The Wood Beyond

viii

'Andy. I thought it might be you. Come on in.'

Cap Marvell led him into her living room. On the coffee table stood the bottle of paint-stripping Scotch, open with a full glass beside it. On the hi-fi a woman was singing agitatedly in German.

'You'll join me?' said Cap.

'No thanks,' said Dalziel. 'Still going on about the war, is she?'

'No. She's saying that she would never have let the children go out in such filthy weather. They've died, you see. He wrote a whole group of songs about children dying.'

'Right bundle of fun, weren't he?' said Dalziel.

'He had his moments,' she smiled. 'You know, though, this song could be about war. All wars. Sending children out where the bullets rattle like hail and the shell blasts carve swathes through forests and folk.'

The song ended. She switched the player off.

'You keep on going on like you lost your lad in the Falklands,' said Dalziel.

'In a way I did,’ she said. 'In his place I got a hero which isn't quite the same thing. I had dinner with him last night by the way.'

'Oh aye? Takes his spurs and sword off before he sits down to eat, does he?'

She frowned and said, 'Andy, from time to time I may be mildly satirical about my son but it is a privilege I don't extend to my friends.'

Dalziel scratched his left jowl like a chef tenderizing a T-bone.

'Well that's me pricked in the pecking order,' he said. 'With such a bad attack of the maternais, I don't suppose you earned your snout pay.'

'Of course I did,' she said. 'In fact it was surprisingly easy. With so much conversational no-man's-land between us, Piers always seizes avidly on any acceptable topic which does present itself and never lets it go till he's torn it to shreds. Buster Sanderson saw us happily through our entrée and well into the petit fours.'

'Buster?'

'As in Keaton. He is evidently quite unflappable and the mess, even when deploring his escapades, was united in admiration of the aplomb with which he met both discovery and disaster.'

'For instance?'

'Night exercise in Germany. The CO returned unexpectedly early to his caravan and found his bunk occupied by Buster on top of a Fräulein. Without interrupting his stroke, the captain looked up and said, "Interrogation, sir. Give me another minute and I'll have it out of her." Or during a mortar attack on their barracks in Northern Ireland, Buster was on the phone trying to persuade his bookie to extend his credit. Everyone else dived for cover. When they emerged Buster was still on the phone saying, "Bangs? What bangs? Look, another five hundred is all I'm asking.'"

'So, he's a randy dickhead,' said Dalziel, unimpressed. 'But is he a crook?'

'He had a reputation for being — how did Piers put it? — unsound in matters of finance or the heart. But when it came to a fight, you couldn't ask for a better chap in your corner. He came dangerously close on several occasions to being cashiered or whatever it is they do to gentlemen that steal the mess silver or cheat at snap. And though the CO claimed that he was never consulted about the regiment's redundancies, nobody was surprised when Buster's name came out of the hat. Or his man's.'

'His man's? You mean Patten?'

'No, of course not. Sergeant Patten left some months before Buster. I'd have thought you'd have known that.'

At this point a real snout would have found himself levitated by his collar, banged very hard against a wall, and advised that unless he had comprehensive medical insurance, it was unwise to get clever.

Dalziel said, 'Aye, I did know that. Who then?'

'His batman. Private Rosthwaite. Rosso. Took care of all of Buster's needs.'

'You sound like that means more than bulling his boots.'

Cap smiled and sipped her Scotch without flinching or foaming at the mouth.

'Piers had to be pressed. There are some things a hero does not talk about with his mother. I thought he was being a bit coy about admitting what it didn't take a mastermind to guess, that a good officer's servant would do a bit of pandering on the side. But I finally got it out of him that Rosso, when time and place and circumstances made the procurement of female company difficult or dangerous, was reputed to supply the deficiency himself.'

'You mean he took it up the jacksie?' said Dalziel thinking he could see where the hero got his coyness from. 'Buster's AC/DC?'

'It would seem so.'

'Thought they kicked you out of the army for that?'

'Perhaps, among other things, they did.'

