The Wood Beyond

ix

The church door was locked.

A man in search of sanctuary, or even just a bit of shelter from the rain, was out of luck in modern Kirkton.

Pascoe turned up his coat collar and leaned against the ancient woodwork. He'd managed to find two Pascoe headstones in the unkempt graveyard before the first spots had signalled that the sad old sun had lost its struggle against the creeping barrage of cloud from the west.

The first stone had been one of the many leaning up against the churchyard wall, presumably not so much signalling the last resting place of those named thereon as that they were somewhere in the vicinity. Many were rendered illegible by the impious abrasion of time, but fortunately the mason who had inscribed the Pasco (sic) stone had struck deep, and though the sharp edges of the lettering had long since been rounded by the wind and rain and moss and frost, the message from the grave remained clear.

'Here lye ye earthly relics of Walter Pasco shoemaker of this parish passed away in ye fifty-third year of his life, April 16th 1742 "His soul at last amended".'

Soul. Last. Mended, thought Pascoe. Someone had had a sense of humour. Modern vicars got rather uptight about what they thought of as unsuitable inscriptions, but surely something like this could only have been devised by people genuinely fond of the dead man who didn't doubt that he was sharing the final joke with them.

The second memorial had still been in place, but even though a century and a half younger, its softer stone and shallower chiselling had rendered it much more difficult to read. No jokes here, just the necessary information and pious exhortation.

'Samuel Pascoe, struck down by Providence in his thirty-sixth year, April 29th 1898. BE YE READY ALSO.'

April, noted Pascoe, definitely seemed to be the cruellest month as far as the Pascoes were concerned. So much for Ellie's mockery of his refusal to let a mild Easter lull him into discarding his undervest too soon. Be ye ready also. He must remember that as a clincher next time discussion of his natural caution came up.

Of course it was possible that neither of these Pascoes was any relation. He'd need to look at something more detailed like the parish records to be sure of that.

'Help you?' said a voice.

A small man in a large suit was peering at him from over a clerical collar just visible beneath a bushy beard, and from under a golfing umbrella bearing the legend: And on the seventh day God played golf.

'If you can open this door, you can offer me shelter from the rain,' said Pascoe.

'Certainly.'

The man produced a bunch of keys, three of which were necessary before the door swung open.

'Vandals,' he explained apologetically. 'Did my other church over at Mackley so thought it best to kill two birds. Prevention better than. Jonathan Wood, by the way. Vicar of this.'

He was very young, thought Pascoe, which probably meant the beard was an attempt at instant ageing. He'd either been very ill and lost a lot of weight or he shopped at Oxfam. As for the brolly. .

'Gift from my last. Curate there. Jolly lot,' said the vicar, following his gaze. 'And you?'

Mr Jingle seemed an unlikely role model, so Pascoe guessed that his abbreviated conversational style was devotional rather than literary in origin, deriving perhaps from a sense of the transience of things. Did he carry it over into his services? Dearly beloved. Gathered in the presence. Do you take. Pronounce you man.

'Pascoe,' he said. 'Peter Pascoe. I'm on an ancestor hunt. We came from round here a couple of generations back. I've found some gravestones with the name on. Latest was Samuel Pascoe, died April 1898, aged thirty-six. I was wondering if there were any records of births, marriages, deaths …'

His style was obviously too circumlocutory for the Reverend Wood who cut in, 'This way. Back to seventeenth. Before that, Civil War.'

Pascoe followed him down the aisle. It was a gloomy little church, with everything in it, font, altar, pulpit, pews, seeming disproportionately large, and the three stained-glass windows, with their central depiction of St Laurence on the gridiron flanked by two other exceedingly grisly martyrdoms, did little to uplift his soul.

The vestry was better in that there was a bright electric light and no memento mori other than a box file of church records which Wood placed before him.

'Photocopied,' he explained. 'Originals safely stowed. 'Ninety-eight, you said?'

He worked as rapidly as he spoke and in no time at all, or at least considerably less than Pascoe would have taken unaided, he found himself looking at an entry recording the death and burial of Samuel Pascoe in 1898. The entrant had been a conscientious man and there was the bonus of other information not included on the headstone. Sam Pascoe had died from injuries sustained in an accident at Grindal's Mill and he had left behind a widow, Ada, and a son, Peter. That just about clinched it, though it left unsolved the mystery of the name changes. But even as the thought passed through his mind, quick-fire Wood who had been riffling through the record sheets like the wild west wind came up with part of the answer.

'Here we are, to Saml. and Ada Pascoe, 13 Miter Lane, Kirkton, a son, Peter, July 15th 1892. Swithin's Day. Wonder, did it rain? Not the first. Little note. 7.4.11. Leap forward. Yes. Wedding. Peter Pascoe of this, to Alice Clark spinster of.'

