The Wood Beyond

x

1982 was a key year for the Tory Party both nationally and in Mid-Yorkshire.

At its start, Margaret Thatcher's grasp of the premiership seemed rather less secure than Richard Nixon's of the principles of democracy, while Amanda Pitt-Evenlode, née Marvell, seemed set to be Vice President (Functions) of the Mid-Yorks Conservative Association for at least the next forty years.

Then came the Falklands War. Never (or at least not since Troy) in the field of human daftness had so many gone so far to sacrifice so much for the sake of one silly woman.

Its effect on the fortunes of the UK government is a matter of public record.

Its effect on the life of Amanda Pitt-Evenlode is less widely known.

What it came down to was this: on June 12th, 1982, she was radicalized.

Curiously it was not the news that her only son, Second Lieutenant Piers Pitt-Evenlode of the Yorkshire Fusiliers, was missing in action, believed dead, that did the trick. That came on June 7th and left her prostrate with shock and unable to register, let alone reject, the canonical comforts of her parish priest, the patriotic platitudes of her committee colleagues, or the phylogenic fortitude of her spouse, the Hon. Rupert Pitt-Evenlode, JP.

No, it was the news that Piers had been discovered alive and, apart from a few inconsequential bullet holes, well, that pricked her into life. While all around the air was full of joyful congratulation, and talk of a possible gong, and plans for the welcome-home party, all she could think of was her recent certainty that this war — any war — was a crime against humanity, and its attendant conclusion that those responsible for it, or supportive of it, or even indifferent to it, must therefore be war criminals.

She tried to pretend that such a certainty should crumble in face of her son's survival, but found she couldn't keep it up.

Other women's sons had fallen without being raised from the grave. How then could she be so arrogant as to assert the health of her own boy as the sole yardstick?

She tried to talk about her feelings with those she felt closest to, and found herself once again prayed over and patronized, and finally pushed towards a very fashionable psychiatrist who'd done wonders for Binky Bullmain's nervous flatulence.

Piers himself, far from being the hoped-for confidant, took to the role of bemedalled hero like a blowfly to dead meat and clearly regarded any hint of her new anxieties as a personal slur.

But still she looked for ways to adapt her new-found self to her family, her social circle and her political party, and still she found herself rejected like a new heart in an old body.

So she resigned from all of them.

The old Amanda Pitt-Evenlode felt a slight pang that the sighs which marked her passing contained as much relief as sorrow.

The new Mandy Marvell didn't give a toss.

She had married at seventeen, borne Piers at eighteen, and spent the next two decades performing all the duties proper to a woman of her husband's status in society. This meant that while tennis, golf and swimming kept her body in pretty good shape, her mind had fewer demands made upon it than would have stretched the ratiocinative powers of a footballer's parrot.

Now she found that one thought led to another in a most delightful way. Happily her father had died before succeeding in his avowed intent of dissipating all the wealth his father had so assiduously accrued, leaving Mandy with a sufficient private income to be able to live comfortably while at the same time paying the divorce settlement from Pitt-Evenlode straight into the coffers of various excellent charities. Her time and energy she gave generously too, but she did not miss any chance of proving all the pleasures which the hills and valleys, dales and fields, of her quiet country existence had failed to yield. She popped and snorted, drank and smoked; she read, wrote, painted and performed; she travelled widely and tried most alternatives from the religious to the medicinal.

For ten years she overwhelmed herself in experience and at this crowded decade's end she found that all she retained any real enthusiasm for was Mexican beer, the songs of Gustav Mahler, and straight sex. She even found she'd gone off the poor a bit, not in particular, but as an insoluble symptom of humanity's shittiness. Fifty was approaching fast. She wanted to do something she could see getting done. But what?

It had occurred to her from time to time as interesting though hardly significant that her strongest memories of life with the Hon. Rupert involved animals rather than people. They had started even, but as the humans faded, the beasts came into ever clearer focus. Now ten years on, with the Hon. reduced to little more than a long nose under a silly hat, she could still recall the exact disposition of the dark spots on a pair of Dalmatians called Aggers and Staggers she'd been given on her twentieth birthday. An upwardly mobile farm cat trying to ingratiate itself into smoked-salmon circles with gifts of moles and shrews was clearer to her than the infant Piers; and while she couldn't have sworn to the Hon's private parts in a line-up, the splendid equipment of Balzac, the estate's prize Charolais, was as detailed in her mind as if etched there by Stubbs.

