Knowing her feelings about the army, Pascoe did not doubt that her motive was derisory. She would probably have liked to leave instructions that the urn was to be hurled through a window but knew she would need to moderate her gesture if she hoped to have it carried out. But moderation must surely stop a long way short of being scattered in a car park!
'Museum's still here but.’ said the man, happy to extend this interruption of his tedious task.
'Where?' said Pascoe hopefully.
'Yon place.'
The man pointed to a tall narrow granite building standing at the far end of the car park, glaring with military scorn at the Scandinavian ski-lodge frivolity of the supermarket.
'Thanks,' said Pascoe.
He drove towards the museum and parked before it. Close up the building looked even more as if it had been bulled, boxed and blanco'd ready for inspection. Pascoe collected the urn from the boot, scuffed his feet on the tarmac to make sure he wasn't tracking any dirt, and went up the steps.
The lintel bore a mahogany board on which was painted a badge consisting of a white rose under a fleur-de-lis, with beneath it WEST YORKSHIRE FUSILIERS — Regimental Museum. The paint was fresh and bright, the brass door knob gleamed like a sergeant major's eye, and even the letter box had a military sharpness which probably terrified any pacifist postmen.
Pascoe turned the knob, checked to be sure he hadn't left fingerprints, and entered.
He found himself in a large high-ceilinged room, lined with display cabinets and hung with tattered flags. It was brightly lit and impeccably clean, but that didn't stop the air from being musty with the smell of old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago.
Pascoe moved swiftly through a series of smaller rooms without finding any survivors. He even tried calling aloud but there was no response.
Sod it! he thought. The absence of witnesses should be making things a lot easier. All he had to do was scatter and scarper! But somehow, even without a witness, the thought of sullying these immaculate surfaces with powdered Ada was hard for an obsessively tidy man. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.. but there had to be some old dust for the new dust to go to!
He tried a pinch in the darkest corner he could find but it stood out like a smear of coke on a nun's moustache. Finally he settled on a fireplace. Even this looked to have been untroubled by coal for a hundred years, and the Victorian fire irons which flanked it stood as neat and shiny as weapons in an armoury. But it must have known ash in its time. And what after all was this philopolemic building but a mausoleum in need of a body?
His conscience thus quietened, Pascoe unscrewed the top of the urn, took out a handful of dust, examined it for fear, found it, and with an atavistic prayer, threw it into the grate.
'What the hell do you think you're playing at?' demanded an outraged voice.
He turned his head and looked up at a tall grey-haired man wearing an indignant expression, a piratical eye patch and a hairy tweed jacket with the right sleeve pinned emptily across the breast.
Time, thought Pascoe, for the disarming smile, particularly as the man's present hand was pointing what looked like a flintlock pistol very steadily at his head.
'You may find this a trifle hard to believe,' said Pascoe. 'But I do hope you are going to try.'
viii
It was clear that Troll Longbottom's forecast was right. These bones were going to be a long time coming.
The drenching dark which had finally made them abandon the hunt the previous night had been replaced by fitful sunlight, but visibility did little to make the job more attractive.
'Could lose a man down there,' said Wield looking down into the water-filled crater.
'I can think of a couple we'd not miss,' said Dalziel. 'Even if we pump it out, the mud's going to be a problem.'
'The lads last night reported a lot of big granite slabs,' said Wield. 'They should give us something to work from. But you're right. We could spend more time digging each other out than old bones.'
'Same thing in my case,' said Dalziel. 'Good God, have you got a twin or what?'
This last was to Troll Longbottom who was edging his way towards them along the duckboards.
'Just thought I'd check to see if you had anything more for me yet,' he said with a smile which wouldn't have looked out of place at a pirate masthead.
'Oh aye?' said Dalziel. 'If they'd asked you to take a look at Julius sodding Caesar, you'd have told 'em to wait till they invented the video camera. So how come twice in twelve hours I've found you up to your fetlocks in clart, breathing fresh air?'
'Friendship, Andy. Friendship.'
'Well thanks a lot, Troll. I didn't realize you cared.'
'Not for you,' said the pathologist with a grimace not so different from his smile. 'For David Batty.'
'What's that mean? You shagging his missus or something?'
'Or something, Andy. So, anything more for me to look at?'
'Give us a chance! And did you not get plenty last night? Thought all you needed for a life history was a fingernail and a pinch of belly-button fluff.'
'You flatter me,' said Longbottom. 'But I do need just a little more in order to confirm my preliminary dating.'
'You've got a dating? Why'd you not say so? Come on, let's hear it.'
'I should say from what I've seen so far that the remains were certainly more than five years old.'
'More than five?' echoed Dalziel in disgust. 'Is that the best you can manage? I've got lads just out of training could have come up with that!'
'Well, it was mainly monosyllabic, wasn't it? What I really need is a jawbone. You can tell a lot from dental work. And a bit of flesh would be a real godsend.'
He spoke with such enthusiasm that Dalziel laughed.
'Tell you what, Troll,' he said. 'If I were you, I'd turn vegetarian.'
'And I you,' said the pathologist elliptically, prodding the Fat Man's gut. 'Now I must be off. Some of us have work to do.'
'I'll be in touch,' bellowed Dalziel after him, then turning to Wield he asked, 'So, what do you think?'
'Bit of mutual backscratching?' suggested Wield. 'This Batty's not just Research Director, he's the son and heir of Thomas Batty who owns the whole company. Useful contact for Mr Longbottom.'
'Don't use a lot of drugs when your specialty's dead 'uns,' objected Dalziel.
'I think you'll find Mr Longbottom's an influential man on his NHS Trust's governing body, sir. Also I hear he's got a twenty-per-cent share in that new private hospital on the Scarborough Road.'
'By God, Wieldy, I thought mebbe life out among the turnip tops were turning you soft, but now I see it's turning you cynical!'
'I just state the facts, sir,' said Wield. 'And here's another. ALBA, as Mr Longbottom likely knows, have been here just four years.'
'Meaning Troll's saying the bones are at least five years old just to stress that Batty and his staff can't be in the frame? You don't reckon he's fixed the figures as a favour, do you?'
'No, sir. I'd mebbe not care to do business with him, but when it comes to his job, as we've all found out, he doesn't give an inch. You've known him longer than anyone, but, so you must know that.'
'I'm afraid so, Wieldy,' sighed Dalziel. 'Pity though. If I thought he'd stretched it to five for Batty, I'd have made bloody sure he stretched it to fifty for me. Still, it's early days. Mebbe it'll still turn out to be archaeology. I'm off to have another word with Batty, tell him the good news.'
'I bet you'll find Mr Longbottom's told him already,' said Wield.
'Very like, but one thing you're forgetting, Wieldy.'
'Yes, sir?'
'The wanker keeps a nice drop of malt. See about getting this water shifted, will you?'