Clark. It made sense. Alice Pascoe, out of. . what? shame? fear? pride?.. had reverted to her maiden name and passed it on to her daughter, Ada. Who by coincidence had married someone called Pascoe and so restored the family name. Coincidence? He recalled what Dalziel said about coincidence. 'No such bloody thing. If it happens to you, it's good detection. If it happens to someone in the frame, it's a bloody lie.' It didn't really apply here except in general terms. Don't trust coincidence.

Wood hadn't finished.

'Fast forward. 13.12.12. To Peter and Alice Pascoe a daughter, Ada. What's this. Same month. To Stephen and Mary Pascoe a son, Stephen George Colin. Where'd they come from? Back nine.. whoa! No need. Jump gun. August 28th. Stephen Pascoe, 13 Miter Lane to Mary Quiggins, 3 High Street. Cut it fine. A connection? Miter Lane. Common family groupings.'

'Possibly. I don't know. Miter Lane, does it still exist?'

'Name does. But blocks of flats. Sixties. Ghastly. No Pascoes I know of.'

'Any Clarks?'

'Can't recall any. But Quiggins. Unusual name. There's old Mrs Quiggins still lives with her daughter in High Street. Still at Number 3, I think. Original. Just over from church. Across cobbles. All that's left. Any use?'

'You've been most helpful,' said Pascoe. 'Just one thing, you said something about not the first, a little note …?'

'That's right. Someone else interested. Pencil. Keeping track. Look. Naughty but only copies so no harm. Other relative?'

'Most probably,' said Pascoe. 'Thanks again. I think it's stopped raining.'

'Good. Brolly down. Old parishioners touchy.'

It occurred to Pascoe that he might be wiser to change his umbrella rather than rely on the sun in his efforts to avoid giving offence. But he knew better than to come between a vicar and his God.

Outside, the cobbles were glistening blackly, like a still from an old French movie. This too was a salient, it occurred to him, this stretch of the old High Street and the church, a piece of the past bulging into the present, overlooked on all sides and rammed up hard against that impregnable defensive wall of the ALBA complex. He crossed the street carefully and looked for Number 3.

The woman who came to the door looked as if she'd fallen on hard times, or more precisely as if hard times had fallen on her, leaving her bent and misshapen under their weight. Her torso formed a right angle with her spavined legs and she supported her body weight on a thick blackthorn stick. Twisting her head to one side so that one bright, suspicious eye glared up at Pascoe from waist level, she said, 'We've had it, we've got it, we don't want it,' and prepared to close the door, evidently feeling that this rubric covered all possible contingencies.

'Mrs Quiggins?' said Pascoe quickly. 'I wonder if I might have a word.'

'Mother, who is it?' demanded another female voice from within.

'It's only the tallyman.. I've sent him packing,' screeched the angulated woman whose bent body gave Pascoe a clear view into the parlour which opened direct onto the street. From a door in direct line with the street door and which his acquaintance with the topography of such houses told him probably led into the kitchen, a second woman emerged, younger in the sense that she was fiftyish to the other woman's indeterminate antiquity and still solidly upright, but with an unmistakable familial resemblance in the way her unblinking two eyes fixed him as she said, 'Mother, come out of the way,' giving Pascoe the impression she wasn't so much clearing the air for apology as the decks for action.

'Miss Quiggins?' he said.

'Who's asking?'

It was time for a quick decision. Friendly stranger seeking information about his family, or impersonal cop making impersonal enquiries?

He would have preferred to stay with the truth but instinct told him that boyish charm was no route to the inner counsels of this unwelcoming pair.

He produced his warrant card, flashed it — too quick he hoped for them to register his name — and said, 'Police. We're trying to trace a family called Pascoe used to live in this area. The vicar said you might be able to help.'

'Did he? What the hell does he know?' said the younger woman scornfully.

'He brings me fags,' said Mrs Quiggins, looking at Pascoe with hopeful greed.

Dalziel would have produced a packet instantly. Pascoe smiled apologetically and said, 'So, can you help us, Miss Quiggins?'

'Mrs Lyall. Was Miss Quiggins a long time back.'

There was a note of nostalgia in her voice which suggested the altered state had not been altogether to her taste.

'So, Mrs Lyall, about these Pascoes, do you know anyone of that name?' said Pascoe crisply.

Mrs Lyall had moved her mother out of the way by main force, and now her bulk filled the door in a manner which suggested he was not about to be invited in.

'No one round here of that name,' she said authoritatively. 'What've they done?'

'Just helping with enquiries,' said Pascoe dislocatively.

'Well, we can't. Sorry.'

The door began to close. Then the old woman, presumably pissed off at being pulled out of the front line, cried invisibly, 'What's he saying? Pascoes? Is he asking about them bloody Pascoes?'

'Oh give it a rest, Mother!' yelled Mrs Lyall over her shoulder. And to Pascoe she said, 'She wanders. Pay no heed.'

'She seems to recognize the name,' said Pascoe.

