The Wood Beyond

vi

Sergeant Wield groaned as he pulled open the first filing-cabinet drawer and released a gust of that scent of old damp paper which permeated Digweed's shop and which he was determined was not going to tinge the air of Corpse Cottage.

At least, unlike Pascoe, he had come dressed for the job in white police-issue overalls with surgical gloves.

Patten had laughed when he saw him and said, 'What's this? Frankenstein meets the Abominable Snowman?'

His good spirits and the fact that he was the one who'd drawn Pascoe's attention to the cabinets convinced Wield that whatever else he found down here, it wasn't going to have any bearing on any scam TecSec were involved in. Of course, it could be he was completely wrong and TecSec was as clean as a whistle. Unlike Dalziel, Wield had no religious faith in his gut. If licking toads or chewing exotic mushrooms could conjure up visions, no reason why a bit of ripe cheese or dodgy kebab shouldn't provoke a dyspeptic hunch.

But the way that Jimmy Howard had jumped when he bumped into them just now, as Patten was showing Wield the way to the cellar, kept his rumblings loud and clear.

For the moment, however, despite the smell, he was not altogether displeased to be down here out of harm's way. Unfortunately he hadn't had time to give an account of his morning's work to Dalziel before Ellie Pascoe's revelations, which meant that when he did get round to it, every reference to the antagonism between Walker and Marvell came out like another straw on the camel's back.

'And Cap herself, what did you make of her?' Pascoe had asked, before Dalziel could, or couldn't, as the case might be. This was after Ellie had taken her leave.

Nothing to do but give the same answer he'd have given if Dalziel had been able to resist handling the fruit.

'Tough,' he said. 'Able to look after herself, and anything else she cares to look after. Not the kind that you could put anything across, or at least, not for long.'

'You mean, she might have had some suspicions about Wendy Walker?'

'About her real commitment? Yes, it wouldn't surprise me. Though of course the issue was clouded by Walker sounding off about the need for more direct, i.e. violent, action.'

'And Marvell's attitude to more direct action?'

'My impression was, she probably wouldn't set out to hurt anyone, but if it happened more or less by accident, I think she could deal with it.'

'And the others?'

'Jacklin and Walker apart, I reckon she's dominant enough for them to go along with her.'

'Why not Jacklin? She doesn't sound like one of society's strong wills?'

'That's mebbe the trouble.'

He gave details of Jacksie's relationship with the group.

'And being a nurse, of course, night duty means she's not as freely available as the others for evening activities. Cuts both ways. Means that sometimes she misses out, but also that if Cap wanted, it would be easy to miss her out.'

'Arrange something for a night you know she couldn't make it?' said Pascoe. 'Might be interesting to check if she was on duty the nights of the Redcar raid, and the first one at Wanwood.'

'To prove what?' said Dalziel.

'Oh just dotting the i's and crossing the t's,’ said Pascoe vaguely.

'As in shit!' snarled Dalziel. He drained his pint and banged his glass on the table with a crash which would have had many landlords grabbing for their baseball bats, but only got Jolly Jack reaching for the pump.

'All right. Do it,' said Dalziel. 'Owt else from your little tit-a-tit wi' Miss Jacklin?'

It ill behoved a man with his unconcealed mammary obsession with Cap Marvell to make breast jokes with regard to any other woman, thought Wield primly. Perhaps it was time for the little people to stop tippytoeing around the man mountain.

He said, 'Yes, there was, as a matter of fact. That night at Wanwood when they ran amok inside, Jacksie got the impression that Cap knew exactly where she was running to. And she was struck by the way she and Walker seemed to have swopped attitudes when they were locked up together later.'

Taking out his notebook, he quoted Jacksie's precise words.

Dalziel flapped his hand in a dismissive gesture which in central Asia would have destroyed whole fleets of flies.

'She explained that, swinging them wire cutters. Yon bugger Patten suddenly appeared in front of her. Reflex defence. I'd have done the same myself.'

And if a man lay dead at your feet after you'd done it, what then? wondered Wield.

'What about knowing her way around, sir?' he asked. 'I checked the TecSec statements. She almost made it to the labs.'

Pascoe rode to the rescue.

'She sounds to me exactly the kind of person who'd research anything she planned to do very carefully, not just act on girlish impulse.'

His intention was simply to offer another reasonable explanation of the woman's apparent knowledge of the geography of Wanwood, but he realized even as the words were still coming out that their application went far beyond that.

Both Wield and the Fat Man had turned on him gazes which were at once inscrutable and eloquent.

And that was when he said hastily, 'Oh by the by, talking of Wanwood.. ' and told them of his adventures among the filing cabinets.

Now Wield started using that gift which God has dished out to some humans with great generosity because, like a blind man with a jigsaw puzzle, He has only limited use for it Himself — the gift of creating order out of chaos.

First he established which cabinets had not been penetrated by ravening rodents. Using an indelible black marker he put the sign of the cross on those which were beyond his human skills.

Next he divided the others into their two main categories, Patients' Records and Admin correspondence, marking this on the cabinets. And finally he established the date parameters of each set of files and marked this on the side also. With many gaps, they ranged from 1915 to 1946. Pascoe, with that serendipity with which God sometimes compensates those who are Marys rather than Marthas, had stumbled on the earliest almost immediately. His news about the original ownership of Wanwood had been interesting, but Wield couldn't see how it related to their enquiries, nor did he really have any idea what it might be that Pascoe had set him looking for down here. But as a team the three of them, himself, and Fat Andy, and Peter, had long since come to rely on each other's peculiar talents to the extent that each could lead the others a long way down his particular road before they cried, Hold! Enough!

