The Wood Beyond

xiv

The first person Ellie saw as she entered the party was Andy Dalziel, clutching a glass in one hand and a Professor of Divinity in the other to whom he seemed to be explaining some point of canon law.

When he saw Ellie he relaxed his grip and called, 'Hey up! Young Woodley back then?'

'Safe and sound. What are you doing here?'

Hurt crinkled the Fat Man's face like interference on a twenty-five-inch screen and he turned in search of support, but the professor, who knew the workings of divine providence when he saw them, was speeding towards the bar.

Robbed of its audience, Dalziel's face resumed normal service as he said, 'I were invited. So where's he at?'

'Baby-sitting. Who invited you?'

It was none of her business but Dalziel as usual had pressed her armed-response button.

'Friend,' he said vaguely. 'He'll be in tomorrow but?'

'Depends what time I get home, I suppose.'

'That kind of do, is it? Let me know when they dish out the marijuana cookies so's I can leave.'

'For the sake of diplomacy?' ventured Ellie.

'To fetch reinforcements,' said Dalziel. Then his face lit up and he said, 'There you are, luv. Thought you'd run out on me. You know Ellie Pascoe.'

Ellie turned to see Mandy Marvell approaching. She looked back to Dalziel trying to control her surprise. Then she thought, I'm trying not to hurt his feelings? and let it show.

Amanda said, 'Yes. Hello, Ellie.'

Dalziel said, 'Nice when you've got mutual friends. Thought there might be another one here. Wendy Walker.'

Jesus, thought Ellie who'd just been looking around to see if she could spot Wendy, how the hell does he always give the impression he's got me bugged?

Dalziel, who'd tossed in the name simply because he still found Walker's transition from pits to pets puzzling, noted her reaction with interest.

'As a matter of fact we did arrange to meet here,' said Ellie, recovering.

'Arrange? You keep in touch then?'

'She called today. For a chat. We didn't have as much time as we'd have liked and she said she'd probably see me tonight.'

'Oh aye? Didn't think she'd approve of do's like this,' prodded Dalziel.

'With her background she's a damn sight more entitled to be here than most of these freeloaders,' said Ellie spiritedly.

Dalziel's grin acknowledged the shaft even as it bounced off him. He emptied his glass and said, 'Aye, you're right, lass. They don't ring fire alarms to get folk moving in these places, they just open a bottle.'

It wasn't a completely accurate analysis, thought Ellie as she took stock of the other guests. One or two, like the Divvy prof, were notorious for turning up anywhere at the clink of a glass. But it was the moral as much as the alcoholic freeloaders who were swelling the numbers. This was obviously the politically correct place to be.

Which didn't explain what Dalziel was doing here in the company of Cap Marvell. Like Jane Austen, Ellie had a very good eye for an adulteress, and her finely tuned sensors were detecting, though not believing, a strong physical bond between the two.

She said, 'I gather you had an exciting time last night.'

Cap, who'd been observing the exchange between Ellie and Dalziel with close attention, said rather sharply, 'Wendy told you what happened then?'

'Not really. We got interrupted. She did seem a bit shook up, though.'

'That surprises me. She doesn't really come across as the up-shakable type. It was, after all, just a few bones.'

'That's one way of looking at it. In fact she didn't say much about the bones. I heard more about them on the news before I came out.'

'Oh good. You hear that, Andy? One wave of the magic truncheon and the walls come tumbling down. With luck this means they'll show my interview on the local round-up after the main news. Andy, if you don't mind, I won't hang around too long. I'd like to get back to see how it came out.'

'Please yourself, lass,' said Dalziel. 'I just tell the buggers what they can show, I don't have to watch it.'

Curiouser and curiouser. Did this mean he was expecting, or expected, to go home with her? And was there an implication that he was in some way responsible for Cap's media exposure?

'I didn't mean you should leave early too,' said Cap equably.

Funny how you can say no-strings and twitch one at the same time, thought Ellie, grinning so that Dalziel caught it.

'Just as well, luv,' he said negligently. "Cos there's a lot of folk here I've not spoken to yet. Can't have them going home feeling offended. Bog-eye, is that you? What fettle? You paid that fine yet? By gum, that brief you brought up from the Smoke should sing for Wales. You ever kill your missus, hire him, and I bet you'd get off with probation.'

Bog-eye, that is to say, Charles Burgoyne, Vice Chancellor of Mid-Yorkshire University, who had just survived a drink-driving charge with a fine but no suspension, lowered his aquiline nose to get the Fat Man in his sights, and said, 'Probation, Andy? With his fees, I'd expect approbation. Don't just stand there clutching an unfilled can. Come and fill it.'

And Dalziel, who never minded being bested by a worthy foe so long as he didn't let it go to his head, laughed and followed the elegantly patrician figure to the bar.

The two women watched him go.

'Incredible, isn't he?' said Cap.

'Beyond belief,' agreed Ellie. 'Known him long?'

'Long enough,' said the other almost slyly, quickly adding as though to relocate the exchange conventionally, 'But not as long as you, of course. Through your husband, I mean.'

'I assumed that was what you meant,' said Ellie. 'Yes, man, boy, and mad beast, it's been a long, long time.'

