The Wood Beyond

i

'You wha'?' said Andy Dalziel, packing enough incredulity into the two syllables to make Doubting Thomas sound like a planted question at Prime Minister's Question Time.

'You heard me,' said Pascoe.

'Nay, lad, but I'm not certain I heard you right. You're saying that yon cranium you fetched me from old Death's sluices belonged to your own great-granddad who got shot by a firing squad in Flanders?'

'No,' said Pascoe patiently. 'That was my other great- grandfather, also called Pascoe. This is the one who got invalided home and when he found out what had happened to his cousin, he went out to Wanwood Hospital to have it out with Lieutenant Grindal.'

'Oh aye. And this Grindal who's a patient there, suffering from war wounds and neurasthenia,' said Dalziel, who'd clearly been paying much closer attention than he pretended, 'he knocks your great-granddad down with his crutches then buries the body after stripping it of all its clothes which he then takes to Liverpool to lay a false scent? He didn't meet a big bad wolf in the woods while he were at it, did he?'

'For fuck's sake, this is no joking matter!' exploded Pascoe.

Dalziel looked at him keenly then said, 'Who's laughing? I'm just saying that as a working thesis I've seen better runners pulling milk floats.'

'Perhaps so,' said Pascoe regretting his outburst. 'At the very least I think the family know more than they're saying. I'd like to go back to Kirkton and have another talk with Batty senior.'

'You'll do it in your own time then,' said Dalziel sternly. 'There's work to be done here and you've not exactly been pulling your weight lately.'

Pascoe didn't argue. The Fat Man looked in no mood to be contradicted, and in any case there was more than a grain of truth in what he said.

Also he knew he was allowing his own concerns to mask the fact that Dalziel had personal problems just as deep and a great deal more immediate.

'Anything new on Wendy Walker?' he asked.

'Nowt.'

'And is, er, Ms Marvell still in the frame?'

Those hard bright eyes ran over his face like a security sensor, cataloguing each feature for future reference.

'No change,' he said laconically, meaning, Pascoe interpreted, that nothing further had emerged either to incriminate or exculpate the woman.

He said, 'You like her a lot?' turning it from assertion to question in mid-utterance.

The eyes seemed to be measuring his inside-head dimensions this time.

'You planning to give me advice, Pete? I should warn you, I've already heard from the Sage of Enscombe.'

'Well I've started so I might as well finish,' said Pascoe. 'Make your peace now before you're certain, otherwise either way, it'll make no difference. If you like her that much, that is.'

'If I knew that, I'd not be listening to you and Old Mother Riley here,' growled Dalziel, glancing towards Wield who had just come through the door. 'What's up wi' you? Get your ticket punched for being late last night, did you?'

He was far advanced in the art of interpreting Wield's expression which to Pascoe looked little different from that which registered amusement or delight.

'Got a woman downstairs playing merry hell, sir,' said the sergeant.

Cap Marvell, thought Pascoe, and he saw that Dalziel thought the same.

'Mrs Howard,' continued the sergeant. 'Wanting to know how long we're going to keep her man banged up.'

'But I thought..' began Pascoe.

'That's right. We did, last night,' said Wield. 'No grounds for holding him longer.'

'Then why didn't he go home?' said Pascoe.

'Fancy woman?' said Wield.

'Would you say he's the type?'

'There's no telling,' said Wield making sure his gaze didn't even touch Dalziel's penumbra. 'But after talking to his missus. . Could just have done a bunk, of course.'

'Why?' said Dalziel. 'That TecSec brief had got him right off the hook, and you don't run from a banned driving charge. Peter, you talk to Mrs Howard, ooze some of that boyish charm over her and see if she knows owt useful. Wieldy, you check out that lass you saw give him the envelope, and if there's no joy there, then get out to Wanwood and chat up your mate in TecSec. And on your way out, one of you send Novello in, will you?'

Wield passed on the message.

'Does he want a cup of tea?' asked Novello, only half satirically.

Wield said, 'That chat you wanted last night, mebbe later, eh?'

'It's OK, I've slept on it, sarge. Woke up and it seemed a lot of nothing.'

She tapped on Dalziel's door and waited till she heard a bellow which might have been Come in, or the mating call of the African gorilla.

There was, however, nothing amatory about his expression.

'Sit,' he said.

She perched right on the edge of a chair and he said, 'Afraid of catching summat?'

'No, sir. Just didn't think I'd be staying long enough to get comfortable.'

Did I really say that? she asked herself incredulously.

'Oh aye? Why's that?'