She explained this to her current lover, an American evangelist, on their last night together before he bore his burden of souls and shekels home.

'This is your heart bleeping you, Cap. Pick up that phone and get in touch with base.'

His phraseology made her wince, but against that she set the pleasure she derived from his habit of crying 'HALLELUJAH!' at the moment of climax. And when he had gone she spoke to her heart.

Animals, her heart answered, were the unacknowledged legislators of mankind. They showed fortitude in adversity and temperance in prosperity. They had no need of prisons, nor did they prey on their own kind. Therefore the way humans treated them was the touchstone of their humanity.

To conclude was to act. Six months later her vigorous sampling of local loose coalitions of hunt saboteurs, cetaphiles, donkey sanctuarians, et cetera, had drawn to her several similarly minded women who agreed to form a more tightly knitted group which came to be known as ANIMA. That it was all female was not a conscious choice but a dynamic inevitability. Men fear more than they admire a powerful woman, and for her to rule over them she must normally usurp the masculine leadership of an already existing group. If instead she forms a new one, she will rarely attract male recruits till she is so successful, she doesn't want them.

The day after the abortive raid on Wanwood House, Cap Marvell laid the table in the kitchen of her flat for two.

It was simple fare: a large pie, a bowl of crisps, a green salad, a wedge of cheese, a jar of onions, and a couple of baguettes. By one place setting she put a tankard and three cans of draught bitter, by the other a tumbler and a bottle of Mexican beer.

At one o'clock precisely the doorbell rang.

Smiling she drew open the door.

The smile faded as she saw Wendy Walker standing in the corridor.

'Wendy,' she said. 'What do you want?'

'I'm not selling bloody brushes that's for sure,’ snapped the other.

'I'm sorry,' said Cap. 'I didn't mean to be rude, only I'm expecting someone for lunch.. '

'And I'll be in the way? Well that shouldn't bother you, Cap. You lot get trained to roll over folk who get in your way, don't you?'

Cap gritted her teeth. Why was it that every time Wendy treated her like she was still the Hon. Mrs Rupert she found herself wanting to act like she was still the Hon. Mrs Rupert?

She said, 'Wendy, please, unless it's a matter of life or death, I wonder if-'

'Life or death!' Wendy interrupted her. 'Why'd that bother you? 'Less it was some sodding animal's life or death, and even then I daresay you've slaughtered more birds and beasts than you've ever bloody well saved!'

'What is it you want to talk about, Wendy?' said Cap, dangerously calm.

'Last night, what the fuck do you think? The price of tea? You're our group leader, aren't you? Right, I want to talk to my leader about what happened on the raid last night.'

'Look, I can see how it must have upset you, finding that body..'

'That's not what's upsetting me, no, it's not a few old bones that's upsetting me. . look, you gonna let me in or not?'

Cap leaned forward and sniffed.

'You've been drinking,' she said.

'Well pardon me for breathing,' said Wendy. 'Pardon me for eating and drinking and sleeping and waking and pissing and crapping and doing all the other things that real human beings do. Yes, I've been drinking, not much, just enough for me to get the crazy idea it might be worthwhile coming round here to sort things out..’

'Very impressive,' said Cap. 'But it will have to keep till you're a little more sober and I'm a little less busy. I'll see you later, Wendy.'

'Later? Yeah sure, only it might be a bit too fucking late for you, Cap, a bit too fucking late!'

Cap Marvell stepped back and closed the door. Wendy Walker turned away and headed for the lift but before she could reach it, Andy Dalziel who'd been standing in it, listening, for the last few minutes, withdrew the foot which was holding the doors open, and pressed the button for the next floor up.

'Shit,' said Wendy, and headed for the stairs.

Five minutes later the flat bell rang again.

Cap checked through the peephole this time to be sure, then opened the door, smiling widely.

'Hello there,' she said. 'No need to apologize for being late. It's permissible on a first date.'

'Oh aye?' said Dalziel. 'Told me down the station you wanted to make a statement. Didn't say owt about dates.'