'You reckon? Well, I live with her and I tell you she recognizes nowt. See this little bit of street here? Same as it was a hundred years back. That she recognizes, 'cos that's where she's lived all of her life. Take her fifty yards down the road to where it's all changed and she starts screaming like she's dropped off the end of the world. So if she recognizes the name it's because it belonged to someone who's long gone and likely long dead.'

'Nonetheless,' said Pascoe. The word affected the woman in much the same way as it affected Dalziel, bringing on a look of irritated resignation.

'If you've got time to waste, that's up to you. Me I've got work to do. See you don't let her out!'

So saying, she turned and retreated to the kitchen leaving Pascoe uncertain whether he'd been invited in or was expected merely to remain as guardian of the port.

He compromised by stepping over the threshold but remaining in the open doorway.

'Do you recall a family called Pascoe?' he said gently to the old lady.

'In trouble are they?' said Mrs Quiggins.

There was a note of hope in the old woman's voice which made him think that confirmation was more likely to move him forward than reassurance.

'I'm afraid so. We need to get hold of them urgently. So anything you can tell us about their whereabouts …'

She shook her head vigorously and said, 'Find that whore and you'll find him. All rotten, every last one on them.'

'That whore? Who do you mean?' he asked.

'Her! That cow! The one who was married to the other, the windy one who ran away and let his men get killed so they tied him up and shot him. All the same, it's in the blood, a bad lot.'

She was a crazy old woman, her mind as crooked as her body, Pascoe told himself. And I'm almost as crazy to be standing here, listening to her ramblings. Call it a day. Go home. Cultivate your garden. Play with your kid. Make love to your wife.

He said steadily, 'Would that be Peter you mean?'

'Aye, that's the one. Stuck-up bugger. Ideas above his station. And his mam no better than she ought to have been. And that other cow, so proud he were a sergeant, and all the time him plotting to kill the king!'

This was very lunacy! But he couldn't turn away from it now.

He said, 'And the other, the one who ran off with the. . whore?'

'Uncle bloody Steve, of course! Just upped and offed wi' her. Never a word more to Auntie Mary. Never a thought for the young 'un though he turned out as bad wi' that blood in him. The army said he'd gone to America, but we knew where he was. Oh yes, we knew!'

He had to get it absolutely clear. Even malicious craziness needs to be recorded if it is to be refuted.

He said, 'And the. . whore as you call her, she was the cousin's wife, Peter Pascoe's wife?'

'That's right. Alice Clark as was. She knew how to pick 'em, didn't she? Spreading her legs to one stinking deserter while t'other she's married to is getting shot by his own side!'

The daughter had emerged from the kitchen and was standing watching Pascoe with growing puzzlement.

'You did take in what I said, didn't you?' she interposed. 'All these ramblings of hers are stuff that happened a lifetime ago?'

'You've heard them before?'

'I could join in word for word! This and a dozen other tales she comes out with six times a day like it just happened yesterday.'

'You said you didn't know any Pascoes?'

'Nor I do, not living. Nor her either if truth be told. She were a kid when all this were happening, if it did happen. She picked it all up from letting her lugs flap and keeping her mouth shut. When I first heard it way back, her Aunt Mary weren't the virgin white she's become since, but the older she gets, the older her memories get too, and all she recalls now is what she picked up when she were six or seven.'

'You shut up, our Madge,' ordered the old woman. 'I know more than I ever let on.'

'I don't know about that, Mother, but you certainly let on a lot more than most on us want to know. Are you done, mister? 'Cos if you are, I'll shut that door and try to hang on to the bit of heat you've not let out already.'

Pascoe let the injustice of this pass and said, 'So you can confirm at least from your own recollections of family tradition the truth of what your mother says?'

'That was the tale in our family. Auntie Mary's man had run off with the wife of his cousin who got shot for a coward or something in the war. But there wasn't a Pascoe around here when I was a girl, and there's none now to my knowledge. You never let on it was history you was after.'

She was now openly suspicious. It was, Pascoe felt, time to go. He couldn't resist one last question, suggested mainly because of the confusion of names in his own family.

'Why is your mother called Mrs Quiggins? I mean, shouldn't that be her maiden name?'

It was a mistake he saw at once, implying knowledge there was no reason for him to have.

The daughter looked at him coldly for a moment then said, 'Not that it's any business of yours, but she managed to have me without benefit of clergy, so the "Mrs" is sort of honorary, ain't that right, Mother? Never had much luck with men, the Quigginses. Now, are you done?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'I'm done. Thank you for your help.'

He stepped back into the cobbled street, feeling the damp cold air like a blessed relief.

Behind him, as if resenting the escape of her audience and trying to lure him back with juicier bait, the old woman's voice screeched, 'I could tell you stories about them Pascoes! Should have shot the whole lot on 'em! Bad blood, that's what they were. Bad blood!'

And even with the door closed and the distance between them growing with each step, he could still hear the woman's eldritch screech as he got into his car.

'Bad blood! Bad blood!'