Reginald Hill - The Wood Beyond

He helped me to my feet and I examined Pascoe. His head had hit a sharp edge of rock protruding from the earth and he was no longer breathing.

Bertie was in no condition to make decisions so I took control. What happened next was my sole decision and my sole responsibility. Together we lifted the body and carried it into the wood. There is an old ice house there, built for the original old mansion and long disused, almost completely hidden beneath earth and undergrowth. Here we laid the body. Then I escorted Bertie back to the hospital where I told the matron his nerves had taken a turn for the worse and she administered a sleeping draught. After that I set off to drive home and in the lights of my car noticed the purse lying in the driveway. I stopped to pick it up and then got an idea of how I might throw the authorities off the scent when they began to look for the missing soldier. I went to the ice house and stripped the body of all its military uniform and identifying discs. The purse with the gold sovereigns in it I tossed in beside the corpse. The clothes I put in my car and two days later when I was in Liverpool on business, I hid them where they would be found in the railway station there.

I am making this statement because, in the event of my death and the subsequent discovery of Stephen Pascoe's remains, it is possible that my son might, because of his nervous condition, give a false or partial account of events, laying himself open to criminal charges, perhaps even murder. I wish to make it quite clear that apart from aiding me in the concealment of the body (and that only because he was at that time incapable of not following my commands), Bertie has broken no law. My fear was, and is, that if his part in Pascoe's accidental death came to light, any rumours which might already be in circulation or subsequently arise about my son's conduct as an officer during the late campaign in Flanders could flare up and result in false accusation, and perhaps permanent nervous debility.

Nothing in this letter, nor in any contribution I may have made or may subsequently make to the maintenance of Sergeant Pascoe's family, should be taken as acknowledgment or admission of any responsibility in law for said family, or recognition of any allegations made concerning my own conduct or that of my son Herbert on active service. My purpose, as stated, is simply to assert the bare facts of the unfortunate and accidental death of Private Stephen Pascoe.

It was signed by Arthur Grindal with his signature witnessed by a Leeds solicitor and his clerk.

Pascoe read it through three times. It should have been moving — a man's desperate attempt to protect his son — but something about it rang false as an atheist's prayers.

'Does that satisfy you, Mr Pascoe?' said Thomas Batty. 'A sad and tragic affair but long buried in the past and best left that way.'

'Like all the other mistakes made in those years, you mean?' said Pascoe. 'God, how the hell can this country go anywhere if it can't face the truth about itself?'

'That's a bit heavy,' said Dr David. 'OK, World War One was a mess, but this isn't really anything to do with it.'

'It's everything to do with it! But let's just stick to the fine detail then. First off, no allegations were made against Bertie during the trial other than that he was dazed, and possibly wounded by a shell blast and had to be restrained from a single-handed assault on an enemy pillbox.'

Batty considered then said, 'OK. So?'

'So Arthur Grindal could only have got the idea that such allegations might be made from one source. His own son, who must have poured his heart out, admitting that he was in a state of sheer terror most of the time and would probably have run if the sergeant hadn't taken control. I wonder what his real written evidence would have sounded like?'

'What do you mean?' asked Thomas Batty.

'I mean that the evidence mainly responsible for killing my great-grandfather was a deposition, allegedly dictated to Arthur Grindal, in which Sergeant Pascoe's actions were painted in the worst light possible. It was supported by a covering letter in which Arthur depicted him as a socialist agitator of the worst kind. And you know what? None of these lies was necessary! My poor benighted great-grandfather was out there, lying through his teeth to protect his pathetic little officer's reputation!'

He stopped abruptly. Janet Batty's face had drained of colour, leaving it pale and waxy as a lily. It's this woman's father I'm talking about, he thought. My own connection with all this is three generations old and I never knew the men involved, but it's this woman's father, and her pain must go at least as deep as my indignation.

He said, 'Mrs Batty, I'm sorry. I believe your father was as much a victim here as anyone else. I'm sure if he had ever known-'

'Oh he knows,' she burst out. 'He knows!'

It took a few seconds for the tense to sink in.

'Knows?' he echoed.

He saw Thomas Batty's warning glance, David Batty's wry grin, remembered the nurse he'd seen going up the stairs on his first visit to the Maisterhouse.

'He's still alive?' he said incredulously. 'He's here?'

He saw the answer in Janet's face. Illogically this somehow made it all far worse. When all concerned had shared their common end, whether it means repose in a carefully tended family plot, or in a distant soldier's grave, or even in the sodden clay of a ravaged wood, there was a distancing which made the woman's living pain a great dissuader from further public rage and accusation.

But the thought that not only had this man enjoyed a long and comfortable life with all the blessings of family and fortune but was still enjoying it..

Or perhaps not. Forcing himself to speak evenly he said, 'He must be very old.'

'Oh yes,' said David Batty almost mockingly. 'We're all looking forward to the telegram from Her Majesty.'

'He's very frail,' said Janet Batty defensively. 'But he's still got all his mental faculties.'

'That must be a blessing to all concerned,' said Pascoe savagely.

'We thought so. Till this week, that is.'

'He heard about it on television, didn't he?' said Pascoe. 'He knew at once who it was; he didn't even need to wait for the details to come out. What was his reaction? That he wanted to make a clean breast after all these years? That's why you saw me personally, Mr Batty, to stress that ALBA wouldn't be prosecuting the ANIMA women, to start putting the lid on things as firmly as you could. No wonder you jumped when I told you I was one of the Kirkton Pascoes! Felt like someone walking over your grave, did it?'

He rose to his feet. He was sick of all this. Time to do what he'd come to do and get out. He tried to suppress a deep-down tremor of pleasure at the unexpected revenge he was going to take on this family which had so comprehensively misshaped his own.

Thomas was up too, getting between him and the door.

'You can't see him, Mr Pascoe,' he said. 'He's too frail to take it.'

Pascoe regarded him with some irritation in which there was an element of pity. He didn't really believe that the elder Batty had been party to the raid on Fraser Greenleaf, guessed that the news that his own son was an instigator of theft and an accessory to murder would destroy him.

'Why should you imagine I want to see your father-in- law?' he asked scornfully.

The question started rhetorical, but somewhere along the line it became real.

Why should Batty think he wanted to confront Gertie? Or rather, why was it he still got the feeling, especially from the senior Battys, that the bottom line in all this was still unread?

Arthur's statement. That feeling he had of something still requiring explication. The bottom line literally, or rather, the bottom lines.