She didn't seem to know Rosso was dead, thought Dalziel. Why should she? He himself hadn't known anything about it till Wield had mentioned the accident. Did the fact that Sanderson might have used him for soldier's comforts make his death any more significant? No reason why. But mebbe he shouldn't have been quite so dismissive of the sergeant when he'd been trying to flesh out his wispy suspicions of TecSec.

'So what did the he.. your son have to say about Patten?'

'Not a great deal. It seems he had a reputation for being a bit of a hard man, the kind of NCO who might have made it to the very top except that from time to time he'd cross the very wavy line which even the army draws between honesty and dishonesty, discipline and brutality, and get busted. Of course, the army, being the army, knows the value of such men and very rapidly he'd always be promoted once more to his former rank. Rather like the police, I daresay.'

'No,' said Dalziel. 'You get reduced in the Force, you'd need more luck than Lazarus to make it back up. That it then?'

'That's it,' said Cap. 'Have I earned my thirty pieces of silver?'

'Nay lass, that 'ud make you both Judas and the Virgin Mary. Can't have it both ways. Not unless you're Captain Sanderson.'

They sat in silence now. She knows it wasn't this that I've come about, thought Dalziel. Since Wield's visit she's been expecting me. Why? He could think of reasons. And he knew enough of human complexities to know there could be reasons he couldn't think of.

He said, 'You've not asked about Wendy.'

'I rang the hospital just before you turned up. Still no change.'

She sounded genuinely concerned. But then she would be, either way.

He said, 'Get on OK with Sergeant Wield, did you?'

'He was … interesting. I liked him. He made me feel at ease.'

'Any reason why you shouldn't feel at ease?'

'Only my guilty knowledge that I was screwing his boss,' said Cap. 'I use the imperfect tense advisedly. I get a distinct impression that you haven't come here to have your wicked way with me, Andy.'

'Why do you think I have come?' he asked.

'Something about Wendy's accident. The questions your sergeant asked … oh don't misunderstand me, he gave nothing away. But I've been asked questions by quite a lot of policemen over the last ten years, and I know the difference between routine enquiries and purposeful probing.'

'Why should we be asking you questions about Walker's accident?' he said.

It was a crap question, not even justifiable as cat and mouse. There, each advance and apparent retreat was purposeful, leaving you a little further forward. But this did nowt, except fill in time while he tried to make his mind up which way to go. Such uncertainty was not a state of mind he normally brought to the interrogation room.

She didn't bother to reply, her silence confirming the status of the question.

She knows this is hard for me, he thought. So the clever thing is to make her think it's harder than it is.

'Look,' he said. 'This is hard for me. I should mebbe have sent someone else.'

'You did,' she said. 'Mr Wield.'

'I meant someone senior. My DCI, Pete Pascoe.'

'Why didn't you?'

'Because I owe it to you — to both of us — to come myself. You understand?'

Tempting her to agree, to acknowledge she knew what this was all about.

She sipped her drink.

'Yes, I think so,' she said slowly.

Jesus. Why didn't his heart leap as it usually did at the first sign of a hairline crack? Why did this part he was acting of the reluctant inquisitor feel so sodding real?

She went on, 'I understand that there's something about Wendy's accident bothering you. Well, there would be of course. It was hit and run. And from the way you're going on, Andy, incredible though it seems, I can only assume you've got me — how do you put it? — in the frame. Is that right?'

She was looking at him with a wide-eyed, innocent sincerity which could have got her a job as a token woman in a Tory cabinet.

His heart hardened. Guilty, she was playing hard to get. Innocent, well, she had nothing to fear, did she?

Cards-on-the-table time. She knew what they were, or she didn't. Either way, continued concealment was a waste of time.

He said, 'We think the hit-and-run might be just a cover-up, and Walker could have been attacked and left to die.'

Her reaction was perfect. Shock, incredulity, outrage, each perfectly proportioned, as first the fact then the implication of what he was saying hit her.

'You bastard!' she said. 'Oh you bastard!'

'Hang about,' he said in an injured tone. 'Second ago you were all philosophical, now all of a sudden I'm a bastard. What's changed?'

'Hit and run's one thing. Someone reports a Discovery near the scene, a number like mine, you've got to look into it. But this is cold-blooded murder you're talking about!'

