The Wood Beyond

iv

Slow and perilous was the journey westward, with flooded roads and fallen trees. Three times the drapes of darkness swirling in his headlamps' beam were drawn back by the emergency services, and for a moment, like the Venerable Bede's sparrow, he passed through a salient of light across which stretcher-bearers bore the wounded and the dead from the wreckage of their lives.

Kirkton lay in darkness. The power lines must have come down. Only the red glow of coal and the buttermilk light of candles limned the curtained windows. So must the village have looked when it still was a village eighty years ago. But an inflammation of the sky beyond the massive fortress wall told him that ALBA lived up to its name in this at least, summoning up the dawn of its own generators when the national grid failed.

They were expecting him at the Maisterhouse. Of course the gateman would have rung through. But as he entered the long sitting room and saw them grouped around the fireplace — Thomas Batty serious and watchful — Janet Batty, Bertie Grindal's daughter, uncertain and anxious; Dr David, the main object of his visit, smiling and welcoming — he got a sense of expectancy deeper rooted than mere foreknowledge.

It was David Batty who spoke.

'Chief Inspector Pascoe. . Peter.. good to see you again. Take a pew. And take some tea too. No use offering anything stronger, I suppose?'

He seemed too genuinely at ease for it to be wholly an act, confirming Pascoe's feeling that their expectancy had nothing to do with what had happened at Wanwood — today, at least. So don't break the mood, he thought as he sat down. Time enough to reveal his official purpose.

He said, 'Nothing for me, thanks. Aren't you going to sit down too?'

They were still looming over him. David Batty grinned and slumped into a deep armchair while his parents perched awkwardly on the edge of a chaise longue which looked sculpted rather than upholstered.

Whatever they have to tell me, thought Pascoe, is going to be told through necessity not choice. They must be shown that I know too much now to be diverted from pursuing the whole truth.

He said, 'Mr Batty, last time we met I think I mentioned to you that I had a family connection with Kirkton. I had a slight suspicion then that you knew something more about the Pascoe connection than you were letting on, and that the knowledge that I was one of the Kirkton Pascoes came as a bit of a shock to you.'

'No. Why should it?' denied the man unconvincingly.

'Good question. I wondered about it myself. Then as I later discovered a fairly close connection between your family and mine a generation or so back, I thought perhaps you too were somehow aware of it. But it still didn't explain the intensity of your reaction. Then yesterday — or rather early this morning — '

He stifled an associative yawn as his words reminded him how little sleep he'd had.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I discovered or at least developed a strong suspicion of something quite extraordinary, to wit, that the bones discovered out at Wanwood belonged to my great-grandfather.'

He saw on the older pair's face the admission of knowledge, quickly suppressed on the man's, but its traces less easily erased from the woman's.

Leaning forward and concentrating on her, Pascoe said,

'I mean of course the great-grandfather your father, Herbert Grindal, actually killed, not my other great-grandfather, the one he merely allowed to be executed in Flanders.'

Tears filled her eyes. Her husband looked ready to work himself up into a fine fit of indignation but as the tears started to stream down his wife's face, he seemed to acknowledge to himself that there was no point in trying to bluster a way out of this.

He said, 'How. .?'

Pascoe said, 'I have in my possession Sergeant Peter Pascoe's journal right up to the eve of his execution. Also I have seen the journal of the officer who acted as his Prisoner's Friend at the court martial, and I know the details of the evidence given by your father, Mrs Batty, and the letter accompanying it, written by your grand- father.'

The implication that he'd got onto these last two via Studholme's journal seemed strong enough to keep faith with Poll Pollinger.

'What I want to do now,' he went on, 'is discover what more you can tell me about this business. I should warn you that the inquiry into the cause of death of Stephen Pascoe is still ongoing, and as things stand at the moment, I shall feel impelled to reveal at the inquest all that I have been able to discover.'

Let 'em know that like any paranoid he'd go all the way!

'These are scarcely matters for the media, Mr Pascoe,' protested Batty. 'Tabloid publicity wouldn't benefit anyone.'

'You think not? I don't see how it could hurt my family,' retorted Pascoe. 'There's no way either of my ancestors could be stigmatized worse than they have been for the past eighty years.'

‘I really can't see what all the fuss is about, for God's sake,' said David Batty impatiently. 'It's history we're talking here! That's all your fat boss seemed worried about, Peter. Proving it all happened so long ago that it wouldn't either occupy his time or worsen his crime figures.'

