Sanctuary sir - said Jammy.
Id heard some misleading names for some terrible places but this sounded to me like it could be the worst fitting of them all.
Especially with Gertie in charge. Thats it - he said - Lovely name isn't it? - Get the men moving then sergeant - and if they need jollying along just tell them were heading to Sanctuary and that should speed them up eh? Sanctuary!
part two
GLENCORSE
And nothing may we use in vain.
Ev'n Beasts must be with justice slain;
Else men are made their Deodands.
i
A Meditation for Remembrance Sunday
by Andrea Pollinger
Passchendaele was not so much an exercise in modern warfare as an experiment in mass suicide.
The contemporary equivalent would be to devastate an area of several thousand acres with a tactical nuclear weapon, then send in a force of unprotected men to occupy it. This, I am assured by men who did National Service in the fifties, was a tactic actually rehearsed by the British Army at that time, suggesting that little has changed, and the men at the top always want to fight today's wars according to yesterday's technology. Central to the tactical thinking of World War One, such as it was, stood the proposition that if you could punch a hole in the enemy line and send cavalry galloping through, then everyone would be home for Christmas ... or New Year ... Or Easter .. . or . . .
In fairness to Haig it should be said that his strategic plan for Third Ypres was more modest. His intention was to drive the enemy back to a line beyond Bruges and thus cut the U-boat supply line from Bruges to Ostend.
Initially there was supposed to be a simultaneous naval assault on the coast, but when the Admiralty decided this did not suit their convenience, Haig decided to go ahead, perhaps believing that the missing marine element would be supplied by his choice of battleground, basically an area of marshland which not even a complex system of drainage ditches and dykes had been able to reclaim for anything other than bog pasturage. No sensible farmer was going to sow seed on this land. But donkey Haig, having learned nothing from the ineffectiveness of the huge preliminary bombardment on the Somme a year earlier, sowed it with shells for ten long days.
This time not only did the long bombardment give the Germans plenty of warning of the attack, it also breached many of the dykes and dammed most of the ditches. And it started raining. Even a general might have been expected to notice that. And the general of an army that had been bogged down, literally and figuratively, in Flanders for nearly three years might have been expected to have gathered a little bit of intelligence about the terrain. But, standing aloof in giant ignorance, Haig ordered the attack to be pressed, and kept on pressing it for three long months, across marshland, in heavy rain, with ditches blocked and dykes destroyed, and the whole devastated landscape pitted with shellholes like the surface of the moon, except that here was no dry volcanic dust but mud; thick, cloying, drowning, sucking mud . . .
ii
Peter Pascoe stood and looked at the mud.
Where the water hit, it seethed and surged and wrinkled and writhed as if alive. He imagined being caught in its glutinous embrace, wrapped round, caressed, held fast and finally drawn down into dark slow-stifling depths. . .
He turned away and found himself facing Death.
'Ingenious, though I say it myself,' said Arnold Gentry with a rare flush of enthusiasm. 'Three tanks with graduated filters. This first one is wide mesh. It will catch anything bigger than a half-brick. The second smaller, pebble-size. The third superfine, textile fragments, fingernails, hair even.'
'Great,' said Pascoe whose genuine interest in and admiration for Death's work had established a relationship particularly useful in view of Dalziel's ill-concealed abhorrence of the man. 'There's quite a lot of material to get through though, isn't there?'
He turned his gaze on the great mound of earth brought from Wanwood House and deposited alongside Dr Death's patent sluice.
'We will get through it much more quickly than half a dozen constables crawling around with garden hoes,' said Gentry bridling. 'And infinitely more thoroughly.'
'Yes, yes, of course,' soothed Pascoe. 'My point exactly. I wanted you to know how much we appreciate you taking it on and releasing our men for other enquiries.'
It was his emollient skills that had got him here. He'd turned up at the station that morning in good time, in fact a few minutes early, but any hope he might have nurtured of gaining a few Brownie points vanished when he read the scrawled note on his desk.
