped hair and a long scar down the right cheek which, helped by a slightly askew nose, suggested that at some time the whole face had been removed and rather badly stitched back on. Dalziel viewed him with the distaste of a professional soldier for private armies. But at least the man sized them up at a glance and didn’t do anything silly like asking for identification.

  He ushered them through the nineteenth into the twentieth century in the form of a modern reception area with a stainless-steel desk, pink fitted carpet and hessian-hung walls from which depended what might have been a selection of Prince Charles’s watercolours left standing in the rain.

  One of three doors almost invisible in their hessian camouflage opened and a slim fair-haired man in his thirties and a dinner jacket, who reminded Dalziel of someone but he couldn’t quite say who, came towards them saying, ‘My dear chap, you’re soaked. No need, I’m sure. The fuzz must have plenty of pensioned-off sawbones all too keen to earn a bob doing basics.’

  Assuming none of this solicitude was aimed at him, Dalziel said, ‘Aye, and we sometimes make do with a barber and a leech. You’ll be Batty, I daresay.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the man regarding Dalziel with the air of one nostalgic for the days of tradesmen’s entrances. ‘And you …?’

  ‘Superintendent Andrew Dalziel,’ offered Longbottom.

  ‘Ah, the great white chief. Took your time getting here, superintendent.’

  ‘Got the call on my way back from a meeting in Nottingham,’ said Dalziel. He saw Longbottom smile his awareness that the meeting in question had taken place under floodlights on a rugby pitch.

  ‘Well, at least now you’re here, perhaps you can tell the bunch of incompetents who’ve preceded you to get their fingers out and start imposing some sort of order on this mess.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said the Fat Man mildly. ‘Talking of messes, sir, that’s a right one you’ve got out there. Looks like a health hazard to me.’

  ‘On the contrary, it’s a cordon sanitaire,’ said Batty. ‘After the damage those lunatics did last summer, it was quite clearly beyond the police force’s competency to protect us, so we took steps of our own to thwart these criminals.’

  ‘Criminals,’ echoed Dalziel as if the word were new to him. ‘You’ll be prosecuting then, sir?’

  Batty said, ‘If it’s left up to me, we will! Normally we don’t care to give these lunatics the oxygen of publicity, but I suspect in this case, some exposure is already unavoidable?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Dalziel. ‘Having a body dug up in your back yard usually gives off a lot worse stink than oxygen.’

  ‘As I feared, though I suppose the exact nature of the publicity depends on how diplomatically things are handled. Troll, what can you tell us?’

  Dalziel gave the pathologist a look which dared him to speculate an inch further than he’d done on the edge of the crater.

  ‘Early days, David, early days,’ murmured Longbottom.

  ‘And getting close to early hours,’ said Dalziel looking at his watch. ‘Mebbe I could see the witnesses now …?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. Patten will take you along. Troll, let’s try to get your outside dry and your inside suitably wetted.’

  With an apologetic mop and mow at Dalziel, the pathologist let himself be led away. Dalziel who kept his slates as carefully as any shopkeeper, chalked up another small debt against Batty’s name and followed the security man through one of the hessian doors and down a long corridor.

  ‘We’ve got them locked up down here,’ he said.

  ‘Locked up?’

  ‘They are trespassers, and once they got into the building, they ran amok. One of my men got hit in the stomach, I was threatened …’

  ‘Oh aye?’ said Dalziel, interested. Mebbe this could have some connection with Redcar after all. ‘Anyone get really hurt?’

  ‘More dignity than owt else,’ said Patten enigmatically. ‘That’s where they are.’

  They’d tu
rned left at a T-junction in the corridor. Ahead, Dalziel had already observed another TecSec man slouching against a door, his head wreathed in smoke. As soon as he became aware of their approach, he straightened his uniform and snapped to attention. There was no sign of a cigarette. Dalziel admired the legerdemain and bet on the big front pocket of the dark green trousers.

  ‘At ease, Jimmy,’ said Patten. ‘This is Superintendent Dalziel.’

  ‘I know,’ said the man. ‘How do you do, sir.’

  Dalziel was used to being recognized but liked to know why.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly, sir. But I know you. I was at Dartleby nick till I took the pension. Uniformed. PC Howard, sir.’

  ‘Jumped ship, did you? All right, lad. You can piss off now.’

  The man looked unhappily at Patten who said, ‘We do have our orders …’

  ‘That’s what Eichmann said, and they hanged him. So bugger off. And by the way, Howard …’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Your cock’s on fire.’

  Leaving the ex-policeman beating at his pocket, Dalziel stepped into the room and halted dead in his tracks.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said.

  Gently steaming against a big radiator were eight women, each mucky enough to have set Dalziel’s granny spinning in her grave.

  That Wield, he swore to himself. He kept quiet on purpose. I’ll punch the bugger handsome!

  One woman detached herself from the huddle and came towards him, saying, ‘Thank God, here’s t’organ grinder. Now mebbe we can get shut of the monkeys.’

  She glared towards Patten as she spoke. He returned the glare indifferently. Dalziel on the other hand studied the woman with the intense interest of a gourmet served a new dish. Not that there was much to whet the appetite. She had less meat on her than a picked-over chicken wing and her cheeks were pale and hollow as wind-carved limestone.