Pascoe regarded him coldly. This was a man with very little moral sense. Knowing that moved his pleasant easygoing manner into a new dimension.

But no reason not to use him. He forced a young conspirator's smile.

'That's right, David,' he said. 'But if I'm going to keep quiet, I need to know what exactly it is I'm keeping quiet about, so I don't let it out by accident.'

This fallacious pragmatism fell on sympathetic ears.

'Let's show him,' said Batty. 'Then he'll know we're all in it together.'

His parents exchanged questioning glances, but their son, not waiting for an answer, rose and left the room. A moment later he returned with an old buff legal envelope.

'Here we go,' he said dropping it on Pascoe's lap. 'This should fill in the gaps.'

Pascoe opened it and took out a single sheet of foolscap covered by a tiny copperplate hand.

There was a heading printed in capitals.

STATEMENT OF

ARTHUR HERBERT GRINDAL

NOVEMBER 30th 1917

Another voice from the past. When would it ever fall silent?

He began to read.

I, Arthur Herbert Grindal of Kirkton in the county of Yorkshire, being of sound mind, affirm and assert that the following is a true and accurate description of the circumstances surrounding the death of Stephen Pascoe, also of Kirkton.

On the evening of November 27th last I was visiting my son Bertie then being treated for wounds received in Flanders during military service at the Officers' Hospital situated at Wanwood House, Mid-Yorkshire. He was in a state of some distress having just learned that his former platoon sergeant, Peter Pascoe, cousin to the above mentioned Stephen Pascoe, had been executed by firing squad having been found guilty of cowardice in face of the enemy. Bertie, in a nervous condition diagnosed as neurasthenia brought on by long and continuous exposure to the danger of front-line life, took upon himself some responsibility for the death of his sergeant, and had been deeply shocked by allegations made against him during the court martial even though I understand that none of his other men or fellow officers had offered any but highest praise for his own conduct under fire. I calmed him down and when the time came to leave we went out to my car and, finding ourselves with much still to say to each other, took a turn down the drive to keep the blood circulating against the night frost. Here we were aware of a figure approaching which, when it became identifiable in the moonlight, I recognized as Stephen Pascoe, who used to be in my employ. He was wearing a greatcoat over his private's uniform. I got the impression he had been drinking. As soon as he saw my son he cried, 'Grindal, there you are, it's you I've come looking for. I know from my cousin what really happened out there and I'll find other lads to back up the true story when this lot's over, believe me. Meanwhile don't you dare go writing letters to Peter's wife — widow, I mean, that's what you've made her, and as for your filthy money …' and here he hurled a leather purse full into Bertie's face and rushed at him with both hands outstretched as though he wanted to strangle him. I tried to intervene and got knocked aside for my pains. As I lay on the ground I saw Pascoe seize hold of Bertie, they spun around, moving off the drive into the trees, and there one of them caught his foot on a root and they both went down locked together. But only Bertie got up.

He helped me to my feet and I examined Pascoe. His head had hit a sharp edge of rock protruding from the earth and he was no longer breathing.

Bertie was in no condition to make decisions so I took control. What happened next was my sole decision and my sole responsibility. Together we lifted the body and carried it into the wood. There is an old ice house there, built for the original old mansion and long disused, almost completely hidden beneath earth and undergrowth. Here we laid the body. Then I escorted Bertie back to the hospital where I told the matron his nerves had taken a turn for the worse and she administered a sleeping draught. After that I set off to drive home and in the lights of my car noticed the purse lying in the driveway. I stopped to pick it up and then got an idea of how I might throw the authorities off the scent when they began to look for the missing soldier. I went to the ice house and stripped the body of all its military uniform and identifying discs. The purse with the gold sovereigns in it I tossed in beside the corpse. The clothes I put in my car and two days later when I was in Liverpool on business, I hid them where they would be found in the railway station there.

I am making this statement because, in the event of my death and the subsequent discovery of Stephen Pascoe's remains, it is possible that my son might, because of his nervous condition, give a false or partial account of events, laying himself open to criminal charges, perhaps even murder. I wish to make it quite clear that apart from aiding me in the concealment of the body (and that only because he was at that time incapable of not following my commands), Bertie has broken no law. My fear was, and is, that if his part in Pascoe's accidental death came to light, any rumours which might already be in circulation or subsequently arise about my son's conduct as an officer during the late campaign in Flanders could flare up and result in false accusation, and perhaps permanent nervous debility.

