The Wood Beyond (13 page)

Which didn't explain what Dalziel was doing here in the company of Cap Marvell. Like Jane Austen, Ellie had a very good eye for an adulteress, and her finely tuned sensors were detecting, though not believing, a strong physical bond between the two.

She said, 'I gather you had an exciting time last night.'

Cap, who'd been observing the exchange between Ellie and Dalziel with close attention, said rather sharply, 'Wendy told you what happened then?'

'Not really. We got interrupted. She did seem a bit shook up, though.'

'That surprises me. She doesn't really come across as the up-shakable type. It was, after all, just a few bones.'

'That's one way of looking at it. In fact she didn't say much about the bones. I heard more about them on the news before I came out.'

'Oh good. You hear that, Andy? One wave of the magic truncheon and the walls come tumbling down. With luck this means they'll show my interview on the local round-up after the main news. Andy, if you don't mind, I won't hang around too long. I'd like to get back to see how it came out.'

'Please yourself, lass,' said Dalziel. 'I just tell the buggers what they can show, I don't have to watch it.'

Curiouser and curiouser. Did this mean he was expecting, or expected, to go home with her? And was there an implication that he was in some way responsible for Cap's media exposure?

'I didn't mean you should leave early too,' said Cap equably.

Funny how you can say no-strings and twitch one at the same time, thought Ellie, grinning so that Dalziel caught it.

'Just as well, luv,' he said negligently. "Cos there's a lot of folk here I've not spoken to yet. Can't have them going home feeling offended. Bog-eye, is that you? What fettle? You paid that fine yet? By gum, that brief you brought up from the Smoke should sing for Wales. You ever kill your missus, hire him, and I bet you'd get off with probation.'

Bog-eye, that is to say, Charles Burgoyne, Vice Chancellor of Mid-Yorkshire University, who had just survived a drink-driving charge with a fine but no suspension, lowered his aquiline nose to get the Fat Man in his sights, and said, 'Probation, Andy? With his fees, I'd expect approbation. Don't just stand there clutching an unfilled can. Come and fill it.'

And Dalziel, who never minded being bested by a worthy foe so long as he didn't let it go to his head, laughed and followed the elegantly patrician figure to the bar.

The two women watched him go.

'Incredible, isn't he?' said Cap.

'Beyond belief,' agreed Ellie. 'Known him long?'

'Long enough,' said the other almost slyly, quickly adding as though to relocate the exchange conventionally, 'But not as long as you, of course. Through your husband, I mean.'

'I assumed that was what you meant,' said Ellie. 'Yes, man, boy, and mad beast, it's been a long, long time.'

There was definitely something happening here, but she was more concerned with what she felt was happening to herself. She and Cap Marvell had never been friends, merely people who covered enough common territory for their paths to cross. Ellie's belief in universal sisterhood was political, not religious, and she felt no compulsion to love all her sisters equally. Also she had suspicions that the new Cap Marvell was still the old Hon. Mrs Rupert Pitt-Evenlode writ small, dragging her private income behind her like Marley's chain, and forever barred from full admission to the real world where people actually worked for a living. Her undoubted energies had proved useful in all kinds of worthy causes but still Ellie had reserved judgment. And she'd been right, she now found herself thinking. What did all this concern with animal rights prove but that the woman was still a middle-class dilettante who would feed her dogs fillet steak while her peasants starved in their hovels?

The vehemence of her imagery startled her. This wasn't reserving judgment, this wasn't even black-cap condemnation - this was a full-blooded lynch-mob howl!

And why? I'm jealous, Ellie thought. Oh God, the horror of it! I feel possessive about Fat Andy! I don't mind others seeing him as a yob, a slob - a living negation of all civilized values - but let them start appreciating the contradictions in him, let them come within hailing distance of the steadfastness at the heart of that monstrous bulk, let them (sod
them.
I mean
a woman,
I mean
her!)
let her slip inside that jokey love-hate familiarity which has developed between us over the years, and I resent it like hell. This is old Ada in reverse. Her I resented for telling Peter he was worth more than a copper's lot which is exactly what I spend a good deal of our married life telling him anyway. And I suppose if anyone ever has the effrontery to comment on Rosie's new ripe vocabulary, I'll give them such a mouthful they'll have no doubt where she gets it from. Oh shit. Why do I understand myself so well? Why can't I be like a messiah, or a politician, or a journalist, and honestly believe I know it all!