'I believe I did mention lunch. But whether you've come with that in mind or your timing is merely a happy coincidence matters little. You're here. There is food. Please take a seat.'

'What if I'm not hungry?'

'You don't look to me, Mr Dalziel, like a man in whom appetite has much to do with hunger. Do sit down.'

Dalziel considered this. The woman were right. So he did sit and eat.

She watched in silence, admiring the simple almost poetic efficiency of his technique.

There was no impression of gluttony, no overfilling of or overspilling from the mouth (which would indeed have been difficult given the cetacean dimensions of that maw), just a simple procession of food through the marble portals of his teeth, a short rhythmic manducation, and a quick swallow which hardly registered on the massy column of his oesophagus.

The pie vanished save for the small wedge she had taken.

He said, 'You going to eat or just watch?'

She began to nibble at the pastry crust, still observing with awe as he split one of the baguettes in half, expertly lined it with cheese, crisps, salad, and pickled onions, replaced the lid, raised it to his lips.

'Remember that scene in the film of Tom Jones where they turn each other on just by eating?' she said. 'I never really understood how it worked before.'

'Eh?' said Dalziel.

She said, 'You'll never get it in.'

Dalziel didn't reply. His mother had brought him up not to speak with his mouth full.

When the baguette had vanished like a waking dream, he poured himself the third can of bitter and said, 'Right, Mrs Marvell, what's all this about?'

'Call me Cap,' she said.

'Why?'

'It was a nickname my ingenious fellow pupils at my boarding school gave me. Captain Marvell. I tried to live up to it during my adolescence. In fact it was trying to live up to it that lost me it. It seemed a Captain Marvellish thing to do to get married to an Hon. at seventeen, but I soon discovered you cannot be called Cap if you're Mrs Rupert Pitt-Evenlode. In fact with that chain of words to trail around behind you, it's difficult to be anything at all except the Hon. Mrs et cetera. But back in '82 I got myself rechristened. I was a born-again pagan. . But I see I'm boring you. Why should that be? I know. None of this is news to you, is it? You've been checking up on me!'

'Aye,' said Dalziel completing his yawn. 'Since they cut back on my taster, I'm careful who I eat with. Why didn't mean I wanted the story of your life. It meant, why should I call you anything but Mrs or Miss or Ms Marvell?'

'It would be friendly.'

'Ah well, I try not to get too friendly wi' folk I might have to bang up.'

'I take it your idiom is penal rather than penile, superintendent? Does this mean ALBA are going to prosecute? Excellent.'

'Fancy your day in court, do you? Slap on the wrist? Tuppenny fine? Headlines in the Guardian and flash your kneecaps on breakfast TV?'

'That would suit me nicely. But, despite your intimidatory threats, I doubt if it would suit ALBA. Such people are usually more concerned with damping publicity than provoking it.'

'Could be you're right about ALBA, missus. But it's not them you should be worried about.'

'I'm sorry.. oh, you mean you. But what charges could the police bring against me if ALBA won't press for trespass?'

Dalziel smiled like a crocodile being asked if he'd got teeth.

'Going equipped for burglary. Criminal damage. Assault. Obstructing the police.'

She considered this then said, 'Assault?'

'You threatened the TecSec boss with them wire cutters.'

'Threatened? He must be a man of very nervous disposition. The cutters are a tool not a weapon.'

And a very clean tool too. Forensic had found no trace of blood. Surprisingly clean? Dalziel had asked hopefully. That would depend on the mind-cast of their owner, Dr Gentry, Head of the Forensic Lab, who disliked the Fat Man heartily, had replied.

'Weapon's a tool for killing,' said Dalziel. 'And you could have taken his head off if you'd made contact. Courts don't like that sort of thing, especially not since Redcar.'

At least she didn't pretend not to take the allusion.

'That was terrible, and a great disservice to the movement. It wasn't even good protest. Simply turning the poor animals loose achieves very little in terms of their wellbeing and nothing at all in terms of public support.'

'You mean it's the tactics you object to, not killing the odd security guard?' said Dalziel.

'Of course I deplore the man's death,' she said with some irritation. 'It was tragic. But I cannot believe you seriously suspect my group had anything to do with it.'