Nothing in this letter, nor in any contribution I may have made or may subsequently make to the maintenance of Sergeant Pascoe's family, should be taken as acknowledgment or admission of any responsibility in law for said family, or recognition of any allegations made concerning my own conduct or that of my son Herbert on active service. My purpose, as stated, is simply to assert the bare facts of the unfortunate and accidental death of Private Stephen Pascoe.

It was signed by Arthur Grindal with his signature witnessed by a Leeds solicitor and his clerk.

Pascoe read it through three times. It should have been moving — a man's desperate attempt to protect his son — but something about it rang false as an atheist's prayers.

'Does that satisfy you, Mr Pascoe?' said Thomas Batty. 'A sad and tragic affair but long buried in the past and best left that way.'

'Like all the other mistakes made in those years, you mean?' said Pascoe. 'God, how the hell can this country go anywhere if it can't face the truth about itself?'

'That's a bit heavy,' said Dr David. 'OK, World War One was a mess, but this isn't really anything to do with it.'

'It's everything to do with it! But let's just stick to the fine detail then. First off, no allegations were made against Bertie during the trial other than that he was dazed, and possibly wounded by a shell blast and had to be restrained from a single-handed assault on an enemy pillbox.'

Batty considered then said, 'OK. So?'

'So Arthur Grindal could only have got the idea that such allegations might be made from one source. His own son, who must have poured his heart out, admitting that he was in a state of sheer terror most of the time and would probably have run if the sergeant hadn't taken control. I wonder what his real written evidence would have sounded like?'

'What do you mean?' asked Thomas Batty.

'I mean that the evidence mainly responsible for killing my great-grandfather was a deposition, allegedly dictated to Arthur Grindal, in which Sergeant Pascoe's actions were painted in the worst light possible. It was supported by a covering letter in which Arthur depicted him as a socialist agitator of the worst kind. And you know what? None of these lies was necessary! My poor benighted great-grandfather was out there, lying through his teeth to protect his pathetic little officer's reputation!'

He stopped abruptly. Janet Batty's face had drained of colour, leaving it pale and waxy as a lily. It's this woman's father I'm talking about, he thought. My own connection with all this is three generations old and I never knew the men involved, but it's this woman's father, and her pain must go at least as deep as my indignation.

He said, 'Mrs Batty, I'm sorry. I believe your father was as much a victim here as anyone else. I'm sure if he had ever known-'

'Oh he knows,' she burst out. 'He knows!'

It took a few seconds for the tense to sink in.

'Knows?' he echoed.

He saw Thomas Batty's warning glance, David Batty's wry grin, remembered the nurse he'd seen going up the stairs on his first visit to the Maisterhouse.

'He's still alive?' he said incredulously. 'He's here?'

He saw the answer in Janet's face. Illogically this somehow made it all far worse. When all concerned had shared their common end, whether it means repose in a carefully tended family plot, or in a distant soldier's grave, or even in the sodden clay of a ravaged wood, there was a distancing which made the woman's living pain a great dissuader from further public rage and accusation.

But the thought that not only had this man enjoyed a long and comfortable life with all the blessings of family and fortune but was still enjoying it..

Or perhaps not. Forcing himself to speak evenly he said, 'He must be very old.'

'Oh yes,' said David Batty almost mockingly. 'We're all looking forward to the telegram from Her Majesty.'

'He's very frail,' said Janet Batty defensively. 'But he's still got all his mental faculties.'

'That must be a blessing to all concerned,' said Pascoe savagely.

'We thought so. Till this week, that is.'

'He heard about it on television, didn't he?' said Pascoe. 'He knew at once who it was; he didn't even need to wait for the details to come out. What was his reaction? That he wanted to make a clean breast after all these years? That's why you saw me personally, Mr Batty, to stress that ALBA wouldn't be prosecuting the ANIMA women, to start putting the lid on things as firmly as you could. No wonder you jumped when I told you I was one of the Kirkton Pascoes! Felt like someone walking over your grave, did it?'

He rose to his feet. He was sick of all this. Time to do what he'd come to do and get out. He tried to suppress a deep-down tremor of pleasure at the unexpected revenge he was going to take on this family which had so comprehensively misshaped his own.

Thomas was up too, getting between him and the door.

'You can't see him, Mr Pascoe,' he said. 'He's too frail to take it.'

Pascoe regarded him with some irritation in which there was an element of pity. He didn't really believe that the elder Batty had been party to the raid on Fraser Greenleaf, guessed that the news that his own son was an instigator of theft and an accessory to murder would destroy him.

'Why should you imagine I want to see your father-in- law?' he asked scornfully.