Nice of you to show up, especially as we're short-handed. George Headingley fell in a puddle and got himself on the panel with a cold in the head which must be pretty small to get in there beside the bone. If you can spare a moment from your mourning, you might take yourself down to the lab and see what yon mate of yours is doing with the muck from Wanwood. I'm off to see Troll down the knacker's.
Dalziel assumed his subordinates knew everything about all current cases.
Like many of his assumptions, it was self-fulfilling. Pascoe had managed to catch Sergeant Wield on his way out and get a quick update. Wield's résumés were famously more informative than other people's disquisitions. 'Let that bugger run Parliament,' Dalziel had once remarked, 'and they could all go home on a Tuesday, which most on 'em probably do anyway.'
In exchange Pascoe had offered the to him still incredible news that Dalziel might have found himself a lady love. 'You mean yon animal woman?' Wield had interrupted. 'Aye, I thought he fancied her. Mebbe she reckons he's an endangered species. Gotta dash. See you.'
So, reflected Pascoe, might Pheidippides have felt as he staggered through the gates of Athens to see a news placard reading: GOTCHA! Persians Stuffed at Marathon.
He and Gentry stood in companionable silence for a while, watching the water jets wash the first load of earth through the first filter. The level was getting low and various large stones and pieces of wood were becoming visible in the now almost liquid mud. Then something a bit whiter ... in fact as the water hit it, very much whiter . . . smooth . . . bowl-shaped .. .
'Hold on,' said Dr Death excitedly. 'There's something, let me see . ..'
He picked up a long bamboo pole with a metal circle and a net on the end and with the expertise of a gillie slipped it beneath the object and lifted it out.
'There we are,' he said with pale delight. 'That should please Mr Longbottom and even Superintendent Dalziel too.'
'Yes,' said Pascoe looking down with a marked lack of pleasure at the human cranium in the plastic mesh. 'I suppose it should.'
iii
'Dem bones dem bones gonna walk around, dem bones dem bones gonna walk around, dem bones dem bones gonna walk around, now hear de Word of de Lord.'
Dalziel, recognizing his cue, said, 'You've missed a bit.'
Troll Longbottom turned sharply and said, 'My God, for a tun of lard, you roll soft, Andy.'
'Aye, and you start early. What happened? Flint up your jacksie kept you awake and you started thinking of breakfast?'
'I have been in my lab by eight o'clock every working day for more years than I care to remember,' said Longbottom reproachfully. 'What do you think?'
He stood aside so that Dalziel got a complete view of the bones laid out on the table. The Fat Man had been right about missing a bit. Wield's team had dredged up several more fragments before it was decided to accept Gentry's solution and use the sluice technique but the remains were still more than fifty per cent short of a full set.
'Good-looking fellow,' said Dalziel. 'How'd he die?'
'Not, I would hazard, by physical violence directed at any of the parts covered by, or indeed covering, the bones you see here.'
'There's some on 'em broken,' objected Dalziel. 'Or did you not notice?'
'Good lord, what it is to have a trained eye,' said Longbottom. 'Which one is it? The left? If you brought the other up to scratch, together they might have made the further obser
vation that all these fractures are recent, caused I would guess when the contractors blasted, gouged, and bulldozed that strip of woodland in the summer.' 'So when will you be able to tell us owt useful?'
'Anything positive, you mean? Negatives too are useful, and I can give you some of them. Nothing has been detected yet in the organic matter recovered to indicate toxicity or disease . ..'
'Hang on. Organic matter?'
'Yes. Very little, but enough to work on in various little nooks and crannies.'
'This means it's not been so long buried then?' said Dalziel gloomily.
'Still hoping for prehistory, Andy? Sorry, that's definitely out. But dating is proving something of a problem for reasons too technical to puzzle your steam-age mind with. There are a surprising number of contradictions. . . but as usual, I see you want positive information only. All right. Male, five-eight, five-nine in height, fairly slight of build. And that's it as far as positive goes.'
'They should pay you by the word,' growled Dalziel. 'Any sign of clothing?'
'Curiously, no.'
'Why curiously?'