'Why not?' said Dalziel. 'By all accounts once you got inside the building last night, you all ran wild like a bunch of lagered-up Leeds supporters. What was that all about? Premenstrual tension?'

She was unprovoked. Very cool this one. But beneath it all there was plenty of heat. The notion had him crossing his legs.

'A release of tension, certainly,' she said. 'We'd had a shock. Then suddenly I realized that we'd got where we wanted to be, inside the building. It seemed foolish not to make a gesture.'

'A gesture?' He articulated the word as if some passing bird had crapped in his mouth.

'That's right. An act which resounds with significance far beyond its mere physical limitations. You should try one some day, superintendent.'

'At my age it happens all the time,' he said. 'So you took off. And headed straight for the labs. Just a bit of luck that, was it?'

'What else could it be?'

'Prior knowledge. Like, from being there before.'

'Being there when?'

'In the summer, maybe, when there was a break-in at Wanwood.'

'Yes, I recall. . ah, I see your game, Mr Dalziel. Or may I call you Andy? If I remember right, the raid on Wanwood had many of the characteristics of the raid on Redcar. Lots of mindless vandalism and the animals merely released into the countryside. And you think they could have been done by the same people. Therefore link ANIMA with the second, you link us with the first. Right?'

'Right as a confession,' said Dalziel.

'Which it isn't. Do you have dates for both these raids?'

'Can't remember? I get like that,' said Dalziel. 'June 28th. May 19th.'

She rose and went through into the living room, returning with a leather-bound diary.

'Here we are,' she said. 'On June 28th I had dinner with my son, Piers.'

'He'll vouch for you, will he? What's his line? Urban terrorism?'

'In a manner of speaking. He's Lieutenant Colonel Pitt- Evenlode MC of the Yorkshire Fusiliers. Like his number?'

'Just tell me which bishops you were with on May 19th,' growled Dalziel.

'Sorry. No clergy. I went to a wedding at Scarborough, but it was a civil rather than a religious ceremony. I stayed the night there. In fact, I stayed up most of the night. There was a postnuptial party which went on until dawn. I think you'll find I made my presence felt sufficiently to be recalled through the alcoholic haze.'

Dalziel belched. She took it as an expression of doubt.

'Don't you believe me? Please, feel free to check.'

'I may just do that. And it's nowt to do with not believing you. It's just that I never believe my luck when folk start volunteering alibis before I've even asked for them.'

'That is perhaps because most of your customers are of a lower order of intelligence in which such pre-emptive thought would indeed be suspicious. If our acquaintance is to mature, you'll have to get used to dealing with someone whose brain is quite as good as yours. And also with someone who, unlike most of those others, is unworried by your ultimate threat of locking them away. For me to get a prison sentence would be a real publicity coup, so you must see that your threats, even if you meant to carry them through which I doubt, have little weight with me.'

She gave him a smile of great sunniness which was well worth basking in on a drab November day. He returned it gladly. She did after all have a point, and he never minded letting opponents build up a points lead. The more confident they got, the more likely they were to drop their guards and reveal a fatal weakness. Like here. Anyone who seriously doubted his willingness to carry through any threat he cared to make was wide open to a sucker punch any time he cared to throw it. But no need to rush, not with beer and crisps and pickles still on the table, and them lovely sugar loaves to leer at.

He drank and nibbled and leered, and waited to see where she would lead the conversation.

She said, 'I cannot of course provide alibis for all of my colleagues though two of them, Meg and Donna, were in fact at the Scarborough wedding also.'

'That 'ud be Jenkins and Linsey? The dykes?'

His reaction when he'd come across this surmise in George Headingley's notes had been, 'What the fuck's that got to do with anything?' But now he was happy to use the term as a possible irritant.

‘That's right,’ she said, unirritated. 'The dykes. As for the others, all I can do is vouch for their commitment to peaceful protest. Except perhaps Wendy.'

'Walker? But she acted as peacekeeper, didn't she?'

'Rather out of character, I feel. What about you? I got the impression you were already acquainted.'

'Aye. We've met.'

'And did I get the impression you were surprised to find her in such company?'

'What're we talking here?' he said. 'Class or causes?'