The question started rhetorical, but somewhere along the line it became real.

Why should Batty think he wanted to confront Gertie? Or rather, why was it he still got the feeling, especially from the senior Battys, that the bottom line in all this was still unread?

Arthur's statement. That feeling he had of something still requiring explication. The bottom line literally, or rather, the bottom lines.

'Your grandfather mentions contributions to the maintenance of the sergeant's family,' he said to Mrs Batty. 'He never made any, I'm sure of that.'

'He couldn't find them, no one could,' she replied.

Young Colin Pascoe did, thought Pascoe. Only perhaps he looked harder.

He said, 'But why should he feel the need even to try? He'd seen his son's efforts at help tossed back in his face.'

She shrugged as if not trusting herself to speak.

Thomas Batty said, 'It's time, I think, to let sleeping dogs lie. You're a reasonable man, Mr Pascoe, and I'm sure you can see that…’

'What sleeping dog?' said Pascoe. 'I thought we'd woken them all up. What sleeping dog?'

He picked up the handwritten statement again, reread the final paragraph. Responsibility in law… allegations made concerning my own conduct. . why should old Arthur have put in these apparently utterly redundant disclaimers?

What responsibility in law could have been alleged against him …?

He looked at Thomas Batty's blank unrevealing face, turned from it to Janet's pale stretched-out features out of which stared a pair of intent and very blue eyes, turned finally to David and met the same blue eyes in that narrow intelligent face whose features had always created in him an uncomfortable sense of near-recognition.

He thought, not this! He recalled that other Peter Pascoe's piece of self-improving autobiography which recounted how his mother had been in service with the Grindals up to the time she left to get married and give birth to her son, recalled the dreadful Quiggins woman's screamed accusations that she'd been no better than she ought to have been..

Not this!

He said, 'I'm going to see him.'

'What? No!' protested Thomas.

'Mrs Batty,' said Pascoe. 'Feel free to go and prepare him as best you can, but I'm going up whatever any of you say. Don't you think I'm entitled?'

She didn't argue but rose at once and left the room.

David Batty laughed out loud and said, 'Thought you'd get there in the end, Peter. Kind of mind that doesn't miss a trick. Takes a one to know a one!'

Pascoe left the room, stepping round Thomas who didn't move.

He ran lightly up the stairs, saw an open door and made for it.

In a large airy bedroom giving a view out across the high boundary wall towards the church and old village of Kirkton, he saw Janet Batty sitting on the edge of a bed with her arm around the shoulders of an old man, propped up by pillows. His face was pared down almost to the skull, but a shock of soft white hair still fell over his brow and the eyes which fixed on Pascoe were bright blue and alert.

Then they began to fill with tears just as his daughter's had filled a little while earlier.

'Peter,' he said brokenly. 'It's you.. after all this time … I didn't know.. not then … I swear..'

He's not seeing me, thought Pascoe. He's seeing that other Peter who died for him.

'Didn't know what?' he asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it from this ghost incarnate who could be himself a half-century on.

That we are brothers,' said Bertie Grindal.

Brothers. Had the sergeant known? Had his mother said something to him on that visit to her deathbed in Cromer? Was this the reason that Arthur had so long delayed passing on the information about her illness? He would need to read the journals again and again to find answers to these questions. And perhaps they weren't there. And perhaps he didn't want to know them.

Janet Batty was speaking.

'He had to make a choice. Grandfather had to make a choice.'

Between the legitimate heir and the left-wing bastard?

'No choice,' said Pascoe, his eyes riveted on the old man in the bed.

'I've just been working it out,' said David's voice from behind him. 'Funny really, but because you've got an extra generation in, I must be something like your half-uncle, once removed. Welcome to the family!'

Pascoe now let his gaze leave the old man and his pale-faced daughter, and turned slowly to take in David Batty with his father behind him on the landing.

He recalled his admission to Ellie … I used to fantasize about discovering I was a changeling and I really had this completely different family I could make a fresh start with. . And here it was, his new family to set alongside the old one which had proved so singularly unsuccessful. No point in hanging around. Time to make that fresh start. .

A kind of wild laughter was welling up inside him at the black comedy of it all, and its repression made his shoulders shake.

'No need to take on,' said David. 'I won't insist on my right to be called uncle.'

'Kind of you,' said Peter Pascoe. 'But a man should cling to his rights. Why don't I tell you a few of yours?'

And without a backward glance at the old man in the bed, he took the puzzled David Batty by the arm and urged him down the stairs.