'I'd have expected some fibres at least in association with remains such as these appear to be. Of course once dispersion started, bones are heavy, fabric's light. I understand you are following Gentry's recommendation of pursuing your search via his sluice?'
'Aye. It made sense.'
'You think so? When speed is of the essence, perhaps. But in this case .. . nevertheless, if there is any fabric which might be associated with the remains - though how you are going to tell when it has been flushed out under the good doctor's water jets, I don't know - Gentry will be your man. At the least, I hope he may come up with the missing pieces of my jigsaw. Particularly the skull. I long for the skull.'
'May be able to help you there, sir,' said Peter Pascoe.
This time both men started. Lightness of step was one of many things Pascoe had learned from his great master.
He placed a cardboard box carefully on the table.
'Where the hell have you popped up from?' said Dalziel sourly.
'As instructed, I went down to the lab to check on Dr Gentry's progress. This is the first fruit of his labours.'
He reached into the box and produced the gleaming white cranium.
The pathologist took it and observed satirically, 'I'm going to wash that hair right out of this man...’
'Dr Death say owt about hair?' asked Dalziel.
'He seemed confident that with his system of progressively finer filters, he would retrieve anything retrievable,' said Pascoe.
'Can't say fairer than that,' said Dalziel. 'You'll keep me posted, Troll?'
The pathologist wasn't listening but examining the cranium closely with the aid of a magnifier.
'Now we're getting somewhere,' he said. 'Look there, Andy. That long crack running from this compression here. I'd say that wasn't done by the summer's clearance.'
'Someone bashed him you mean? Cause of death?' said Dalziel.
'Could be. I'll let you know as soon as I'm certain, which is likely to be sooner if I'm given a bit of room to work in.'
'You hear that, chief inspector?' said Dalziel. 'Let the dog see the bone. We'll be off then, Troll. No need to see us out.'
The pathologist had shown no inclination to. In fact he now seemed oblivious to their existence let alone their presence.
'Fair loves his work, old Troll,' said Dalziel on the way to the car park. 'Could do with a few like him under me. Enjoy your little jaunt, did you? Nowt like a good family get-together.'
'It was a funeral I went to, sir, not a wedding,' said Pascoe reproachfully.
'All the better. I hate bloody weddings. All them speeches and you've got to buy a present. Funerals now, no one expects you to laugh, and wi' a bit of luck, you come away better off than when you went. You cop for owt?'
'Not really,' said Pascoe. 'My grandmother didn't have much to leave.'
'No? Hope you checked under the carpets and down the chair cushions.'
He hadn't, but he had no doubt Myra had.
He said, 'This body, sir. How are we playing it? From what Wieldy said, sounds like they could be pretty old bones.'
'Aye, the worst kind. I were hoping Longbottom couldn't get at cause of death. Open verdict, closed case. Champion.'
'But it's not looking that way?'
'You heard what he said about the cranium. Best hope now is he can date it so far back that everyone concerned's likely to have snuffed it too. I'll mebbe lean on him a bit.'
'Lean on him . . . ?'
'Few old bones of his own he'd not like resurrected,' said Dalziel, smiling nostalgically. 'Meanwhile, but, we'd best go on like we've got a real live murder case. First thing is to start tracing the history of yon house. That sounds like your kind of thing, lad. Lots of chat, not much mud on your shoes.'
'How kind,' said Pascoe. 'Any suggestions as to where I might start enjoying this sinecure?'
'ALBA bought it. Happen they'll know who they bought it from.'
'So, I should start at Wanwood. Talk to David Batty?'
'David, is it? Oh aye. You were out there getting nowhere in the summer. Got right friendly with this Batty, did you?'
'Not so's you'd notice. I gather his father, Thomas Batty, runs the company and most of his subordinates seem to refer to him as Mr David or Dr David in order, I presume, to avoid confusion.'
'What did you reckon to him?'
Pascoe shrugged.
'We got on OK, no more than that.'
'Wouldn't buy a used syringe from him then?'
'I saw no reason to doubt his honesty,' said Pascoe surprised. 'It was a Dr Fell thing really. Something about him made me feel uneasy. Probably just the way he made certain rather outmoded assumptions about our relationship.'
