The Wood Beyond (28 page)

Shit, thought Wield with sudden self-disgust. How mealy-minded could you get! A few months of what felt like a stable partnership had turned him into Mrs Grundy! If randy Andy thought he'd found true love, then the old sod 'ud be mad not to grab it with both hands while it was before him.

The door opened and he found himself looking at what, if salacious speculation were correct, the old sod had probably grabbed at with both hands already.

'Sergeant Wield, I presume. You'd better come in.'

This was the only hint that she had been forewarned of his visit, but it was enough. If Dalziel were stepping back, it was the merest shuffle rather than a bloody great step.

She listened to his preamble with courteous patience then said, 'I assume this means that you feel there is a chance that whoever knocked Wendy down may have been known to her, perhaps even had a motive for wishing her harm, and you are therefore collating information on her habits, background, and associates?'

Sharp lady. Or mebbe she'd had this spelt out to her already and was just wanting to get it on the official record to avoid a slip-up which might embarrass her great protector.

'That's it, spot on,' said Wield. 'So owt you can tell us...'

He got the story much as before, though angled slightly differently. Walker had joined the group about two months earlier. She had proved an active and energetic colleague, but hadn't seemed interested in forging links outside the group's main activities . . . 'Regarding which, as you will understand, I am not about to give you any details, sergeant,' she concluded.

'I got the impression she and Miss Jacklin were pretty friendly,' said Wield.

'I suppose they were. Are,' said Cap regarding him speculatively. 'But as to their meeting outside the group, you'd really have to ask Annabel. I know nothing about the social life of either of them.'

'I'd have thought in your line of business you'd have wanted to know quite a lot about your associates, Ms Marvell,' said Wield.

'Personal introduction is the principle I work on,' said Cap. 'Someone I trust introduces someone she trusts. That's step one. Then I watch and evaluate.'

'I gather someone who moved away introduced Miss Jacklin,' said Wield. 'So who introduced Wendy Walker?'

She hesitated. She's told Dalziel, Wield guessed, but doesn't know if he's told me. Who the heck is it they're making such a song and dance about? The Chief Constable's grannie? This flight of fancy put the real answer in his mind even as Cap Marvell said, 'It was Ellie Pascoe, your Mr Pascoe's wife.'

She looked as if she were thinking about adding something else but if she was, she changed her mind.

Saving it for pillow talk thought Wield churlishly.

'So what grade did you give Miss Walker?' he asked.

'Sorry?'

'You said you watched and evaluated,' said Wield.

'That's right. As I said, she was full of energy. And ideas. Never afraid of putting her point of view forward.'

'Which was different from yours?'

'Why do you say that?'

Wield could have answered that every other member of ANIMA had mentioned, with varying degrees of approval, Wendy's aggressive contribution to debate. Instead he said, 'Not much point in putting her viewpoint if all she were doing was agreeing with you. And she doesn't sound like the apple-for-the-teacher type.'

Cap smiled.

'Not unless it had a bomb in it,' she agreed. 'Yes, we often locked horns, from our first encounter almost. That's one of the things I liked about her. She didn't let anything pass unchallenged. Made you think about what you thought. I'm sorry. I'm talking about her in the past tense. I don't mean to.'

'It happens. So what were the main areas of disagreement?' asked Wield, adding reassuringly, 'It's all right. Anything you say won't be taken down and used in evidence against you.'

'I hope it may be used
for
me,' she replied. 'Wendy was hot for direct action; not just animal release, but active sabotage, serious damage, hitting the bastards where it hurts, I quote, which is in the pocket.'

'You mean arson? Explosions? That sort of thing.' Cap nodded.

'And people? How did she feel about harming people?'

'She said that those who inflicted suffering should be prepared to suffer themselves.'

'And you?'

She gazed at him with wide-eyed seriousness.

'I said that my first and only aim was to alleviate animal suffering and as long as I was in charge of ANIMA, this would be our sole guiding light.'

'Meaning no bombs or sabotage or attacks on individuals?'

'Meaning just that, sergeant.'

'And yet even though she disagreed so much, Wendy stayed?'

'Yes. Interesting that. I expect she was merely biding her time till she got a better offer.'

