The Wood Beyond

vii

As Pascoe drove north the following morning, the weather got worse but his mood got better. By the time he got within tuning distance of Radio Mid-Yorkshire, his car was being machine-gunned by horizontal hail, but the familiar mix of dated pops and parish pump gossip sounded in his ears like the first cuckoo of spring.

I must be turning into a Yorkshireman, he thought as he sang along with Boney M.

A newscast followed, a mixture of local and national. One item caught his attention.

'Police have confirmed the discovery last night of human remains in the grounds of Wanwood House, research headquarters of ALBA Pharmaceuticals. Tests to ascertain the cause of death are not yet complete and the police spokesman was unwilling to comment on reports that the discovery was made by a group of animal rights protesters.'

It sounded to Pascoe's experienced ear that Andy Dalziel was sitting tight on this one, and with one of those mighty buttocks in your face, even the voice of nation speaking unto nation got a bit muffled.

It also confirmed him in his half-formed resolution that it was worth diverting to dispose of Ada's ashes. Dalziel believed that time off on any pretext meant you owed him a week of twenty-five-hour days. With a possible murder on his hands, he'd probably raise that to thirty, particularly as Pascoe had been in sole charge of the investigation into the ALBA raid last summer. It had only merited a DCI's involvement because of the possible connection with the killing at FG's labs up at Redcar. There's always a certain pleasure in solving another mob's case, but Dalziel who was a good delegator had neither interfered nor complained when Pascoe had reported that the investigation was going nowhere. On the other hand Pascoe did not doubt he would be held personally responsible for not having noticed the presence of human remains out at Wanwood even if they turned out to have been buried six feet under!

So, dispose of Ada, else the urn could end up sitting on his mantelpiece for some time, and his guess was that even someone as conscientiously house-humble as Ellie would draw the line at such an hydriotaphic ornament.

Leeds was only a little out of his way. With luck he could be in and out in half an hour.

This pious hope died in a one-way system as unforgiving as a posting to the Western Front. Even when he arrived where he wanted to be, where he wanted to be didn't seem to be there any more. At least the hail had stopped and the blustery wind was tearing holes in the cloud big enough for the occasional ray of sun to penetrate.

He pulled into the car park of a pile-'em-high-sell-'em-cheap supermarket and addressed an apparently shell-shocked old man in charge of a convoy of errant trolleys.

'Is this Kirkton Road?'

'Aye,' said the man.

'I'm looking for the West Yorkshire Fusiliers' barracks.'

'You've missed it,' said the man.

'Oh God. You mean it's back along there,' said Pascoe unhappily regarding the one-way street he had just with such pain negotiated.

'Nay, you've missed it by more 'n ten years. Wyfies amalgamated wi' South Yorks Rifles way back. Shifted to their barracks in Sheffield. Call themselves the Yorkshire Fusiliers now. War Office sold this site for development.'

'Bugger,’ said Pascoe.

Ada's wishes were precise if curious. My ashes should he taken by the executor of my will and scattered around the Headquarters of the West Yorkshire Fusiliers in Kirkton Road, Leeds.

Knowing her feelings about the army, Pascoe did not doubt that her motive was derisory. She would probably have liked to leave instructions that the urn was to be hurled through a window but knew she would need to moderate her gesture if she hoped to have it carried out. But moderation must surely stop a long way short of being scattered in a car park!

'Museum's still here but.’ said the man, happy to extend this interruption of his tedious task.

'Where?' said Pascoe hopefully.

'Yon place.'

The man pointed to a tall narrow granite building standing at the far end of the car park, glaring with military scorn at the Scandinavian ski-lodge frivolity of the supermarket.

'Thanks,' said Pascoe.

He drove towards the museum and parked before it. Close up the building looked even more as if it had been bulled, boxed and blanco'd ready for inspection. Pascoe collected the urn from the boot, scuffed his feet on the tarmac to make sure he wasn't tracking any dirt, and went up the steps.

The lintel bore a mahogany board on which was painted a badge consisting of a white rose under a fleur-de-lis, with beneath it WEST YORKSHIRE FUSILIERS — Regimental Museum. The paint was fresh and bright, the brass door knob gleamed like a sergeant major's eye, and even the letter box had a military sharpness which probably terrified any pacifist postmen.

Pascoe turned the knob, checked to be sure he hadn't left fingerprints, and entered.

He found himself in a large high-ceilinged room, lined with display cabinets and hung with tattered flags. It was brightly lit and impeccably clean, but that didn't stop the air from being musty with the smell of old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago.

Pascoe moved swiftly through a series of smaller rooms without finding any survivors. He even tried calling aloud but there was no response.

Sod it! he thought. The absence of witnesses should be making things a lot easier. All he had to do was scatter and scarper! But somehow, even without a witness, the thought of sullying these immaculate surfaces with powdered Ada was hard for an obsessively tidy man. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.. but there had to be some old dust for the new dust to go to!

He tried a pinch in the darkest corner he could find but it stood out like a smear of coke on a nun's moustache. Finally he settled on a fireplace. Even this looked to have been untroubled by coal for a hundred years, and the Victorian fire irons which flanked it stood as neat and shiny as weapons in an armoury. But it must have known ash in its time. And what after all was this philopolemic building but a mausoleum in need of a body?

His conscience thus quietened, Pascoe unscrewed the top of the urn, took out a handful of dust, examined it for fear, found it, and with an atavistic prayer, threw it into the grate.

'What the hell do you think you're playing at?' demanded an outraged voice.

He turned his head and looked up at a tall grey-haired man wearing an indignant expression, a piratical eye patch and a hairy tweed jacket with the right sleeve pinned emptily across the breast.

Time, thought Pascoe, for the disarming smile, particularly as the man's present hand was pointing what looked like a flintlock pistol very steadily at his head.

'You may find this a trifle hard to believe,' said Pascoe. 'But I do hope you are going to try.'