The wood beyond dap-15 Read online

  It had been empty by the time he left, but he'd noticed an unopened one in the cabinet Batty had taken his glass from. The memory rose before him now like a vision of the Holy Grail. He coughed he hoped thirstily and said, 'Now you've had a chance to clear up, did that lot last night do much damage when they ran loose inside?'

  'Not a lot and mainly superficial,' said Batty. 'But it's good of you to be concerned.'

  All this gratitude undiluted by a dram was beginning to grate a bit. Wield had entered the lab. He caught Dalziel's eye and gave a minute shake of his head to indicate he wanted a word but it wasn't desperate.

  Dalziel said, 'What I'm really concerned about is making sure these aren't the same lot who were running riot in the summer.'

  'Oh that's all behind us now,' said Batty dismissively.

  'We learnt our lesson. Let's stick with the present, shall we?'

  'Might he behind you,' said Dalziel magisterially. 'Not behind the family of that poor sod who got himself killed up at Redcar. Fraser Greenleaf. Same line of business as you only a lot bigger. I'd have thought you'd have heard of them.'

  For a second Batty allowed himself to look irritated, then his face assumed a solemn air and he said, 'Of course. I wasn't thinking. But do you really believe there might be a connection with these people?'

  'Can't ignore the possibility, sir.'

  'Of course not. Good lord. Women. What's the world coming to?'

  'We're a long way from proving a connection,' said Dalziel. 'What about you? Made up your mind about prosecuting yet?'

  Batty smiled and shrugged.

  'Like I said, not up to me. Head office decision. I know what I'd do, but I'm just a poor scientist.'

  Who also, if Wield was right, happened to be a member of ALBA's ruling family. Which probably meant they weren't going to prosecute, but Batty wanted to distance himself from a decision he'd opposed.

  Sharp bugger this, thought Dalziel. But not sharp enough to see there was a man dying of thirst in front of him!

  Wield meanwhile was taking a tour round the lab, looking at the caged animals with a distaste not even his rugose features could disguise.

  He watched as a radiantly beautiful young woman in a radiantly white lab coat picked up a tiny monkey which threw its arms round her neck in a baby-like need for reassurance. Expertly she disengaged it, turned it over and plunged a hypodermic into the base of its spine.

  'Ouch,' said Wield. 'Doesn't that hurt?'

  'Done properly, the animal hardly feels it,' she reassured him.

  He glanced at her security badge which told him he was speaking to Jane Ambler. Research Assistant.

  'No, Jane,' he said amiably. 'It was you I meant.'

  She regarded him dispassionately and said, 'Oh dear. Perhaps before you come on so judgmental, you should talk to someone with rheumatoid arthritis.'

  'OK,' said Wield.

  He stooped to the cage, pushed his finger through the mesh and made soothing guttural noises to the tiny beast. Then he straightened up.

  'He's against it,' he said.

  He found he was talking to Dalziel.

  'When you're done feeding the animals, sergeant, mebbe we can have a word.'

  The Fat Man led the way through the reception area where the receptionist was still sulking. He gave her a big smile and nodded at Howard who'd snapped to attention.

  Outside Wield said, 'That TecSec man, don't I know him?'

  Dalziel, used to being upstaged by his sergeant's encyclopaedic knowledge of the dustiest corners of Mid- Yorkshire, was not displeased to be able to reply negligently, 'Oh aye. But not the way you're thinking. He were one of ours, uniformed out at Dartleby till he took early retirement and got himself privatized. Thinking of following suit, lad?'

  'Not more than once a day, sir. Howard. Oh yes. Jimmy Howard. Didn't so much take retirement as had it force-fed, if I remember right.'

  Dalziel, who took too much pride in Wield's internet mind to be a bad loser, said, 'You usually do. So fill me in.'

  'There was talk he was on the take, but before it got anywhere, he were picked up driving over the limit. Got himself a soft quack who gave him a note saying job stress, and no one stood in his way when he went for medical retirement with pension afore the case came up and he got kicked out without.'

  'And the other? Being on the take?'

  'Well, nowt was proved. But he's a hard-betting man and those who saw him at the races reckoned he couldn't be losing that much on a constable's take-home. Makes you wonder, don't it?'