'Well, we haven't had a lot of..' The word that came into her mind was intercourse, but it didn't seem a good choice. '.. talked a lot since I joined the department.'

'Got something worth saying, have you?'

'Well, not really..'

'Good. Soon as you have, just knock and come in. Now, last evening you escorted yon scrote Jimmy Howard out of the building, right?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Talk with him, did you?'

'Well yes, a bit, but I don't think… I know I didn't tell him anything.. '

'Christ, lass, you must have a bigger guilt complex than Judas sodding Iscariot! It's Howard I'm interested in, not you. So what was the crack?'

She eased her buttocks more fully onto the seat of the chair and said, 'We talked about that video he'd been looking at. He asked me if it was true that the thin woman, Walker, was really dead, and I said yes, she was. And he asked how, and I didn't see any harm in telling him, I mean, it was in the local paper…'

'Do I look like the Pope or summat, lass?' demanded Dalziel.

It occurred to Novello, who was a good Catholic, that given an ermined cloak and a flat red cap, Dalziel could very easily pass for one of the medieval fleshly school of cardinals she'd seen in paintings.

'You want to confess,' he went on, 'you go to see Father Kerrigan. Just tell me what went off!'

Given her assumption up to now that he was hardly aware of her existence, his knowledge that Father Kerrigan was her parish priest came as a jolt. If he knew that, what else…? But his fingers were reshaping a paperknife which she took to be a sign of impatience.

'So I told him what I knew, I mean what was public knowledge about Walker's death. And he went on about her. How did she die? Why were we interested? And I told him that we were always interested in hit-and-run accidents, and he laughed and said.. said things had changed since he was in the Force.'

Dalziel had noticed the hesitation and said, 'What you mean is he said something like, it took more than a mere hit-and-run to get yon fat bugger off his arse when I was in the Force. Right?'

There was a distant cousin of a smile playing round his lips so she said, 'Bastard, sir. He said fat bastard. And I said I knew nothing about that, but if he wanted to go and ask you himself, using the same form of words of course, I was happy to take him back upstairs. He refused my offer.'

'He's not entirely brain-dead then,' said Dalziel. 'How'd be seem to you? I mean, what state of mind do you think he was in, asking these questions?'

She thought a while then said, 'Agitated. Maybe even scared. Certainly well off balance.'

'And did he ask anything about Marvell, the other woman on the video?'

'No. Just Walker.'

'Right. Thanks, lass.'

She rose to go, her legs feeling absurdly weak with relief. Then he said, 'You spoken to Sergeant Wield yet?'

'This morning? Just when he told me you wanted to see me, sir..'

'I know that. I mean, whatever it was you wanted to say to him last night, have you had time this morning?'

As many CID officers before, she began to wonder in which part of her anatomy he'd planted his bug.

'Oh that. It was nothing, really.. '

'In this department, luv, nothing is nothing till I say it's nowt. So tell me.'

So she told him.

Pascoe meanwhile, finding that getting sense out of Mrs Howard was like getting straight answers out of a cabinet minister, abandoned charm and adopted the bludgeoning technique of a current affairs interviewer.

'Has he ever stayed away all night before?'

'Yeah, sometimes, on night shifts and such..'

'Not night shifts,' he snapped. 'We're not talking about night shifts, you know that, Mrs Howard. Now, please answer the question. Has he ever stayed out all night before?'

'Yes. A couple of times, but I didn't half give him — '

'I'm not interested in what you gave him. Why did he stay out on these occasions? Another woman?'

'No! You think I'd put up with that.. '

'Then what, Mrs Howard? What did you put up with?'

'It was playing cards, usually. And drink. He'd get in a game and get a bit of drink down him, then he'd turn up next day, skint usually, and hardly able to walk.'

'So that's what he might have been doing last night?'

'After you'd had him here all the previous night? No, all Jimmy would want would be to get home and wash the stink of them cells off him before he went out.'

'You're saying he wouldn't even have popped in for a quick one?'

'Mebbe that. But no more. That was one thing about Jimmy, couldn't bear feeling mucky. Used to shower straight off when he came home from shift, both in the Force and in his new job.'

So cleanliness if not godliness got him home, thought Pascoe.

He asked, 'Like his new job, does he?'

'Well enough. It's something. Keeps him from getting under my feet.'

Shower apart, thought Pascoe looking at the broadly built, gaunt-faced, resentful-eyed woman before him, what else was there to lure Howard home?

He said, 'I shouldn't worry too much, Mrs Howard — '

'I don't need you to tell me how much I should worry,' she interrupted. 'Time was when I had to put up with patronizing pillocks like you for Jimmy's sake, but that at least's all behind us. All I want from you now is to tell me what's going off.'