'Are you all right?' said Cap.

'Yes, fine. Why?'

'Your lips were moving, but no words were coming out.'

'It's a ventriloquist act I'm working on,' said Ellie. 'I think you may have spotted where I'm going wrong. Andy was telling me he's here because you invited him. How come
you'
re here, if you don't mind me asking?'

'My grandfather, imagining he was rich enough for his money to last forever, decided to use some of it to give his name a similar lifespan. He was wrong about his money, as my father, inflation, and a lot of lethargic horses proved. As for his name, you'll have noticed it, but I bet you didn't think of me.'

'Hang on. You don't mean the Marvell Collection in the library? I thought it had something to do with the poet.'

'The family claim a distant relationship,' said Cap. 'But no, it was Grandfather's bid for immortality. And in the hope that some of his descendants might have similar funds and a similar fancy, the family name remains on the university's permanent invitation list. I wasn't going to come, then I thought it might be amusing to test the depth of their desire to see me by bringing Andy along. In fact he seems more at home than I am.'

'A man with roots knows where all the bodies are buried,' said Ellie broadly. 'I am of course quoting. Talking of buried bodies, whatever you say, it must have been a bit of a shock to you last night.'

'Less than you'd imagine. You expect bodies on a battlefield and that's what it felt like out there. You've got me worried about Wendy though.'

This was a change of tack. Perhaps she was all heart after all.

'I'm sure she'll be OK. She just wants a heart-to-heart. You know. Girl talk. We go back a long way.'

Which was laying it on a little thick.

Cap smiled and said, 'Yes, of course. Burrthorpe. And you were her sponsor, weren't you? And her guru too, it seems. Excuse me. There's Galway from Biology trying to avoid my eye. We need to talk about his rats. Catch you later, Ellie.'

She moved away in pursuit of a furtive-looking man in a hispid tweed suit. Ellie felt a pang of sympathy for him. Cap's energies might be misdirected but she was nonetheless formidable. With a bit of luck, Dalziel might for once have overfaced himself.

She looked around for Wendy once more. Still no sign. Damn her, she'd better show. Already she was feeling that she'd done her duty by the NUM and the one drink she allowed herself when driving wasn't going to last much longer. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned, saying, 'There you are,' only to find, instead of Wendy, she was being smiled at by Arthur Halfdane, historian and former colleague, whose career had prospered at the expense of his fresh young face and curly hair.

'Ellie,' he said. 'You're looking great. Someone I'd like you to meet. Melbourne University prof here on a sabbatical. Fascinating character.'

Bitter experience had taught her that while linguists were usually little snakes with silver tongues, and Eng. Littites frequently had both the tears and the teeth of the crocodile, your most dangerous academic fauna was a smiling historian with a burden to share.

Behind Halfdane she could see a desiccated man with irregular yellow teeth and a red line running round his brow suggesting either recent brain surgery or the habitual wearing of a tight-fitting cork-hung hat.

Ducking into the lee of a merry-faced woman in her late thirties and a flowered jump suit which strained to constrain her exuberant flesh, Ellie hissed, 'Thanks but no thanks. I've done my Ozzie quota for the year.'

'That's OK, girl. I hate you fucking Poms too,' said the Rubenesque woman, her smile even wider.

'Ellie,' said Halfdane with that smug historian's expression evolved through centuries of being right about everything fifty years after it happened, 'let me introduce you to Professor Pollinger.'

xv

Peter Pascoe lay in the dark and felt its weight press upon him.

Peine forte et dure . ..
Who was it said, 'More weight?' . . . And had it been in defiance or merely a plea to hasten a certain end?

Idiot! he told himself. Over the top as usual. What cause have I for despair? There are those out there with nothing but darkness between them and the sky .. . soldiers and poor unable to rejoice ... the lost, the dispossessed .. . while I lie here with a wife and daughter I love .. .

.. . with a wife and daughter who love me - o Alice Ada the thought of you should give me strength to fight - why is it the thought of you brings me to the brink of hopelessness?