  'Wonder what, Wieldy?'

  'Did TecSec not know about him? Or did they know and take him on despite? Or did they know and take him on because?'

  Dalziel shook his head admiringly.

  'That's a really nasty mind you've got there, Wieldy. Any reason other than natural prejudice?'

  'It was you who said private security companies are guilty till proven innocent, sir,' said Wield reproachfully. 'I've not seen much of this lot, but there's something about them doesn't sit right.'

  Dalziel regarded him thoughtfully. A Wield uneasiness was not something to be dismissed lightly.

  'All right,' he said. 'Take a closer look. Let on it's these animal libbers we're interested in, how they acted when they got into the building last night. Which we are.'

  'Right, sir. But it doesn't sound to me like ALBA will be prosecuting.'

  'Big ears you've got. Listen, lad. No one tells me when to stop looking. And I'll keep this ANIMA bunch in view till I'm completely satisfied there's no link with Redcar.'

  'You don't really think there could be a connection, sir?' said Wield dubiously. 'I mean from what's known about this lot, they're at the soft end of the movement.'

  'First rule of this job is, take nowt on trust,' said the Fat Man sternly. 'Keep your eye on the ball and you'll not buy any dummies.'

  This struck Wield as a bit rich when he recalled from Dalziel's complaint last night at not having been warned of the gender of the protesters that the main thing he seemed to have kept his eye on, and which he mentioned at least three times in the sergeant's mitigation, was Amanda Marvell's knockers.

  He said, 'I'll make a note of that,' not bothering to muffle the sarcasm.

  Dalziel snorted in exasperation and said, 'All right, so what's going off? Toad-licking season started early in Brigadoon, has it?'

  This was Dalziel's name for Enscombe.

  'Sorry, sir?'

  'Jokes last night, and back there you were coming over like the press agent for disadvantaged chimps. So what's it all mean?'

  'I don't much like what they're doing there,' admitted Wield. 'Sorry. I know I should keep my neb out.'

  'Bloody right you should. Public needs protecting from a neb like yours. Any road, what was it you came in to tell me? You realize I've come out of there as thirsty as I went in, so it had better be important.'

  'Not really, sir. Control came through on the radio. Said that woman in charge of the ANIMA lot, what's her name? Marbles…? Movables…?'

  Wield forgetting a name was as likely as the Godfather forgetting a grudge, but Dalziel found himself saying, 'Marvell,' before he could stop himself.

  'That's right. Seems she called in at the station, wanted to see you to make a statement. Could be you're right, sir, and she's come to confess.'

  'Oh aye? Well, she had her chance to confess last night,' said Dalziel. 'Let her wait. She can sit around till she gets piles.'

  'Oh she's not sitting around, sir. When she found you weren't there, she took off. Said for you to call at her flat, it 'ud be more comfortable there anyway. Says not to worry about turning up at lunch time as she can easily rustle up a snack. You want the address, sir?'

  All this was said absolutely deadpan, and pans didn't come any deader than Wield's. But Dalziel was not fooled.

  'No, I don't want the bloody address,' he snarled. 'And just because you look like the man in the iron mask, don't imagine I can't see you're smirking!'

&nbs
p; He strode away. And Wield, his smirk now externalized, watched him go, thinking, and just because you look like a rhino in retreat, don't imagine I can't see you're horny! ix

  In a long narrow office as chaotic as the museum was neat, Pascoe drank strong tea with Major Hilary Studholme.

  The major had listened to Pascoe's story with an attention as undiverted as his pistol. With a mental moue of apology in the direction of Ada, Pascoe had felt it better in the circumstances not to explicate her probable motives, and though stopping well short of any direct assertion of regimental pride, it was as nothing to the distance he stayed from even a hint of paranoiac loathing.

  The production of his police ID finally convinced the major he was neither a dangerous lunatic nor a bomb-planting terrorist.

  As Pascoe sipped his tea, the major riffled through a couple of leather-bound volumes with a dexterity remarkable in a man with only a left hand.

  'Odd,' he said. 'Pascoe rings a definite bell, but there's no record of an NCO of that name buying it at Ypres in 1917. Could have lost his stripe, of course. There's a Private Stephen Pascoe got wounded… could that be a connection, do you think?'

