The Wood Beyond

vii

Once Kirkton must have been a separate entity, a small Yorkshire village with its own life and a big enough span of open country between it and Leeds to make the pre-motorized journey a matter of some moment.

The nineteenth century had brought the city closer and the twentieth had completed the job, with tentacles of urban sprawl running out like rivulets of Vesuvian lava, threatening, touching, consuming, and finally passing on, leaving a dead and dusty landscape in their wake.

Residential development had been mainly at the lower end of the market, long dark terraces rising steeply from narrow pavements still running like scars between later, more enlightened attempts at council housing in redbrick blocks of four, with some pebble dashing and three almost distinguishably different designs. In the middle of this, traces of the original village remained — a church and a crowded graveyard, an old village cross and several whitewashed cottages flanking a cobbled street. This probably owed its preservation to its descent from the importance signalled by the name plate at its opening, High Street, to the status of a mere cul-de-sac, formed by dropping a huge factory wall across the far end.

This Pascoe observed in passing. He was following a series of signs reading ALBA all vehicles, and when he glimpsed the wall dwarfing the little cottages, he guessed he was getting near.

The ALBA complex was huge, spanning a small river which may once have dimpled brightly between fields of hay, providing fresh water and fresh trout for those happy enough to live on its banks. But now, though Pascoe did not doubt that the water authorities would not let considerations of profit to their shareholders or pelf to their executives inhibit them in their priestlike task of enforcing all the innumerable regulations regarding pollution of waterways, the turgid stream looked black and lifeless.

He'd taken the precaution of telephoning in advance and his passage through the security gate was swift and painless.

'Follow the Maisterhouse sign,' said the gateman.

It was a fair drive, taking him, he guessed, back towards the old centre of the village, but the walls were too high for him to get confirmation from a glimpse of the church spire.

What the Maisterhouse might look like puzzled him, but when it finally hove into view behind a long, low, modern laboratory, he had no problem recognizing it.

It was a fine three-storey Georgian house, austere but elegantly proportioned, standing amidst its industrial surrounds like a bishop in a barnyard.

As he got out of his car, a young man in a grey business suit opened the front door and said, 'Mr Pascoe? Come this way. Mr Batty is expecting you.'

'Mr Batty?' said Pascoe. 'You don't mean Dr David from your Research Division?'

'Oh no,' said the man. 'This is Mr Thomas Batty, our chairman.'

This surprised Pascoe. When he'd rung up he'd asked if he could have access to the Wanwood House conveyance documents which presumably would include a list of previous owners. Also he would like to have a chat with anyone who might have worked on the transfer. Why the company chairman should feel it necessary or useful to involve himself, Pascoe could not guess.

They went up a broad flight of stairs, then the man in the grey suit tapped lightly on a door and pushed it open without waiting to hear a reply.

In obedience to his gesture, Pascoe stepped through.

He found himself in a spacious drawing room, which his amateur antiquarian eye told him was furnished more to the taste of the nineteenth than the eighteenth century. A man was standing in front of the tall marble fireplace in which a teepee of pine logs gave off a comfortable heat and a pleasant aroma of resiny smoke. Through the tall sash windows a view of the top of the church spire told him his sense of direction had been good.

The man, who was of medium build, in his late sixties, with corn-coloured hair now laced with grey, came forward with a welcoming smile and outstretched hand.

'Mr Pascoe, how do you do? Come and sit down. I've got some tea here but if you'd prefer something stronger. .?'

His voice was strong, his accent educated but unmistakably northern.

'Tea's fine,' said Pascoe. 'Mr Batty, I hope you haven't mistaken the purpose of my visit. It's really something which someone in your records office could have dealt with. Forgive me for being so forthright, but I should hate you to feel your probably very valuable time is being wasted.'

That forced the issue nicely, he thought. He didn't believe for a moment that Batty was here by accident and the sooner they got on a level, the better.