'Aren't we all?' said Edgar Wield. But he didn't mean it.

iv

Last time Pascoe had been at Wanwood House the old woodland had been whole. Nothing he'd heard about the
cordon sanitaire
had prepared him for the swathe of muddy desolation now ripped through its heart.

He stopped the car and got out to take a closer look, venturing onto a duckboard, but starting back sharply as it threatened to sink beneath him.

"Morning, sir,' said a voice.

He turned to find a man in TecSec's green uniform watching him.

"Morning,' said Pascoe. 'My God, did we really send men to fight in this?'

'Aye, and things haven't changed so much in eighty years that the bastards wouldn't do it again if the need arose. Thank God for choppers and tactical nukes, say I.'

Pascoe looked with interest at this man who'd so easily picked up his reference. The scarred face returned his gaze unblinkingly.

'DCI Pascoe, here to see Dr Batty,' he said offering his hand.

'Yes, I know. They rang from the gate. Patten, in charge of security. When you didn't show in half a minute, I thought I'd better check.'

'In case I got bogged down?' smiled Pascoe disengaging from the handshake which threatened to become macho. 'You interested in the Great War? I noticed you picked up the reference to Passchendaele.'

'Kigg. General Kiggell, Haig's CGS,' said Patten. 'My granddad quoted it so often, I'd be ashamed not to know it. Ended up claiming he was actually there when it was said, but I doubt it. He was certainly in the battle though, if that's what you can call it.'

'Which mob?'

'Wyfies.'

'Good lord. My great-grandfather too.'

'Oh yes? Mebbe they knew each other,' said Patten indifferently. 'Dr Batty's in a staff meeting just now but shouldn't be long. Wondered if you'd fancy a coffee with me and my partner, Captain Sanderson.'

'That would be nice,' said Pascoe as they got into the car. 'Captain, you say. Military or naval?'

'Army. Same mob as me.'

'Would that be the Wyfies too? I mean the Yorkshire Fusiliers since the reorganization.'

'That's right,' said Patten.

'So you're keeping up the family tradition, Mr Patten?'

'Aye. Fourth generation of service. Not that it counted for much when they started slimming down. Loyalty's still one-way traffic, Mr Pascoe. Like it was at Passchendaele.'

'Wasn't it always so?'

'No. Time was when soldiers loved their generals. Alexander, Caesar, the old Iron Duke even, and he was a right bastard by all accounts. Not because they didn't get the lads killed, or have them lashed, or feed them weevils, but 'cos when push came to shove, the generals were on the same side as the men, often
at
their side, up to their knees in the same fucking mud.'

'And they weren't in the Great War?' prompted Pascoe.

'Not the way my granddad told it, and not the way the old boys at the reunions remembered it. Politicians and profiteers ran that show, and the generals, most on 'em, were in their pockets, or too damn scared or stupid to stand up and say, enough's enough. After it were over, they made Haig an earl and gave him a hundred thousand pounds. A florin a head for the lads who were dead, my granddad used to say. He was no politician, old Doug, but by Christ he made his profit.'

'But lessons were learned, weren't they?' urged Pascoe curious to see how far this ex-soldier's resentment would take him.

'Some,' admitted Patten grudgingly. 'Last lot were better by all accounts. But it's still the politicos that call the shots. Or when they need us, like the Falklands, it's all Land of Hope and Glory and thank you, Mr Atkins, but two minutes' peace and the word comes from Westminster, start sacking the sods.'

'Being made redundant and being sent over the top in the Salient aren't quite the same thing,' said Pascoe gently.

'Same kind of people not giving a fuck who gets hurt or how many,' retorted Patten. 'If they'd tried it on with the Iron Duke, he'd have sent the Guards down Whitehall with bayonets fixed. Nothing like cold steel when there's a shortage of backbone. Might still work too, if only we had someone with the guts to try it.'

Pascoe made a mental recording of all this for later retailing to Ellie as yet another example of how an apparently shared indignation could lead to such disparate ends. Patten's revulsion at the unnecessary slaughter of Passchendaele led him to advocate a military dictatorship! While his own led him to . . . what? Pacifism? No. He believed he would fight in a just cause. Antimilitarism then? Certainly, but not of the kneejerk variety. The country needed its armed forces, so long, of course, as they were kept under the control of the democratically elected government. In other words, politicians. In other words, the kind of 'control' which, in Patten's eyes, led directly to the carnage at Passchendaele .. .