'Aye. Tried the same with me to start out,' said Dalziel. 'But we ended up big muckers. Any road, don't bother wi' him. Give their head office a ring. That'll be where the records are kept.'
'All right. It's in Leeds, isn't it?'
'That's right. Kirkton, just on the edge.'
'Kirkton?' echoed Pascoe. Into his mind jumped Ada's passport with her place of birth given as Kirkton, Yorkshire. No mention of Leeds.
'That's right. Mean something to you?' said Dalziel observing him shrewdly.
'No, sir. I was just thinking, it's not all that far and these things are often better done in person than on the phone. Less chance of being choked off. . .'
'You mean you want to waste time driving out there? What the fuck for? It's not your English Heritage sort of place, tha knows. Eat their young out at Kirkton, so they say.'
'Nonetheless,' said Pascoe.
'That's it then,' said Dalziel. 'No arguing with you once you start nonethelessing me. But think on, let the locals know you're treading on their patch. Very thin skins they've got in Leeds. Can't scratch their own arseholes without bleeding.'
As if to demonstrate his own freedom from this grievous failing, he settled back on the bonnet of Longbottom's old Jag and rubbed his buttocks sensuously against the gleaming silver mascot.
'I'll be careful,' promised Pascoe, opening the door of his car. 'Where can I get hold of you in case, just in case, there is a diplomatic incident?'
The Fat Man slid off the Jaguar and started walking away.
'I'll be around,' he tossed negligently over his shoulder. 'Witnesses, interrogations, whatever comes along. You know me, lad, always there where I'm most needed.'
Such uncharacteristic evasiveness aroused the deepest suspicion.
Pascoe applied the ultimate test. Winding down his window, he called after the Fat Man, 'Time for a quick pint in the Bull, sir?'
Dalziel turned his head like a bishop's wife being propositioned by a kerb crawler.
'At this time in the morning? You want to take care, Peter, else you'll be getting a reputation as a drinker.'
To which there was no possible, or at least no passable, reply.
iv
As Fate nudged Peter Pascoe ever deeper into his familial past, Edgar Wield was giving the myopic old goddess a hearty shove back.
'Sorry, mate,' he said to the man he'd just contrived to collide with outside a William Hill's betting shop. 'Hey, it's Jimmy Howard, isn't it? Hardly recognized you out of uniform. Mind you, I didn't recognize you in your new uniform yesterday, not till Mr Dalziel said who you were.'
He accompanied his words with an effort to rearrange his features into an expression of pleased surprise, though conscious that the effect was probably as disconcerting as one of the heads on Mount Rushmore sneezing.
'What do you want?' responded Howard making no reciprocal effort to feign pleasure. He had after all been a policeman as well as a gambler and knew all the odds against such chance encounters.
Wield was quite pleased to drop the pretence, moving readily from old-mate to ancient-mariner mode as he fixed the other with a glittering eye and said, 'I were just thinking, Jimmy. Bit out of the way, Wanwood House. Awkward to get to on nights, unless you've got a car.'
He saw at once he'd hit the mark. Howard had got out of the Force ahead of his conviction for over-the-limit driving, but that hadn't stopped him getting a year's suspension which would be up at the end of the month. According to the roster in Patten's office, Howard had been doing a week on, week off night duty since September. Last bus to get anywhere near Wanwood ran at seven o'clock. First of the day wasn't till 9.30. Was Howard the kind of twit who, faced with this problem, would think, sod it! and risk driving himself there? Everything Wield could dig up about him suggested he was, and now the man's expression gave confirmation.
'Give you a lift anywhere, Jimmy?' said Wield. 'You'll be pleased when you get your licence back, I bet. Lose it again, and it could be forever.'
'No thanks, sarge,' said Howard. 'I'm just popping in here.'
He tried to push by into the betting shop but Wield's arm was in the way.
'Always give the first race a miss,' he said confidently. 'If you win, you just plough it back, and if you lose, well, it wasn't worth it anyway. I'll buy you a cuppa instead.'
Dalziel 15 The Wood Beyond Page 12