'Attempted murder,' he reminded her gently. 'Walker can still open her eyes and put everything right.'

She didn't look like she found this a comfort, but then, he generously allowed, he doubted if he'd find it much of a comfort to be told that proving his innocence might depend on someone coming out of a coma.

She refilled her glass and emptied it immediately. She must have a pot-glazed gullet. Her eyes still said Bastard! but when she spoke her voice was controlled.

'Andy, there must be reasons why you're questioning me like this. Do I get to hear them?'

'Why not?' he said. 'Walker's Mark Shufflebottom's brother.'

'Who?'

Bad, he thought. Anyone in the animal rights movement had to know the name, and in any case, hadn't he mentioned it to her himself only a couple of days ago?

'Not the guard at the FG plant at Redcar?' she went on. 'Is that who you mean?'

Good recovery. He was firmly into his interrogation mode now. Be absolute for guilt, that was the only way.

That was what Wally Tallantire, his first CID boss, had taught him. In court they're innocent till proved guilty, Andy, he'd said. In here (tapping his head) they're guilty till proved innocent.

'That's the one. Walker reckoned the only way she was going to find who killed her brother was to do it herself. That's why she joined your lot.'

'Because she thought we had something to do with it?' said Cap incredulously.

Very good. If this was acting, then it were Old Vic standard. Made you wonder about them yells she'd let out on the bed yesterday afternoon. He suddenly felt old and grubby.

'Not necessarily. She wanted an in and you were it.'

'Because she knew Ellie Pascoe and Ellie knew me?'

Slightly betrayed. Not too much, seeing there were more important issues on the agenda here. This really was a class act. If it was.

'That's it. And once in, she set about getting herself a name as a hard case and trying to make contacts with real extremists at meetings and demos.'

'I thought she was wrong for us from the start. Far too pushy.'

He believed her, but that didn't make her innocent. Cap Marvell's extremism would be the kind that required unquestioning obedience, not individual acts of derring-do.

She went on, 'So what happened, Andy, that got me from being Wendy's way in to being number one suspect?'

He said, 'Summat happened that night at Wanwood. When I first saw you, you were the one being all aggressive, Walker was meek and mild and cooperating like mad. I've read the TecSec statements. Seems like you were the one wanted to take the guards' heads off with your wire cutters. In fact it was Walker stopped you doing serious damage.'

'They said that?'

'Yeah. Not true?'

She shrugged and said, 'Not the way you put it. That one with the scar, he just stood there with a macho fancy-your-chances sneer on his face. I don't deny it would have been quite pleasant to wipe it off. But even without Wendy's interference, I'd have banged him in the goolies, not tried to split his skull.'

'You're all heart,' said Dalziel.

'I see it's been a mistake,' she replied. 'So the theory is that somehow I let it slip that I was the mad killer of Redcar and decided that Wendy had to be silenced before she could spread the word? It would make a lousy movie. I mean, first of all, I'd have had to find out what Wendy was really up to, wouldn't I? How did I manage that?'

'She said something that got you thinking.'

'Oh yes. And that was enough?'

'Enough to set you off checking her out a bit more thoroughly than you'd done before.'

'The next day, you mean? Well, I have an alibi for most of that if you recall, spending it as I did in the company of a pillar of the community … oh shit, Andy. You think that's what I was doing with you? You think I opened my legs to get you to open your mouth? Oh shit.'

Her distress nearly got to him. He wished he had a drink, even the paint stripper. But this was no time to relent.

'You wanted to get me talking about her, I recall. And she'd just been to see you and you'd had a row. But you didn't dare try to get the truth out of her then and there 'cos you knew I might turn up any moment.'

She regarded him with amazement.

'You heard that?' she said. 'But you said nothing. '

'Nothing to say,' he replied. 'Then, I just thought it were girls' talk

'And now it's all down to her suspecting I'm her brother's killer. And me suspecting that she's on to me…. so how am I supposed to have found out the truth about her? If you were eavesdropping, you know that nothing was said about Redcar and Mark Shufflebottom, nothing at all!'

Aggressive defence, often a sign that you were getting there. But also a natural reaction, he reminded himself. Reassured himself.