'We're here, sir,' said Patten.

They had arrived at the front of the house. Pascoe realized he had parked the car on automatic pilot and was now sitting staring vacantly out of the window and into his thoughts, while the TecSec man stood waiting by the open door.

'Yes, of course. Sorry.' He got out and looked up at the lowering façade. 'Not a very welcoming place, is it? I can see why it didn't survive as a private hospital. Perhaps that's where those bones came from. Patient trying to escape.'

'Anything more on that, sir?'

'Oh, enquiries are proceeding,' said Pascoe vaguely.

'Oh yes?' Patten smiled cynically. 'Used to get that kind of bromide in the army, usually meaning we're lost.'

'I wouldn't say lost,' said Pascoe. 'But certainly still feeling our way.'

'Well, if you're serious about that body mebbe having something to do with the hospital, then you've come to the right spot,' said Patten leading him round the side of the house.

'I doubt it. Not unless you've got their records stashed away in a cellar.'

'That's more or less what I do mean,' replied Patten to his surprise. 'Can't swear it's the records, but I do know that when we were checking the place over last summer with a view to making it secure, I found a cellar full of rusty old filing cabinets jammed full of junk.'

'Really?' said Pascoe. 'Now that I would like to see. If it could be arranged.'

'No problem. But let's have that coffee first.'

He ushered Pascoe through a side door and into the TecSec office where a rather old-fashionedly smooth man he guessed to be Captain Sanderson was sitting behind a desk. He rose smiling and offered his hand.

'Peter Pascoe, I presume. Heard about you. Had the pleasure of meeting your boss yesterday. Broke the mould making him, I should think.'

He raised one eyebrow quizzically, a trick Pascoe guessed he practised in front of the mirror.

'Mr Dalziel, you mean? He is certainly unique.'

'And you're certainly diplomatic,' laughed Sanderson. 'Des, why don't you rustle us up some coffee?'

Partners they might be, but it was still the sergeant who brewed up, Pascoe noted.

'Take a seat, Mr Pascoe. Tell me, does a visit from a superintendent one day and a chief inspector the next mean that things are getting better or worse?'

'Depends what things you had in mind,' said Pascoe.

'Bones-in-the-wood sort of things,' said Sanderson.

'I see. Then it depends what you mean by better and worse.'

'Well, from my point of view, having the contract for security here at Wanwood,
better
would be if you told me that you'd decided the bones belonged to some old tramp who'd dossed down in the wood and passed away from natural causes.
Worse
would be if you decided there was a crime here which needed investigation. And worst of all would be if you suspected there might be more bodies out there and were planning to instigate a full-scale excavation programme.'

Patten put a cup of coffee in front of Pascoe and offered him milk and sugar. He shook his head and sipped the bitter black liquid.

'In other words, the less publicity the better?'

'You've got it.'

'Why worry? I should have thought that your only real quarrel was with the animal rights people, and from that point of view, ALBA's little secret has been out since the raid in the summer.'

'True,' said Sanderson. 'But as you probably know from police experience, there's a difference between a target and a symbol. Aldermaston, Porton Down, Greenham Common, none of them unique in what went on there, but they each became a symbol for the whole and thus the object of continuous attention from the protesters. We can deal with the occasional hassle, but we don't want to end up as everyone's favourite target.'

'I'm pleased to meet such concern for an employer,' murmured Pascoe. 'A more cynical approach might have been to rub your hands and say, the more hassle ALBA get, the more they'll need to shell out on security. After all there's still a fair stretch of ground untouched out there. Plenty of room for a moat, say. Or a hundred-foot wall.'

'Oh dear. Do I detect disapproval of what we've done to the wood?' said Sanderson smiling.

'I'm fond of trees,' admitted Pascoe.

'And animals too, I daresay. How do you feel about their use in medical research, chief inspector? I only ask because as an old army man, I appreciate how difficult it can be sometimes when there's tension between personal feelings and official orders.'