'Are the two really distinguishable in some people's eyes? But what I meant was, at the peaceful protest end of the activist scene.'

Dalziel laughed and said, 'You call what you got up to peaceful protest? I'd not like to see you if you went to war.'

'I'll try not to invite you then. But you've not answered my question.'

She was very insistent, he thought. That little exchange he'd overheard between her and Wendy Walker must have really got her going for some reason.

He said, 'What surprised me weren't so much Walker joining you lot as you lot taking her on board. How'd that happen?'

If he'd hoped to throw her off balance by reversing the question, he had failed. She was smiling rather slyly, an expression he found strangely exciting.

He crossed his legs the other way and waited for the answer.

'Oddly enough,' she said, 'it was through a colleague of yours in a manner of speaking, man and wife being one flesh. A mutual acquaintance introduced us. I expect you know her well. Mrs Ellie Pascoe.'

'You're not saying she's one of your lot?' he groaned.

'Not really. Sympathetic but too concerned with suffering humanity to have much energy left for the animal kingdom, so no need to be embarrassed.'

Another weakness, imagining embarrassment was one of his.

'Still, a bit of a handful, isn't she? Wendy, I mean.'

'She's certainly got her own ideas, and I'm not sure she'll stay with us forever. Too much energy and resentment, not perhaps enough self-knowledge. Like me, her marriage broke up, but she thinks it was because her husband was a scab, while the truth I suspect is that she so enjoyed the role she found in the Strike that there was no way she was ever going to go back to the life servitude of being a pitman's wife. Pitman. I had my own Pitt man too, so I can sympathize. But the difference is, I changed sides, while she lost; not only a battle but a whole bloody war. So perhaps it was no wonder she was looking for a new role where the issues were clear cut, even if it meant she has to work for a while at least alongside an old class enemy like me.'

She laughed and Dalziel grinned too. Weakness three. Believing she'd got Wendy Walker and her kind sussed. Couple of weeks on the dole could root out the centuries-deep deference of the British worker, but it took major surgery to eradicate the built-in smugness of the middle class.

He sucked the last drops out of the last can. Every plate was empty. Time for business.

He said, 'All right, missus

'Cap,' she urged.

'All right, Cap. So why did you want to see me?'

'To make a statement, of course. You were very keen for us to make statements last night.'

'Was I? Funny how you take these fancies, then go off them. Like being pregnant they tell me.'

'So you don't want a statement?' she said, disconcerted.

'Depends what you've got to state.'

'I thought we could negotiate,’ she said, recovering. 'I mean, you've got a body in the grounds of Wanwood House. I bet you've got some ideas about that already. So if it would help for me to say I saw that plonker Batty start like a guilty thing surprised when he got the news, just say the word. Or that TecSec Nazi, Patten, if it's him you fancy and you need an excuse to search his pad, maybe I could help there.'

Dalziel scratched his bubaline neck and said, 'What makes you think I'd take kindly to the idea of fitting someone up?'

'Oh, I know you wouldn't do it maliciously,' she reassured him, her candid brown eyes gazing deep into his. 'Only if you were sure it was in the best interests of justice. I mean, when I contacted the local media this morning to ask why ANIMA was hardly getting a mention, and got told that in matters sub judice it was editorial policy to afford the police full cooperation, I didn't immediately think, that bastard Andy Dalziel's put the frighteners on. No, I thought, that nice superintendent's imposed a temporary media blackout in the best interests of all concerned. No need for me to go running hysterically to my cousin who does features for Channel 4 or my old school chum who's a junior minister in the Home Office, is there? Why have confrontation when you can have consultation instead?'

Not bad, approved Dalziel. Just because he'd identified three weaknesses didn't mean she couldn't still kick him in the balls. But he was still intrigued as to why she should think he was susceptible to consultation. She didn't give the impression of being thick.

He said, 'Let's get things straight. I take the frighteners off the local media and you'll sign any statement I care to dictate to you?'

'More or less,' she said.

'Talking about fitting folk up always makes me thirsty,' he said, crushing the last empty can in his huge fist.

'Have to be Mexican,' she said, going to the fridge. 'It's good. So good some of the American companies started spreading rumours the Mexican workers piss in it.'