'Nothing to do with ALBA can be a waste of my time, Mr Pascoe,' said Batty firmly. 'We went public many years ago, but we've still stayed basically a family firm. The minute I heard from my son about that grisly discovery out at Wanwood I gave orders that all further developments should be referred directly to me.'

'I see. Your son. . that would be Dr David Batty?'

'That's right. My son the doctor,' said Batty with a smile. 'He got the scientific brain which comes from the Batty side of the family, plus, I'm glad to say, enough of the entrepreneurial spirit from the distaff side to bode well for when he takes over. Meanwhile he's where he can be most useful. Research is a young man's game. They're like professional footballers, these chaps, pretty well played out some time in their thirties and ready to slip into management. So nature has programmed David perfectly.'

'That must be very satisfying to you, sir,' said Pascoe. 'Having such a perfect heir. Were you a scientist too?'

'Not really. Got the basics, of course, but my grandfather's genes seem to have skipped me. I was always more interested in running the business side of things, so you can imagine how it suited everyone, especially old Arthur, when Janet and I fell for each other.'

Pascoe had often noted in certain Yorkshiremen who'd achieved a measure of local prominence what he categorized as a sort of inverted braggadocio. While not feeling it necessary to blow their own trumpets, their social intercourse was based on two tenets: not to know me argues yourself unknown; and, not to be fascinated by me argues yourself dull as ditchwater. This was probably the explanation of Batty's friendly volubility, except that as head of a national, indeed international, and highly successful business, he might have been expected to subscribe to that other more fundamental Yorkshire precept, see all and say nowt. Maybe he just wanted to be loved. Pascoe decided to go with the flow.

He said apologetically, as if the name of the Queen had inexplicably slipped his memory, 'Now Arthur, that would be..?'

'Arthur Grindal, my wife's grandfather, my granddad's cousin, him who started Grindal's Mill here in Kirkton, remember?'

'Of course. The business brains. And the Battys provided the scientific know-how.'

'That's it. Without old Arthur, my grandfather would have spilled the beans about all his ideas in some learned journals and let someone else develop them commercially. And without him, old Arthur would have ended his days spinning cloth for a declining market. As it is, well, look around you, Mr Pascoe. One of the biggest independent pharmaceutical companies in the EU and, so long as lads like my David keep coming up with the goods, likely to continue so.'

Pascoe, taking the instruction to look around literally, said, 'This Maisterhouse, just exactly what is it?'

'Used to belong to the village squire. Arthur bought it way back when his mill got going and the money started rolling in. It had a name of its own but the millworkers soon started calling it the Maisterhouse. There was a nice piece of parkland with it, and when the business went into rapid expansion after the last war this was the obvious, i.e. cheapest, way to come. Arthur Grindal was no sentimentalist and he wanted to knock the old place down but they wouldn't let him. Listed building, they said, you can't touch it. Right, said Arthur, I won't. But I'll do what I want with my own bloody land! And as you can see, he did. There were very few restrictions on industrial development in those days. So now we use the Maisterhouse for receptions and entertainment, and there's

accommodation for the family and the odd distinguished guest who needs to be right on top of things. Heritage folk want to come sniffing around from time to time. It takes them a lot longer to get through the main gate than it did you, I can warrant you!'

Pascoe joined in his laugh. Keep on the right side of the customer till you'd got his money. And in any case, was he not also of this same hard Yorkshire stock, traceable back to this very village? It was an idea that was taking some getting used to.

He said, 'Now about Wanwood House, sir. As you know, some bones were discovered by some women..'

'Yes, yes. Blasted animal protesters,' said Batty. 'I can't imagine why you lot don't just round them all up and put 'em away.'

He sounded as if he meant 'down'.

Pascoe said, 'Where a crime has been committed — '

Batty interrupted, 'Crime? They killed a security guard up at Redcar, didn't they? Isn't murder a crime any more?'