  'I doubt it,' said Pascoe. 'Point is, it won't be Pascoe, will it?'

  The single eye regarded him blankly, then the upper lip spasmed in a silly-ass grimace which laid the hairs of his moustache horizontal and he said, 'Sorry. Mind seeping out through my eye socket. Of course Pascoe would be your grandmother's married name. So, what was her maiden name?'

  Pascoe thought then said, 'Clark, I think.'

  Studholme grimaced. 'Got a hatful of Clarks in here,' he said, patting the leather-bound books. 'With an "e" or without? Got an initial?'

  'Sorry,' said Pascoe. 'All I know about him is there's a photo with him showing off a lance corporal's stripe with the date 1914, then a scrawl, presumably my great-grandmother's, saying Killed Wipers 1917. That puzzles me a bit. I thought the big battle at Ypres was earlier in the war.'

  'Oh yes? If that's the limit of an educated man's knowledge, Mr Pascoe, just imagine the ignorance of most of your fellow cits!'

  Pascoe found himself ready to bridle. Studholme with his bristly moustache, clipped accent and sturdy tweeds, looked a prototypical member of the British officer class which liberal tradition characterized as snobbish, philistine, and intellectually challenged, not at all the kind of person a young(ish) Guardian- reading graduate, who could get Radio 3 and sometimes did, ought to let himself be lectured by.

  On the other hand as a public servant in a police force threatened with radical restructuring, it would be impolitic as well as impolite to get up the nose of a war hero.

  'I know what most educated people know about the Great War, major,' he said carefully. 'That even by strict military standards, it was an exercise in futility unprecedented and unsurpassed.'

  Shit, that had come out a bit stronger than intended.

  'Bravo,' said Studholme surprisingly. 'That's a start. Let me fill in a bit of detail. The first battle of Ypres took place in October and November 1914. British losses about fifty thousand, including the greater part of the prewar regular army. First Ypres marked the end of anything that could be called open warfare. During the winter both sides concentrated on fortifying their defences and after that it was trench warfare from the North Sea to the Swiss border till 1918.'

  'So why was Ypres so important?'

  'It was the centre of a salient, a considerable bulge in the line. A breakthrough there would have enabled the Allies to roll up the Boche in both directions. Disadvantage of course was that a salient means the enemy can lob shells at you from three sides. Service in the Salient was not something our lads looked forward to even before Passchendaele. My father managed to be in both Ypres Two and Ypres Three. He used to say there was always a special feel about the Salient even at relatively quiet times. Its landscape was more depressing, the stink of its mud more nauseating, its skies more lowering. You felt as you left Ypres by the Menin Gate that it should have borne a sign reading "All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here".'

  'Sounds like the entrance to CID on a Monday morning,' said Pascoe with a forced lightness.

  'No, I don't think so,' said Studholme regarding him gravely. 'My father said that service there changed human nature. You reverted to a kind of subhumanity, the missing link between the apes and Homo sapiens. He called it Homo Saliens, Salient Man. I don't think he was joking.'

  Pascoe drank his tea. He felt the need for warmth. It was very quiet in here. The supermarket car park seemed a thousand miles away.

  He said, 'So what happened at Ypres Two?'

  'Spring of '15. Jerry made a determined effort to get things straight. Used chlorine gas for the first time. Gained a bit of ground but the Salient remained. Our casualties about sixty thousand including one general, Horace Smith-Dorrien.'

  'That must have really got them worried back home,' said Pascoe, drifting despite himself towards a sneer. 'I mean, what's a few thousand men here or there, but a dead general…'

  'Not dead,' said Studholme. 'Stellenbosched. That is, sacked. Terrible offence. Competence.'

  'Sorry?' said Pascoe, thinking he'd misheard.

  'He was actually in the thick of things and made judgments based on realities. Also he was foolish enough to suggest to French, the C-in-C, that they were losing too many men in pointless frontal attacks. There aren't many other recorded expressions of doubt by top brass, I tell you.'

  'No wonder, if you got sacked for it.'