There was definitely something happening here, but she was more concerned with what she felt was happening to herself. She and Cap Marvell had never been friends, merely people who covered enough common territory for their paths to cross. Ellie's belief in universal sisterhood was political, not religious, and she felt no compulsion to love all her sisters equally. Also she had suspicions that the new Cap Marvell was still the old Hon. Mrs Rupert Pitt-Evenlode writ small, dragging her private income behind her like Marley's chain, and forever barred from full admission to the real world where people actually worked for a living. Her undoubted energies had proved useful in all kinds of worthy causes but still Ellie had reserved judgment. And she'd been right, she now found herself thinking. What did all this concern with animal rights prove but that the woman was still a middle-class dilettante who would feed her dogs fillet steak while her peasants starved in their hovels?

The vehemence of her imagery startled her. This wasn't reserving judgment, this wasn't even black-cap condemnation — this was a full-blooded lynch-mob howl!

And why? I'm jealous, Ellie thought. Oh God, the horror of it! I feel possessive about Fat Andy! I don't mind others seeing him as a yob, a slob — a living negation of all civilized values — but let them start appreciating the contradictions in him, let them come within hailing distance of the steadfastness at the heart of that monstrous bulk, let them (sod them. I mean a woman, I mean her!) let her slip inside that jokey love-hate familiarity which has developed between us over the years, and I resent it like hell. This is old Ada in reverse. Her I resented for telling Peter he was worth more than a copper's lot which is exactly what I spend a good deal of our married life telling him anyway. And I suppose if anyone ever has the effrontery to comment on Rosie's new ripe vocabulary, I'll give them such a mouthful they'll have no doubt where she gets it from. Oh shit. Why do I understand myself so well? Why can't I be like a messiah, or a politician, or a journalist, and honestly believe I know it all!

'Are you all right?' said Cap.

'Yes, fine. Why?'

'Your lips were moving, but no words were coming out.'

'It's a ventriloquist act I'm working on,' said Ellie. 'I think you may have spotted where I'm going wrong. Andy was telling me he's here because you invited him. How come you're here, if you don't mind me asking?'

'My grandfather, imagining he was rich enough for his money to last forever, decided to use some of it to give his name a similar lifespan. He was wrong about his money, as my father, inflation, and a lot of lethargic horses proved. As for his name, you'll have noticed it, but I bet you didn't think of me.'

'Hang on. You don't mean the Marvell Collection in the library? I thought it had something to do with the poet.'

'The family claim a distant relationship,' said Cap. 'But no, it was Grandfather's bid for immortality. And in the hope that some of his descendants might have similar funds and a similar fancy, the family name remains on the university's permanent invitation list. I wasn't going to come, then I thought it might be amusing to test the depth of their desire to see me by bringing Andy along. In fact he seems more at home than I am.'

'A man with roots knows where all the bodies are buried,' said Ellie broadly. 'I am of course quoting. Talking of buried bodies, whatever you say, it must have been a bit of a shock to you last night.'

'Less than you'd imagine. You expect bodies on a battlefield and that's what it felt like out there. You've got me worried about Wendy though.'

This was a change of tack. Perhaps she was all heart after all.

'I'm sure she'll be OK. She just wants a heart-to-heart. You know. Girl talk. We go back a long way.'

Which was laying it on a little thick.

Cap smiled and said, 'Yes, of course. Burrthorpe. And you were her sponsor, weren't you? And her guru too, it seems. Excuse me. There's Galway from Biology trying to avoid my eye. We need to talk about his rats. Catch you later, Ellie.'

She moved away in pursuit of a furtive-looking man in a hispid tweed suit. Ellie felt a pang of sympathy for him. Cap's energies might be misdirected but she was nonetheless formidable. With a bit of luck, Dalziel might for once have overfaced himself.

She looked around for Wendy once more. Still no sign. Damn her, she'd better show. Already she was feeling that she'd done her duty by the NUM and the one drink she allowed herself when driving wasn't going to last much longer. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned, saying, 'There you are,' only to find, instead of Wendy, she was being smiled at by Arthur Halfdane, historian and former colleague, whose career had prospered at the expense of his fresh young face and curly hair.

'Ellie,' he said. 'You're looking great. Someone I'd like you to meet. Melbourne University prof here on a sabbatical. Fascinating character.'

Bitter experience had taught her that while linguists were usually little snakes with silver tongues, and Eng. Littites frequently had both the tears and the teeth of the crocodile, your most dangerous academic fauna was a smiling historian with a burden to share.

Behind Halfdane she could see a desiccated man with irregular yellow teeth and a red line running round his brow suggesting either recent brain surgery or the habitual wearing of a tight-fitting cork-hung hat.

Ducking into the lee of a merry-faced woman in her late thirties and a flowered jump suit which strained to constrain her exuberant flesh, Ellie hissed, 'Thanks but no thanks. I've done my Ozzie quota for the year.'

'That's OK, girl. I hate you fucking Poms too,' said the Rubenesque woman, her smile even wider.

'Ellie,' said Halfdane with that smug historian's expression evolved through centuries of being right about everything fifty years after it happened, 'let me introduce you to Professor Pollinger.'