The Wood Beyond

'You sound like that means more than bulling his boots.'

Cap smiled and sipped her Scotch without flinching or foaming at the mouth.

'Piers had to be pressed. There are some things a hero does not talk about with his mother. I thought he was being a bit coy about admitting what it didn't take a mastermind to guess, that a good officer's servant would do a bit of pandering on the side. But I finally got it out of him that Rosso, when time and place and circumstances made the procurement of female company difficult or dangerous, was reputed to supply the deficiency himself.'

'You mean he took it up the jacksie?' said Dalziel thinking he could see where the hero got his coyness from. 'Buster's AC/DC?'

'It would seem so.'

'Thought they kicked you out of the army for that?'

'Perhaps, among other things, they did.'

She didn't seem to know Rosso was dead, thought Dalziel. Why should she? He himself hadn't known anything about it till Wield had mentioned the accident. Did the fact that Sanderson might have used him for soldier's comforts make his death any more significant? No reason why. But mebbe he shouldn't have been quite so dismissive of the sergeant when he'd been trying to flesh out his wispy suspicions of TecSec.

'So what did the he.. your son have to say about Patten?'

'Not a great deal. It seems he had a reputation for being a bit of a hard man, the kind of NCO who might have made it to the very top except that from time to time he'd cross the very wavy line which even the army draws between honesty and dishonesty, discipline and brutality, and get busted. Of course, the army, being the army, knows the value of such men and very rapidly he'd always be promoted once more to his former rank. Rather like the police, I daresay.'

'No,' said Dalziel. 'You get reduced in the Force, you'd need more luck than Lazarus to make it back up. That it then?'

'That's it,' said Cap. 'Have I earned my thirty pieces of silver?'

'Nay lass, that 'ud make you both Judas and the Virgin Mary. Can't have it both ways. Not unless you're Captain Sanderson.'

They sat in silence now. She knows it wasn't this that I've come about, thought Dalziel. Since Wield's visit she's been expecting me. Why? He could think of reasons. And he knew enough of human complexities to know there could be reasons he couldn't think of.

He said, 'You've not asked about Wendy.'

'I rang the hospital just before you turned up. Still no change.'

She sounded genuinely concerned. But then she would be, either way.

He said, 'Get on OK with Sergeant Wield, did you?'

'He was … interesting. I liked him. He made me feel at ease.'

'Any reason why you shouldn't feel at ease?'

'Only my guilty knowledge that I was screwing his boss,' said Cap. 'I use the imperfect tense advisedly. I get a distinct impression that you haven't come here to have your wicked way with me, Andy.'

'Why do you think I have come?' he asked.

'Something about Wendy's accident. The questions your sergeant asked … oh don't misunderstand me, he gave nothing away. But I've been asked questions by quite a lot of policemen over the last ten years, and I know the difference between routine enquiries and purposeful probing.'

'Why should we be asking you questions about Walker's accident?' he said.

It was a crap question, not even justifiable as cat and mouse. There, each advance and apparent retreat was purposeful, leaving you a little further forward. But this did nowt, except fill in time while he tried to make his mind up which way to go. Such uncertainty was not a state of mind he normally brought to the interrogation room.

She didn't bother to reply, her silence confirming the status of the question.

She knows this is hard for me, he thought. So the clever thing is to make her think it's harder than it is.

'Look,' he said. 'This is hard for me. I should mebbe have sent someone else.'

'You did,' she said. 'Mr Wield.'

'I meant someone senior. My DCI, Pete Pascoe.'

'Why didn't you?'

'Because I owe it to you — to both of us — to come myself. You understand?'

Tempting her to agree, to acknowledge she knew what this was all about.

She sipped her drink.

'Yes, I think so,' she said slowly.

Jesus. Why didn't his heart leap as it usually did at the first sign of a hairline crack? Why did this part he was acting of the reluctant inquisitor feel so sodding real?

She went on, 'I understand that there's something about Wendy's accident bothering you. Well, there would be of course. It was hit and run. And from the way you're going on, Andy, incredible though it seems, I can only assume you've got me — how do you put it? — in the frame. Is that right?'

She was looking at him with a wide-eyed, innocent sincerity which could have got her a job as a token woman in a Tory cabinet.

His heart hardened. Guilty, she was playing hard to get. Innocent, well, she had nothing to fear, did she?

Cards-on-the-table time. She knew what they were, or she didn't. Either way, continued concealment was a waste of time.

He said, 'We think the hit-and-run might be just a cover-up, and Walker could have been attacked and left to die.'

Her reaction was perfect. Shock, incredulity, outrage, each perfectly proportioned, as first the fact then the implication of what he was saying hit her.

'You bastard!' she said. 'Oh you bastard!'

'Hang about,' he said in an injured tone. 'Second ago you were all philosophical, now all of a sudden I'm a bastard. What's changed?'

'Hit and run's one thing. Someone reports a Discovery near the scene, a number like mine, you've got to look into it. But this is cold-blooded murder you're talking about!'

'Attempted murder,' he reminded her gently. 'Walker can still open her eyes and put everything right.'

She didn't look like she found this a comfort, but then, he generously allowed, he doubted if he'd find it much of a comfort to be told that proving his innocence might depend on someone coming out of a coma.

She refilled her glass and emptied it immediately. She must have a pot-glazed gullet. Her eyes still said Bastard! but when she spoke her voice was controlled.

'Andy, there must be reasons why you're questioning me like this. Do I get to hear them?'

'Why not?' he said. 'Walker's Mark Shufflebottom's brother.'

'Who?'

Bad, he thought. Anyone in the animal rights movement had to know the name, and in any case, hadn't he mentioned it to her himself only a couple of days ago?

'Not the guard at the FG plant at Redcar?' she went on. 'Is that who you mean?'

Good recovery. He was firmly into his interrogation mode now. Be absolute for guilt, that was the only way.

That was what Wally Tallantire, his first CID boss, had taught him. In court they're innocent till proved guilty, Andy, he'd said. In here (tapping his head) they're guilty till proved innocent.

'That's the one. Walker reckoned the only way she was going to find who killed her brother was to do it herself. That's why she joined your lot.'

'Because she thought we had something to do with it?' said Cap incredulously.

Very good. If this was acting, then it were Old Vic standard. Made you wonder about them yells she'd let out on the bed yesterday afternoon. He suddenly felt old and grubby.

'Not necessarily. She wanted an in and you were it.'

'Because she knew Ellie Pascoe and Ellie knew me?'

Slightly betrayed. Not too much, seeing there were more important issues on the agenda here. This really was a class act. If it was.

'That's it. And once in, she set about getting herself a name as a hard case and trying to make contacts with real extremists at meetings and demos.'

'I thought she was wrong for us from the start. Far too pushy.'