'That was tragic, though whether a murder charge would be sustainable, I'm not sure..'

'He died, didn't he? As a result of action by those lunatics. What would you call it? These people are a menace and need to be pursued to the extremity of the law.'

'This means you will definitely be prosecuting for trespass?' said Pascoe wondering how Dalziel would react to seeing his inamorata hauled up before a court, if that indeed was what she was.

'What? No, probably not,' said Batty.

'Oh? I understood that your son, Dr Batty, was determined..'

'David looks after research, mine is the final say-so in matters of general policy,' said Batty sharply. 'The state of the courts nowadays, prosecution's a waste of time and money. All it does is buy us bad publicity, and these bones could give us enough of that without pursuing more.'

There was some muddled thinking here. Or maybe being able to adhere to three contrary opinions at the same time was a sine qua non of the captaincy of industry.

Pascoe said, 'Yes, the bones. If I could have a look at the documents relating to your purchase of Wanwood House …'

'What period are you interested in?'

'We're not precisely sure yet, but as I explained on the phone, there's certainly no question of these remains having been buried there during ALBA's occupation of the premises.'

'Yes, I understand that. I've had photocopies made of the relevant passages from the conveyance. As you'll see, it had in fact been used as a private hospital or clinic, some such thing, which is what attracted us. I mean we weren't starting from scratch in converting it from residential to scientific use. Also the location, not too distant from head office here, yet obscure enough, so we hoped, to be concealed from the attention of these lunatic protest groups. It didn't take them long to track us down. People are big on mouth and short on loyalty these days.'

'Yes. I see from the conveyance you were dealing with a trustee in bankruptcy. How did a private hospital manage to go bankrupt in this day and age?'

'Healthcare is a business like any other, Mr Pascoe. Expansion has its dangers as much as recession. Let yourself get overextended, and give your enemies a glimpse of your jugular, and you'd be amazed how quickly they're in there, slashing and sucking. Of course, a hospital is the kind of place you'd expect to find a few old bones. Couldn't just be that they didn't follow the regulations about the disposal of amputated limbs very closely, could it?'

Pascoe considered this macabre suggestion, or rather considered whether Batty was making it seriously.

He said, 'Unless they did an operation there involving the removal of the complete cranium, I very much doubt it. How long had it been a hospital, do you know?'

'Oh seventy, eighty years,' said Batty vaguely. 'A hell of a long time, that's for sure. Does that help you?'

'Not a lot,' said Pascoe. 'Private family ownership's one thing. You've some chance of checking up on reports of missing persons, rumours of family quarrels. But when you think how many people, patients, relations, staff, must have been connected with even a small hospital over that period. And of course, the remains may have nothing to do with what went on inside the place. Someone just thought it was a handy bit of woodland to dump a body.'

'Doesn't sound hopeful.'

'Not unless we get a precise dating. Or failing that, a cutoff point somewhere the other side of sixty, preferably seventy, years. Then, even if foul play is proved, there'd be so little chance of a result, we'd be able to stick it in the Open-But-Shut drawer.'

Batty said, 'Cut your losses, eh? Same in business. The art of good management is knowing when to say, far enough, let's forget it.'

His tone and manner were pleasantly sympathetic. So why, wondered Pascoe, do I get a sense of. . calculation?

He said, 'Thank you for your time anyway, Mr Batty.'

'Not at all. Though you do seem to have had a long trip for little reward. We could have faxed you these papers.'

'Oh, it's good to get out and about, actually see the wheels turning.'

As they talked, Batty was moving him through the door and along the landing, but at the head of the staircase he halted. There were two women coming up, one a small sprightly woman in late middle age, the other younger and wearing what was unmistakably, though not inelegantly, a nurse's uniform.

'Janet,' said Batty. 'Say hello to Detective Chief Inspector Pascoe. Mr Pascoe, my wife, Janet.'