'Why, nothing,' he said. 'It was you who came to us, remember, asking about your husband..'

'Aye, and if you really just thought he'd gone on the booze, I'd not be sitting here talking to a chief inspector. I know how you lot work, and I know what you reckon to them you get rid of, and there's no way someone married to one of them 'ud get more than the time of day from a plod on the desk if there weren't something serious going off.'

I really must pull myself together, Pascoe thought. Dalziel's righter than he knows. I've not been pulling my weight this week, and even when I'm going through the motions, I'm not really taking heed. Thick, unattractive, termagant, that's how I summed her up and that seemed enough. But she's not thick; and what the hell would I look like if I was in here worried sick about Ellie's whereabouts? As for termagant. . 'Lost your tongue or what?' she demanded. . well, one out of three wasn't bad.

'Mrs Howard,' he said gently. 'You're quite right. We are concerned about Jimmy, though without any firm reason for being so. If there were anything positive to tell you, I would, but there isn't. You know we had him in in connection with a possible drugs offence. There is no prospect of our charging him which is why we let him go. But the drugs world is not a healthy place to be even on the fringes of. If there's anything at all you can tell us, if you have any reason yourself to believe Jimmy could be in danger, tell me. I'm not asking you to incriminate him. This is between you and me. No recording, no record even. For Jimmy's sake. Tell me.'

There was no answer to Wield's ringing at Jane Ambler's flat. A neighbour emerged non-coincidentally just as he was about to give up and said, 'She's probably gone to work.'

'Always work on a Saturday, does she?'

'Sometimes. I just know she went out at her usual time this morning.'

'No one staying with her just now, is there? Or visit her late last night?'

'Not that I know of. You police?'

'What makes you say that?'

'Well you lot were round searching her place, weren't you? I asked her about it and she said it was all a mix-up. Still mixed up, are you?'

'Thanks for your help,' said Wield.

It didn't sound promising, but as he was heading for Wanwood anyway, if she was there, he could kill two birds with one stone.

DC Novello said, 'It was that video tape you were looking at, sir. There was something. . could we see it again?'

Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, she thought. And if what she imagined she'd noticed proved a chimera, then at least she'd be able to start her back-tracking right off!

Dalziel rose and led the way to the audio-visual room. With Wield in charge of the tape, it was stored safely away in its catalogued place. He put it into the player and switched on. Nothing happened.

'Got to switch on the monitor as well, sir,' suggested Novello helpfully.

'Wondered when you'd spot that,' said Dalziel. 'Here, you'd best have the remote seeing as you're a technological genius.'

They watched Cap Marvell's confrontation with Des Patten, saw the cutters begin to swing back, saw Wendy Walker's intervention..

'It's here,' said Novello slowing the frames down. 'You all seemed to be watching the chesty dame' — Dalziel glanced at her narrowly. Could there really be someone in the Mid-Yorkshire Force who didn't know about his thing with Cap? — 'looking to see if she were really going to swing those things at the security guard, right? But I was watching the skinny one. If you look at her, well, if you're trying to stop someone launching an attack, it's them you'd face, isn't it? It's them you'd look at as you were talking. But she stands in front of the fat lass with her back to her and her arms spread wide, almost like she was protecting her from the guard. And she never takes her eyes off the man, see?'

Dalziel realized that he'd done it again. He'd only had eyes for Cap. In slow motion he could see quite clearly the definition of her upper-body muscles under the wet sweater as she swung the cutters back, the quiet resolution on that still, determined face. Not the expression of a woman in a murderous rage, he realized. Gentle tap between the legs to clear her path perhaps, but it came to him now that he knew beyond doubt she wasn't about to coldly and deliberately fracture someone's skull.

He ought to ring her. He ought to get up now and ring her and tell her, no, there wasn't any new evidence but he knew she was innocent, and even if she weren't, it didn't matter..

Novello said uneasily, 'What do you think, sir?'

Dalziel said, 'Play it again, lass.'

By the time Wield got to Wanwood, the weather which in town had merely seemed on the drizzly side of murky was wild and wintry and the wind roamed among the trees like a berserker who, having stripped his victims naked, is now bent on rending them limb from limb.

The guard on duty at the gate said, 'You're out of luck if you want Dr Batty. Not here.'

'Oh. Place shuts down at the weekend, does it?'

'More or less. Get one or two people in usually. Got to be someone to take care of the animals, I suppose.'