'So what? Yon reservoir up Dendale, the one supplies most of our tap water, we fished five bodies out of there last year. Cheers. Don't have another bit of pork pie in there too, do you?'

'Another bit?' she said.

It took him a second to work this out.

'You mean it weren't pork?'

'I don't eat dead animals, Andy, nor encourage my friends to do so. It was basically tofu.'

'Bloody hell,' said Dalziel, taking a long cleansing suck at his beer. 'Two things I don't do, missus. One is feed folk stuff they don't know what it is. T'other is fit people up. Understand that and we might get on a bit better.'

'Oh dear,' she said, concerned. 'I've offended you. I'm not very good on moral codes. I suppose that means goodbye to Plan Two as well.'

'What's that when it's at home?' he asked suspiciously.

'Well, after our first encounter last night I had the feeling that my boobs hadn't been so closely scanned since my last radiography checkup. I thought if all else failed … let me rephrase that… I rather hoped all else might fail and I'd have to fall back on the flesh, so to speak. But naturally I'd never come between a man and his moral code.'

Dalziel considered. Another man might have played for time by pretending to suck on the empty bottle or making reference to the weather, but Dalziel did his considering in plain view. Offers of trade-offs of sexual for constabulary favours weren't uncommon. He rarely bothered himself. A bang was only a bang but a good result was a collar.

On the other hand, if he was honest with himself (and with himself what was the point of being other?), he really fancied this lass. Not just the boobs. These days even Mid-Yorkshire was bulging with highly visible boobs. See two, you've seen 'em all. And not the way she spoke which still carried too many overtones of the Pitt-Overload era, or whatever the prat's name was. And certainly not all this dotty animal rights stuff. And she wasn't young. And she wasn't beautiful. Any other strikes against her? Yes, of course, the big one. OK so ALBA would almost certainly decide not to proceed against her. And the possible charges he'd just listed weren't worth wasting his time on. But if he thought there was any chance at all that she'd been mixed up in this Redcar thing. .

Very long odds against. One in a million. Less. She'd offered alibis and from what he'd seen he reckoned that she'd sussed out he wasn't the kind of cop who'd let a bit of nookie stop him from checking. So why was he looking for an excuse to reject what his whole being was urging him to grab with both hands?

Mebbe he was a bit scared of his own desire. Mebbe it was because there was something about her that hit the spot, like the bouquet of an untried single malt when you opened the bottle, telling you that this was one to be savoured.

She was regarding him oddly. Calculatingly?

'What're you thinking of?' he asked abruptly.

'Old friend of mine, same name as the novelist. Balzac,' she said smiling.

Bloody incomprehensible. But which on 'em wasn't?

Condition of service! And at least he now understood her motive for getting him alone. Just as he'd been identifying her weaknesses over the past hour, so she'd identified his last night, and taken a bloody sight less time about it.

Question his sodding vanity wanted answering was this. Was Plan Two a Last Resort, or really a Principle Object disguised as a Last Resort?

She read a question in his eyes, but misread it also.

She said, 'I had nothing to do with the Redcar raid, Andy. And I deplore what they did, both personally and as an activist.'

Well, she would say that, wouldn't she? Clever thing for a cop to reply was, I believe you.

'I believe you,' he replied. 'Them bones you lot found last night, looks like they could be pretty old.'

'So?'

'I mean too old to have owt to do with ALBA. With a bit of luck they might even turn out too old to have owt to do with the CID!'

'That's interesting.'

'Aye. Means there might be nothing at all to investigate. Certainly means you and the folk up there aren't mixed up in any investigation. I rang my media contacts on the way here, told 'em they could go to town.'

There. Now let's see if the chicken still crossed the road.

The phone started ringing.

'Could be for me,' said Dalziel. 'I left 'em your number. Or it could be News at Ten.'

'Shall I answer it?'

'Up to you. You're a free agent.'

'Yes, I am,' she said seriously. 'How about you, Andy? How's the moral code?'

Dalziel didn't mind a bit of obliquity but this was beginning to sound.. what was that word Pascoe sometimes came out with?.. sphincteresque? Summat like that. Any road, enough was enough.

He stood up and started taking his tie off.

'Moral code? he said. 'You've just cracked it.'