'That's true,' he admitted. 'You can't have been certain. Not by a long shot. You'd have needed to talk to her again. When you learned she was going to have a heart-to-heart with Ellie Pascoe, could be the alarm really started sounding.'

'I don't believe this,' she almost whispered. 'Andy, you're talking as if you're certain that — '

'Nay, lass, don't take on,' he said. 'It's just a way of putting things. I do it all the time. It's routine, this is all routine. I'm just covering myself, covering both of us. I've got to be thorough. Like the first time I came here, I asked where you were the dates of the Redcar raid and the first raid on Wanwood.'

'Yes, and I told you.'

'I know. Only now I need lots of detail of dates, times, witnesses. For the record.'

She rose and left the room returning a moment later with her diary. He smiled at her encouragingly. It was half sincere, half an act, and he couldn't tell the boundary line. Surely it was better to play the right bastard rather than continue with this hot/cold pressure?

She looked quite relaxed for a moment as she flicked through the pages of her diary. Then she looked up, eyes huge with bewilderment, and said, 'Andy, why are you making me do this? I know you say it's your job, it's just routine, but I still can't really believe that even for the sake of appearances you've got to act as if it were truly possible that I tried to kill Wendy Walker the other night. For God's sake, we were at the university party together.'

'You left early.'

'To watch the telly interview. I asked you to come with me.'

'You knew I wouldn't.'

'How the hell did I know that?'

He gave her a conspiratorial grin and said, 'It's easy done when you've had the practice.'

She said, 'You mean, I manipulated you?'

'Why not? You've a way with words. Like if you hung around outside till you saw Walker arrive, I doubt you'd have had any problem persuading her to get into that van of yours for a little chat to sort her doubts and difficulties out. Plenty of room for the bike too.'

He dropped the bike in casually. The bike was a bit of a puzzle. Walker had told Ellie she was coming to the party by bus and would like a lift home. If she did come on the bus, then Cap would have had to go back to her squat to pick up the bike. Questions had already been asked there with the kind of result to be expected from folk who trusted the police like they trusted politicians. The driver of the bus whose arrival most closely coincided with Cap's departure from the party thought he did recollect someone answering Wendy's description, but as further questioning elicited the judgment that all female students wore jeans, cagoules and trainers, and most of them were skinny and pale and undernourished, this was far from conclusive.

So he watched Cap carefully to see if she reacted at all to his assumption that Wendy had come to the party on her bike. She didn't.

She said, 'And having got her into the Discovery and realizing she knew my guilty secret, I'm supposed to have knocked her unconscious, then driven out along Ludd Lane where I staged an accident and left her in a ditch to drown?'

Drown. She said drown, not die. Had he talked to her about the stream in the ditch and the way Walker's waterproof had formed a dam and saved her from drowning? It was possible. There'd been no reason not to. He'd been deep into trust then. He recalled another bit of Wally's wisdom. Trust no bugger save your own mam. And not till you've checked her record first.

He said, 'If you didn't do that, what did you do?'

'What I've told you, of course. I went straight home and poured myself a drink and sat and admired myself on television.'

'Any witnesses? You didn't stop off for petrol on the way home? Or pop out to buy a bottle of yon Mex ale or a packet of crisps?'

Here was her chance to trump his hidden ace before he even played it, to offer some explanation as to how ten minutes after the programme she'd allegedly rushed off to see had ended, he saw her coming from her garage and going into her unlit flat.

'No, Andy. I went straight home, settled down in front of the box, and that was it.' She spoke with a fervour that might almost have convinced him if he hadn't had the personal ocular proof that she was lying.

Part of him was tempted to challenge her straight away, but that was the part that wasn't a cop, and while not totally disenfranchised, it had certainly been a minority vote for longer than he could recall.

No, this was one you saved up for court, or at least for when you'd got her in an interview room with the tape running.

There was a double ring at the doorbell.

He said, 'That'll be for me. We'll need your garage and car keys.'

She looked at him sadly and said, 'Oh Andy. Isn't this where you say something about only obeying orders?'

'Nay, lass,' he said holding out his huge hand. 'Giving them. Now let's be having them keys.'