After 1946, perhaps something to do with the establishment of the National Health Service, other means of disposing of outdated records had been found.
Wield read through the early Admin stuff and glanced at some of the medical records. If the bones had anything to do with the hospital, and if these cabinets contained any clue to this connection, there were two ways of doing this. One was the Wield way which meant reading through everything and taking notes and hoping that out of such a careful cold collation some piece of nutritious information might emerge. The other was the lucky Pascoe way of putting in your thumb at random and hoping you pulled out a nice juicy plum.
He closed his eyes, jerked open a drawer, reached in, and grabbed a file.
'Well, bugger me,' he said. 'But not too much.'
A good policeman knows that coincidences though always suspicious are not invariably significant.
The file he had in his hand belonged to Second Lieutenant Herbert Grindal of the West Yorkshire Fusiliers.
So what did it mean? Wield asked himself.
Simply that Arthur Grindal who had so generously donated his country house to his nation's needs, had also contributed a son (or nephew maybe?) to his country's defence, and that when this same youth was wounded, he'd ended up at Wanwood Hospital for treatment. Nothing surprising or sinister in that. Nothing, considering the casualty rate in that mass mayhem, particularly ironic either. As for tragic, he riffled through the file, saw that Grindal had been invalided in September 1917 suffering from a broken arm and neurasthenia and had been passed fit for service by a medical board the following January. So, a happy ending, assuming of course that he made it through to the end of the war.
He dropped the file back into its drawer and glanced at his watch. He'd been here long enough, he decided. He'd tell Pascoe precisely what he'd found and done, and hope that maybe he'd get a bit more precision in return about where to look for what.
He didn't suffer from claustrophobia but it was a relief to get out of that cellar and back to daylight. Not that there was much left this November afternoon, and only a tiny fraction of that filtered through the grubby panes of the only window admitting on this old back kitchen. But he stood by it, his eyes drinking in the bright gloom.
There was nothing much to see. The back kitchen formed a bay protruding from the rear of the house, and the window was set in the wall looking sideways across a cobbled yard littered with dustbins to a matching bay about thirty feet away. There was a door in that wall and now there was something to see. The door opened fractionally but no one came out. Then a figure came round the corner of the house, looked right and left and right again like a good boy crossing the road, then moved swiftly to the open door.
It was Jimmy Howard. He paused in the doorway. It was too far and too dusky to see who was inside, and in any case the TecSec man blocked most of the view. But Wield got an impression of a white-clad arm reaching out and Howard taking something which he slipped into his pocket. Then the door was closed and Howard was walking swiftly away.
Wield moved swiftly too. He had the kind of mind which had automatically mapped every area of Wanwood House that he'd walked through. A locked door delayed him for a few seconds while he made a detour, but he was still quick enough to reach a corridor leading towards the lab area as a white-coated figure passed through a door at the other end.
No problem even from behind. It was the radiantly beautiful research assistant, Jane Ambler.
That was half the puzzle solved. He turned round and headed back the way he'd come, diverting before he reached the back kitchen to head towards the TecSec office. But as he passed a window opening onto the staff car park, he glimpsed Howard getting into an old Escort and driving away.
So despite knowing that Wield was onto him, the dickhead was still driving himself to work. Perhaps he thought a deal had been done. If so, he was soon going to find out all bets were off.
Wield went out to his own car and picked up his radio mike.
'DS Wield,' he said. 'I've got a job for any car you might have in the vicinity of the west linkway.
He gave details of Howard's car and number, noted from his earlier researches into the status of the ex-cop's licence. Privately, the kind of mind which forgot nothing could sometimes be a real pain, but professionally it came in very useful.
'I think you'll find the driver doesn't have a current licence,' he said. 'I'd like him booked and held till I get there. But don't mention my name. Oh, and by the way, he's ex-job and will probably be asking favours. We're right out of them, OK?'
As he peeled off his overalls, Patten came out of the house and walked towards him.
'Any luck?' he said.
'Sorry?'
'With them files. Any missing bodies or bones?'
'Not yet. But we'll keep on looking.'
'Rather you than me,' said Patten. 'Cheers.'
He smiled, crinkling his scar, and returned to the house.
Why's he so happy I'm spending my time here in that filthy cellar? wondered Wield. Perhaps Jimmy Howard had the answer.
He went to find out.
At the station, Charley Slocum, the custody sergeant, greeted his arrival without much enthusiasm.
'Yes, we've got him. He's making a lot of noise and asking for you. Seems to think you can get him out of this. I hope you're going to disabuse him, Wieldy. If this is some clever little CID scheme you should have kept him to yourself. He's in the system now, and that means no deals.'
'Fine, Charley. Got a list of his belongings?'
He checked through the list. All legit.
He said, 'Where's his car?'
'Out back.'
'Give us a moment? I need a witness.'
They went out to the Escort. Wield opened the driver's door and checked in the glove shelf and the door wallets. Nothing except the usual array of maps, dusters, et cetera. He paused, then stooped and lifted the rubber footmat.
A small white envelope lay revealed.
'What's that?' asked Slocum.
'How should I know?' said Wield picking it up by one corner and dropping it in an evidence bag. 'But if you wheel Howard out for me, I'll ask him.'
vii
After Wield had left the Black Bull, Pascoe and Dalziel had sat in silence for a while.
'Another pint, sir,' Pascoe finally ventured.
'Don't think so,' said the Fat Man. 'Enough's enough.'
This was like God resting on the fourth day.
'Can I have that on tape?' said Pascoe.
Dalziel frowned and said, 'You got no work to do?'
Pascoe said, 'I thought I'd go to the hospital. See how Walker is. And I guess that's where Ellie will be.'
'Aye. Hope she's not doing owt daft like blaming herself. There's no future in it, blaming yourself.'
'No one knows yet there's anything for anyone to blame themselves for,' said Pascoe.
'Oh there's always summat, lad. There's always summat, ' said Dalziel. 'Off you go, see how she is. Both on 'em.'
'What'll you do, sir?'
'Start back where I should've started in the first place,' said Dalziel. 'At the crime.'
'The bones, you mean?'
'Nay, lad. Still don't know if there's a crime in them or not. No, it's unlawful entry, criminal damage, threatening behaviour, I mean. Them's the crimes we do know about. I let 'em go too easy because — '
'Because you had, potentially at least, a much more serious investigation on your hands,' interjected Pascoe. 'And because ALBA didn't want to prosecute.'