Because I cant believe this is for you - not any of it - how can this filth this foulness this blood these broken bones and scattered limbs these lice these rats this helpless hopeless heedless hell have anything to do with you? What is it these horrors protect you from? - Some baby-butchering Hun on a poster? - Ive seen him this monster - Ive seen him dead and Ive seen him alive - and dead he lies there like my own mates - same gore oozing from same mangled limbs - same disbelief in same uncomprehending eyes.

And alive he looks like a lost boy terrified the hand I offer with a fag will turn into a fist - and when he starts to believe my kindness he reaches in his tunic and shows me pictures of his Alice his Ada.

Is this the monster Im protecting you from? Am I the monster hes protecting his family from? I dont know - there must be a reason and if not this then what?

Peter Pascoe rolled out of bed and tiptoed from the room.

Sleep wasn't going to come tonight. He'd known it from the moment Studholme had told him the truth. The major, so reluctant at first to reveal what he knew, once that barrier was over, seemed ready to sit and talk forever. Pascoe's instinct, fine-honed on years of interrogation, knew there was more to come, a lot of questions still to answer. But not now, not now. All he wanted was to be alone in the afterwrack of this bombshell. He'd almost pushed Studholme out of the house, then poured himself a Dalzielesque Scotch and roamed restless, ending up in the garden, feeling the need for space and distance and the cloudy indifference of the sky.

Cold had driven him back in where he found his wanderings had disturbed Rosie. With a huge effort he had put a lid on his emotional turmoil so that it wouldn't overflow and be detectable by the child. A favourite story had soothed her fret and when sleep had finally relaxed those already unflawed lineaments to the breath-catching freshness of the very first spring, he had looked down on her, then closed his own eyes and imagined never seeing her again.

He opened his eyes. She was still there. He had sat by her bedside till he heard the car in the drive and knew that Ellie had returned.

They drank coffee together while she told him with delight of Dalziel's presence at the party and the speculations it aroused. Pascoe had responded dully to both gossip and news and finally headed for bed, pleading his early start and long drive. He wanted to talk to Ellie, but not till he felt he had something rational, something coherent, to say. There were dark places inside his mind that he didn't feel able to share, not yet, not perhaps ever. Once when he was younger he'd have said that love was about openness, about the utter nakedness each to each of two bodies and minds and souls. But not now ... not now .. . not now .. .

... I had thought to tell Alice all of this when I was home on leave but I found I couldnt - theres been something called the Battle of Arras which all the papers had written up as a famous victory - and thats what Id been fighting in I discovered - thats where Duggie Granger and Kit Bagley and Micky Sidebottom and God knows how many more tens of thousands made the supreme sacrifice which is how they talk about having your guts blown out or your brains sieved through your tin hat back in Blighty. So how could I tell Alice or anyone about that? -  Or when I read about our glorious allies how could I tell them what an officers servant on the leave boat told me hed heard - that the Frogs to our east had had it even worse than us and had chucked away their guns and said they wouldnt fight any more - and that whole troops were being marched out and shot by their fellow countrymen as mutineers.

What we could talk about because all the papers were still talking about it was the revolution in Russia. When I called on Mr Cartwright at the Institute he told me he reckoned it ud mean Russia would be out of the war in no time and this was the chance for workers all over Europe to unite and force their governments to follow suit. There was a big national Convention that week at the Coliseum Cinema in Leeds and he invited me to go along - which I did even though Alice told me to take care as I knew how Mr Grindal hated such meetings. I said - Whats Mr Grindal to me now? - and went anyway. It was very exciting with Mr Snowden making a fine speech and I even said something myself - when this woman who was what they call a suffragette said that of course she wanted peace but we must make sure all the noble sacrifices made by our brave boys had not been in vain - and I jumped up and shouted that if shed seen what Id seen - the bodies of my friends blown to pieces for a hundred yards of wasted ground - shed know it had all been in vain already. Some people cheered but a lot didnt and there was one little bunch of fellows in uniform who set up a chant of traitor which knocked me back till I got a closer look and realized they were all new recruits just out of training camp. One of them I recognized - Archie Doyle - my old enemy from Grindals - wearing the lily and the rose - so I worked my way round to him and said - Nice to see you Archie - when are you joining the battalion - and he gave a sick grin and said he were off in two days - and I said -I look forward to that Archie.