  'Indeed. Now, jump forward two years to 1917. Third Ypres, your great-grandfather's battle. You probably know it as Passchendaele.'

  'Good God, yes. The mud.'

  'That's right. Everyone remembers the mud. One of man's worst nightmares, a slow drowning in glutinous filth. Practically a metaphor for the whole conduct of the war.'

  Pascoe was now regarding Studholme with wide-eyed interest.

  'You don't sound like a member of Douglas Haig's fan club, major.'

  Studholme gave a snort like a rifle shot.

  He said, 'When they finally got rid of Sir John French at the end of '15, it was as if his main fault was not killing off his own men quickly enough. So what they looked for was a general who'd get the job done quicker. French had slain his ten thousands, but Haig was soon slaying his hundred thousands, nearly half a million on the Somme and now another quarter million at Passchendaele. Of course Third Wipers went down as a victory. They gained six or seven miles of mud. Imagine a column of men, twenty-five abreast, stretching out over those six or seven miles, and you're looking at the British dead. Bit different from Agincourt, eh?'

  'Tell me, major,' said Pascoe curiously. 'Feeling like this, how come you took the job of looking after a military museum? In fact, how come you got started on a military career at all?'

  For a moment he thought he'd gone too far. The major was regarding him once more with the flintlock gleam in his eye. Then he sipped his tea, brushed his moustache, smiled faintly and said, 'How come a bright young fellow like you went into the police? Was it the bribes or the chance to beat up suspects that attracted you?'

  'Touche,' said Pascoe. 'And apologies for my youthful impudence.'

  'Accepted. Now I'll answer you. I joined the army 'cos way back about the time of Waterloo, someone decided that the only way to make anything out of my line of Studholmes was to get 'em into uniform and send 'em out for foreigners to shoot at. No one's come up with a viable alternative since, so on we go, generation after generation, providing moving targets. Rarely get beyond my rank, though my father made colonel. Shot from being a subaltern in '15 to major, acting lieutenant colonel in '18. That was one plus for that show – lots of scope for accelerated promotion. If you survived.'

  'Nice to know someone did,' said Pascoe.

  'Oh yes, he had a talent for it. Lived to be ninety. Still working on his memoirs when he died. I told him he'd left it a bit late, but he said no point in starting till you were pretty sure you were past doing
anything worth remembering.'

  'Sounds as if they'd make interesting reading,' said Pascoe. 'Talking of which, is there anything you'd recommend to start remedying my immense ignorance about the Great War?'

  The major looked at him with one-eyed keenness to see if he was taking the piss. Then selecting a volume from the bookshelf behind him he said, 'This is about as good a general introduction as you'll get. After that, if you develop a taste for horror, you can specialize.'

  'Thank you,' said Pascoe, taking the book. 'I'll return it, of course.'

  'Damn right you will,' said the major. 'Chaps who borrow your kit and don't return it always come to a sticky end. Now let's see if we can't find somewhere a bit more suitable for your gran than a fireplace, shall we?'

  He rose abruptly. As Pascoe followed him out of the office, he said, 'You run a very tidy museum, sir.'

  'What? Oh thank you. Or do I detect an irony? Perhaps you find tidiness incompatible with a place dedicated to the glorification of war?'

  'All I meant was-'

  'Don't lie out of politeness, please. Policemen should always speak the truth. So should museums. That's what I hope this one does. If it glorifies anything it is courage and service. But when the truth is that men were sacrificed needlessly, even wantonly, in the kind of battle your great-grandfather died in, a place like this mustn't flinch from saying so. We owe it to the men who died. We owe it to ourselves as professional soldiers too.'

  They had entered a room at the back of the house, formerly the kitchen but now given over to an exhibition of catering equipment. Studholme pointed through the window into a small paved yard with a single circular flowerbed at its centre. It contained three brutally pruned rose bushes.

  'Looks better in the summer,' he said. 'White roses surrounded by lilies. The regimental badge. Used to be an old joke. You always get a good cup of tea from the Wyfies, they even advertise in their badge. Roses, fleur-de-lis; Rosy Lee, you follow? Not a very good joke. Also new recruits are called lilies; passing out, you get your rose. Sorry. Regimental folklore. Set me off, I go on forever. What started this?'