The older woman halted, said, 'I'll be with you in a minute,' to the nurse who continued up the next flight of stairs, then extended her hand to Pascoe and said, 'How do you do?'

The handshake was firm enough and the tone level enough, but was he imagining a degree of unease? If so, it was probably no more than the common stormy-petrel reaction to finding a copper on the premises. No one sees a policeman at the door and thinks, oh, my premium bonds must have come up.

But she didn't ask what he was doing here. Meaning she knew? Or that, like a good corporate wife, she knew better than to ask before her husband gave the signal?

'No one is ill, I hope?' said Pascoe letting his gaze drift after the vanishing nurse.

'Oh no,' said Batty. 'We maintain a small first-aid unit in case of emergencies.'

'Well, at least it should be well stocked,' smiled Pascoe.

'What? Oh yes, of course. I'll see you in a moment, dear.'

'Goodbye, Mr Pascoe. Nice to have met you,' said Janet Batty.

They continued their descent and a few moments later stepped back into the twentieth century.

'I suspect this would come as a bit of a shock to the original owner,' said Pascoe, himself taken aback by the contrast between what he'd left behind and the whole messy complex stretched out before them.

'Possibly. On the other hand I daresay he looked out on his fields and flocks and forests and thought, all this is mine, this is what keeps me and my family in comfort, exactly as I do today. We're pragmatists up here in Yorkshire, Mr Pascoe. You're from the south originally, I gather?'

Now where on earth did you gather that? wondered Pascoe. No, change the question. He'd no doubt that Batty could plug into the same Yorkshire internet that gave Dalziel his local omniscience. More interesting was, why should Batty have bothered to check him out?

A mischievous desire to let the man know that his system wasn't infallible made Pascoe say, 'Originally? No, not the south. In fact my family are local, Mr Batty. As local as yours. My grandmother was born in this very village, when it was still a village. Perhaps you've noticed some Pascoes in the church.'

For some reason the suggestion seemed really to offend Batty. His face changed colour and his studied good humour melted like snow off a dyke.

'No,' he said shortly. 'Can't say I have but I don't pay much attention to the relicts of the dead.'

'Not even when they turn up on your own doorstep?' murmured Pascoe, interested to probe this reaction.

But the old Batty was back in control.

'Then least of all,' he said smiling. 'Goodbye, Mr Pascoe.'

They shook hands and Pascoe got into his car.

'One more thing,' he said through the open window. 'I've been puzzling over your firm's name. ALBA. All I could come up with was some connection with the colour white. You know, as in albino.'

Batty grinned and said, 'It's both more and less prosaic. When the two sides of the family united in business between the wars, or rather when old Arthur decided that the real future lay in pharmaceuticals rather than cloth, like any down-to-earth Yorkshireman, he called the firm what it was, putting himself first, of course, Grindal and Batty. But in the fifties when we went public and the selling became as important as the manufacturing if we were going to compete in the big time, some of us thought that something a bit snappier was needed.'

He paused, as if his words had conjured up other images of those distant days.

'Some of us included you?' prompted Pascoe.

'I was in my early twenties, just back from business school in the States. Oh yes, I was all for change,' admitted Batty. 'Not that anyone took much notice of me back in those days. Nobbut a lad, they said. My father was running the business by then with Uncle Bert, that's my wife's father, Herbert Grindal. They weren't much for change, Dad because he was naturally cautious and Uncle Bert because being under old Arthur's thumb all his life hadn't left him much room for original thinking.'

'Old Arthur?' said Pascoe still uncertain why a man who didn't pay much attention to the relicts of the dead should be so keen to share his family's history. 'He must have been a ripe old age?'

'In his nineties,' said Batty. 'He'd finally retired in '48 on his ninetieth birthday, but he still cracked the whip when he wanted. And surprisingly he was all for a change, mainly because Janet who was the apple of his eye came up with this brilliant idea. That description was hers, but once her grandfather agreed, we all went along. And it was a pretty good idea, after all.'