Physically, the cabinets relating to the years 1915-19 were the most accessible. Wield guessed that this was because they were the first to be dumped down here, after the war when the hospital administrators started looking forward to a period of peace and profit. Whoever had lugged them down the stairs had seen no reason to go deeper into the cellar than he needed, so had left them close by the entrance.

After 1946, perhaps something to do with the establishment of the National Health Service, other means of disposing of outdated records had been found.

Wield read through the early Admin stuff and glanced at some of the medical records. If the bones had anything to do with the hospital, and if these cabinets contained any clue to this connection, there were two ways of doing this. One was the Wield way which meant reading through everything and taking notes and hoping that out of such a careful cold collation some piece of nutritious information might emerge. The other was the lucky Pascoe way of putting in your thumb at random and hoping you pulled out a nice juicy plum.

He closed his eyes, jerked open a drawer, reached in, and grabbed a file.

'Well, bugger me,' he said. 'But not too much.'

A good policeman knows that coincidences though always suspicious are not invariably significant.

The file he had in his hand belonged to Second Lieutenant Herbert Grindal of the West Yorkshire Fusiliers.

So what did it mean? Wield asked himself.

Simply that Arthur Grindal who had so generously donated his country house to his nation's needs, had also contributed a son (or nephew maybe?) to his country's defence, and that when this same youth was wounded, he'd ended up at Wanwood Hospital for treatment. Nothing surprising or sinister in that. Nothing, considering the casualty rate in that mass mayhem, particularly ironic either. As for tragic, he riffled through the file, saw that Grindal had been invalided in September 1917 suffering from a broken arm and neurasthenia and had been passed fit for service by a medical board the following January. So, a happy ending, assuming of course that he made it through to the end of the war.

He dropped the file back into its drawer and glanced at his watch. He'd been here long enough, he decided. He'd tell Pascoe precisely what he'd found and done, and hope that maybe he'd get a bit more precision in return about where to look for what.

He didn't suffer from claustrophobia but it was a relief to get out of that cellar and back to daylight. Not that there was much left this November afternoon, and only a tiny fraction of that filtered through the grubby panes of the only window admitting on this old back kitchen. But he stood by it, his eyes drinking in the bright gloom.

There was nothing much to see. The back kitchen formed a bay protruding from the rear of the house, and the window was set in the wall looking sideways across a cobbled yard littered with dustbins to a matching bay about thirty feet away. There was a door in that wall and now there was something to see. The door opened fractionally but no one came out. Then a figure came round the corner of the house, looked right and left and right again like a good boy crossing the road, then moved swiftly to the open door.

It was Jimmy Howard. He paused in the doorway. It was too far and too dusky to see who was inside, and in any case the TecSec man blocked most of the view. But Wield got an impression of a white-clad arm reaching out and Howard taking something which he slipped into his pocket. Then the door was closed and Howard was walking swiftly away.

Wield moved swiftly too. He had the kind of mind which had automatically mapped every area of Wanwood House that he'd walked through. A locked door delayed him for a few seconds while he made a detour, but he was still quick enough to reach a corridor leading towards the lab area as a white-coated figure passed through a door at the other end.

No problem even from behind. It was the radiantly beautiful research assistant, Jane Ambler.

That was half the puzzle solved. He turned round and headed back the way he'd come, diverting before he reached the back kitchen to head towards the TecSec office. But as he passed a window opening onto the staff car park, he glimpsed Howard getting into an old Escort and driving away.

So despite knowing that Wield was onto him, the dickhead was still driving himself to work. Perhaps he thought a deal had been done. If so, he was soon going to find out all bets were off.

Wield went out to his own car and picked up his radio mike.

'DS Wield,' he said. 'I've got a job for any car you might have in the vicinity of the west linkway.

He gave details of Howard's car and number, noted from his earlier researches into the status of the ex-cop's licence. Privately, the kind of mind which forgot nothing could sometimes be a real pain, but professionally it came in very useful.

'I think you'll find the driver doesn't have a current licence,' he said. 'I'd like him booked and held till I get there. But don't mention my name. Oh, and by the way, he's ex-job and will probably be asking favours. We're right out of them, OK?'

As he peeled off his overalls, Patten came out of the house and walked towards him.

'Any luck?' he said.

'Sorry?'

'With them files. Any missing bodies or bones?'

'Not yet. But we'll keep on looking.'

'Rather you than me,' said Patten. 'Cheers.'

He smiled, crinkling his scar, and returned to the house.

Why's he so happy I'm spending my time here in that filthy cellar? wondered Wield. Perhaps Jimmy Howard had the answer.

He went to find out.

At the station, Charley Slocum, the custody sergeant, greeted his arrival without much enthusiasm.

'Yes, we've got him. He's making a lot of noise and asking for you. Seems to think you can get him out of this. I hope you're going to disabuse him, Wieldy. If this is some clever little CID scheme you should have kept him to yourself. He's in the system now, and that means no deals.'

'Fine, Charley. Got a list of his belongings?'

He checked through the list. All legit.

He said, 'Where's his car?'

'Out back.'

'Give us a moment? I need a witness.'

They went out to the Escort. Wield opened the driver's door and checked in the glove shelf and the door wallets. Nothing except the usual array of maps, dusters, et cetera. He paused, then stooped and lifted the rubber footmat.

A small white envelope lay revealed.

'What's that?' asked Slocum.

'How should I know?' said Wield picking it up by one corner and dropping it in an evidence bag. 'But if you wheel Howard out for me, I'll ask him.'