'I'm glad to hear it. Miss Ambler in?'

'Yeah. Mr Patten said it was all right.'

Brooding on this strange choice of words, Wield drove up the drive and parked in front of the TecSec office next to a white Polo.

'Can't keep you away, can we?' said Patten as he entered on a blast of damp cold air. 'What's it today? There's no one here except us chickens.'

'I thought Jane Ambler was in?'

'That's right. There she is. If it's her you're after, she won't be long.'

He spun his chair to face the bank of TV monitors and pointed at one. On it Wield saw Jane Ambler in what looked like a cloakroom removing articles from a locker and dropping them into a sports holdall. At her side was a TecSec guard.

'What's going off?' asked Wield.

Patten spun back to face him.

'What? You don't know?'

'Know what?'

'She's been fired!'

'Eh? But you said that her and Batty. .'

Over Patten's shoulder, he saw Ambler go to what looked like a store room and open the door. The TecSec man spoke to her, as if asking what business she had in there. She seemed to be urging him to go in and check for himself.

'Had a thing going? Yeah, but that's all it is to the randy doc, a thing. Puts his own thing about in a big way. Of course it did mean she could cause trouble for him at home if so inclined, but not any longer, not since the night before last.'

The guard stood on the threshold of the store room. The woman gave him a sharp push, slammed the door behind him and turned the key.

Wield said, 'What happened the night before last?'

Patten grinned, clearly enjoying himself.

'Seems the doc got home to find his clothes shoved into a lot of bin liners out on the lawn and the locks all changed. His wife was onto him at last and had chucked the poor sod out, sent him running home to Mummy and Daddy.'

Ambler had left the room and vanished from the screen without appearing on another. The corridors weren't covered by the system it appeared. Patten glanced round as if alerted by Wield's straying gaze.

'Finished, is she? Good, she'll come back this way and you can have your chat with her.'

'I thought Batty was in a funny mood yesterday,' said Wield. 'But you didn't know about this when we talked, did you?'

'No. I was knocked right back when about an hour after you left, he called through to say that he'd just been on the phone to Ambler and told her she was fired and would I delete her authority to enter Wanwood.'

'But she has entered,' objected Wield. And was still entering. She had appeared on the screen showing what he thought was Batty's office and now she was unlocking a drawer in his desk.

'Turned up saying she wanted to clear her personal things out. Didn't want the embarrassment of coming back when everyone was in. So I gave her an escort and sent her through.'

He glanced round again, just missing the woman's exit from the office after removing an envelope from the drawer and putting it into her holdall.

'Do you think she reckoned that if Batty and his wife ever split up, the doctor would take up with her permanent?' asked Wield.

'Could be. Hey, you don't think she were the one bubbled Batty to his missus?' The idea seemed to delight Patten. 'If that's right then it must have been a real sickener when, far from getting the man, all she gets is the sack!'

Ambler was now in one of the rooms in which the experimental animals were kept. She left the door wide open, pushed open all the windows, then started unlocking the cages.

'So how did you find out about the split-up?' asked Wield who could see where his duty lay but recalled the warnings in a recent policy communiqué about the dangers of overofficiousness. Think before you act, had been the advice. So now he was thinking.

'Rang the captain, to tell him what was happening and he gave me the sp. He's a bit of a lad himself, and it did cross my mind that maybe he was giving Mrs Batty one and had let it out that the doc was playing away too.'

'Why would he do that? I mean, after all, your setup here depends on Dr Batty's goodwill, doesn't it?'

'Business arrangements all signed and sealed,' grinned Patten. 'And goodwill goes out of the window when a good fuck comes through the door, eh, sergeant?'

Jane Ambler had come through another door and was repeating her liberation tactics.

Reluctantly Wield resisted the temptation to debate Patten's interesting proposition. Thinking time was over and he had to speak before Patten noticed for himself.

He said, 'RSPCA would be glad to see how well you exercise your animals.'

'Eh?' Patten spun round. 'Jesus! Why the hell didn't you say something sooner?'

He hammered a button which set an alarm screaming.

'Thought it might be part of her duties,' said Wield not trying very hard to sound convincing.

'Bollocks! And where the hell's that idiot I sent to keep an eye on her? Come on. We'd best get down there and sort this out.'

'You want me? You think there's been a crime committed?'

But Patten wasn't playing any more games. He rushed past Wield and out of the office.

For a brief moment the sergeant stood and looked at the monitors which showed him a variety of small animals emerging nervously from their cages and sniffing the air of freedom with every sign of doubt.

'Know just how you feel,' said Wield. Then followed.