'The idea being ALBA?' said Pascoe still puzzled.

'GrindAL BAtty,' said Batty stressing the relevant syllables. 'Gerrit? And Arthur still went along even when Janet, who was only seventeen then and a real romantic, announced that an alba was some sort of medieval dawn chorus. Two for the price of one, he said. The firm's old partners, the company's new dawn. Practical or poetic, take your pick.'

Pascoe looked westward to where the November sun was little more than a pallid aureole around the looming dome of a huge storage tank.

Of course on a summer morning with the sun rising behind the Maisterhouse it might all look very different. A new dawn, a new day..

… I watched the dawn lighten the sky beyond Sanctuary Wood — sounds nice and romantic put like that — except the sky was black with rain clouds — and Sanctuary were barely more than a bristle of blasted stumps — and this dawn would send us forward for a new big push.

Six weeks too fucking late Pete — said Jammy — this should have happened straight after Messines while Fritz was still on the back foot and the weather was set fair. Funny how up in the Line things look so obvious that them buggers back at Base just cant see.

Were not in the first wave thank God which is why Ive got time to write. Trouble is it gives more time to think too and more time to snap. Id like to say Im more worried about Gertie than me except Im not. But I am worried about him. The lads have taken to him ever since the night he were inspecting the sentries and came across Chuffy Chandler bashing his bishop — I were there too and I thought — sleeping at your posts a topping offence God knows what they do to you for this — But all Gertie said was — Corporal whatever youre feeding that man see that I get some too!

The lads loved this and Ive got to give it to him — he knows how to speak to them — friendly but firm with it like a real officer. Its that word like that bothers me but sometimes it sounds to me like hes speaking lines from a play — which isnt so easy to do when the curtain really goes up.

No chance to write for nearly a week — and the first four days it rained and rained and rained nonstop — I bet this has been a famous victory in the papers back home — but were still here in Sanctuary only at the far side now so weve made some progress — it started all right — by the time we went forward the first attack had flushed out Fritz from his positions on the eastern edge of the wood. Gertie were so keen to get up there and fight that we were hard set to keep up with him — I knew from Jammy that the battalions orders were to deploy left to keep the line between Sanctuary and Chateau Wood which had been taken pretty quick — only with the ground so churned up — and the smoke and the rain — and Gertie rushing on like a stallion thats got a whiff of the mares — we crossed in front of our support to the right and came out of Sanctuary on the wrong side of the northeastern corner. Gertie waves his left arm and says — Theres Chateau — and starts sending us out to take up our positions — I didnt think owt was wrong but Jammy whose got the kind of sense of direction that can find a pub in a desert says — No sir thats Glencorse — and Gertie shouts — Nonsense sergeant — and sets out after number one section. Jammy tells the rest of the platoon to hold fast — but I keep going after Gertie who reaches the Menin Road when all hell breaks loose out of the wood opposite and thats number one section gone — just like that — now you see them now you dont — and Gertie miraculously untouched just stands there like a hen with gapes — mouth open nothing coming out. I got to him first — hit him like a rugby league fullback — and heard the Hun bullets hissing overhead. Then Jammy was with me and together we managed to drag him back like a sack of coal.

Well that might have got Gertie a real kick in the arse from above — except there were more bollocks that day than youd see at a tinkers wedding including a whole brigade getting the false message that Glencorse had been taken and this time the Huns waiting till they were all across the road before they snapped the trap shut.

So all Gertie had done was get a few of us killed which nobody blamed him too much for — but Id seen his face when it happened — and I said to Jammy — Weve got real trouble here sarge — and he turned that great slab of a face to me and said — It were you saved his life lad — so Id say he were your responsibility now — wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?

'Mr Pascoe. Hello. Are you all right?'

Pascoe looked up into the puzzled face of Thomas Batty.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I was just thinking, it looks like rain. Goodbye now.'

And he drove off towards the setting sun.