The Wood Beyond

He smiled his nice smile. From the doorway Ellie said, ‘I’ll get the drinks.’

Seating himself opposite his visitor, Pascoe said, ‘So what brings you into my neck of the woods, major?’

‘Dining out this way with friends. Was going to ring you in the morning, but thought face to face better. Especially as I wanted to show you something.’

He picked up a large envelope which he had set down on a coffee table, flicked the flap open with his thumb and shook some photographs out.

They were all of soldiers in Great War uniform. Two were formal groups, the other was informal, showing four men resting against a gun limber. Their clothes were mud-stained and their efforts to look cheerful sat on their fatigued faces like prostitutes’ smiles.

‘Anyone you recognize?’ said Studholme.

‘Good lord,’ said Ellie who’d returned with the drinks which she was setting down on the table. ‘There you are again, Peter.’

This time, even Pascoe couldn’t deny the resemblance between himself and one of the exhausted soldiers. It was less clear in the group pictures, but Ellie went with unerring accuracy to a face which had Studholme nodding his agreement.

‘So what’s your point?’ said Pascoe. ‘You think this is my great-grandfather, is that it?’

It didn’t seem to him a particularly exciting discovery, certainly not one to bring Studholme even a short distance out of his way.

The major said, ‘You mentioned a photograph you had?’

With the perfect timing she had inherited from her mother, Rosie pushed open the door and came in, barefooted and nightgowned, carrying the photograph from Ada’s secretaire.

‘Look what I found, Daddy,’ she said.

‘Good God,’ said Pascoe, taking the photo. ‘I was twice your age before I learned how to open that drawer.’

‘Girls mature quicker,’ observed Ellie. ‘But that doesn’t mean they don’t need their sleep. Come on. Back to bed with you, Lady Macbeth.’

‘But why is Daddy wearing those funny clothes?’ asked Rosie who had learned early on that the way to delay her mother from any undesirable course of action was to ask as many questions as possible.

‘It’s not me, darling,’ interposed Pascoe. ‘It’s your great-great-granddad, and he just happened to look a tiny little bit like me.’

‘He looks the spitting image of you,’ said Ellie. ‘Doesn’t he, dear?’

‘Fucking right he does,’ agreed Rosie.

Pascoe winced and glanced an apology at the major whose one visible eyebrow arched quizzically. Ellie caught the girl up in her arms and said, ‘Off we go. Say good-night.’

There was a moment’s pause which had Pascoe wondering if his daughter was rifling her word-horde for one of the less conventional valedictory forms such as, ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’ or ‘Up yours, arsehole’, but she contented herself with a long-suffering ‘Goodnight then’ over her mother’s shoulder.

‘She is making surprising progress at school,’ said Pascoe when the door had closed.

‘Indeed,’ said Studholme dryly.

He took the photograph from Pascoe’s hand and studied it, then set it alongside the ones he’d brought.

‘Might be doubles,’ he said. ‘Such things happen. Anything can. But chances are they’re the same. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Well, yes. But so what? Do you have a name for the chap in your pics?’ asked Pascoe.

‘Yes. Names for nearly all of them. One of my predecessors was very thorough back in the twenties. Double-checked with survivors. That’s why I came.’

‘Because this is definitely Corporal Clark?’

‘Sergeant at the end. And not Clark. Here. Look.’

He produced a sheet of paper on which someone had patiently traced one of the groups in outline with numbers instead of faces. Below was a key.

Pascoe checked the number of his lookalike. Twenty-two. Then he dropped his gaze to the key.

He was glad he wasn’t standing. Even sitting he felt the chair lurch beneath his behind and saw the air shimmer like the onset of migraine. He blinked it clear and reread the entry.

No 22. Pascoe Peter (Corporal).

‘Is this your idea of a joke?’ he said steadily.

‘No joke,’ said Studholme regarding him closely and with concern.

‘Then what? Can’t be right. My grandmother was Ada Clark who became a Pascoe by marriage, so how could this be her father? Hang on though. Didn’t you say there was a Pascoe in the Wyfies at Third Wipers? Surely this is just a mix up of names?’

‘That was Private Stephen Pascoe. He got wounded not killed. This Corporal Peter, later sergeant, is someone else.’

Ellie came back in.

‘I think she’ll go to sleep now but don’t let her play you up. I’d better be on my way. Peter, you OK?’

He forced a smile.

‘Yes. Fine. I’ll check in a little while. Enjoy yourself.’

‘I’ll try. Major Studholme, nice to meet you. Sorry I’ve got to dash. ‘Bye.’

She was gone. She was good at exits thought Pascoe with the envy of one who usually made an awkward bow.

Studholme was standing up.

‘I’d better be on my way too,’ he said. ‘Bad form, being late.’

Pascoe didn’t rise but studied the other from his chair. With Dalziel breathing down your neck for all those years, one thing you practised till it became instinctive was the art of detailed observation. He let his gaze drift down Studholme’s clothing from his collar to his toecaps. He was beginning to feel something which if not anger, had a deal of anger in it.

‘Late for what?’ he asked. ‘If I had to make a guess, major, I’d say you weren’t going anywhere. All that about having dinner with friends in this neck of the woods is a load of baloney, isn’t it?’

Studholme brushed his forefinger across his moustache and said in a voice which had more of interest than indignation in it, ‘And on what would you base such an unmannerly speculation?’

‘You haven’t changed from when I saw you this morning. Same shirt, same tie, same jacket, same trousers. You haven’t even given your shoes a rub. Oh you look tidy enough, don’t misunderstand me, but I’m certain a man like you wouldn’t go to dine with friends without changing your shirt at least.’

‘Man like me? Little presumptuous on such short acquaintance, isn’t it?’

Again mildly curious rather than outraged.

‘You’ve known me exactly the same length of time,’ said Pascoe who could play this game till the cows came home and went out again. ‘Yet you feel you know me well enough to decide that whatever it really was that you came here to say might be best left unsaid. How’s that for presumption?’

‘Pretty extreme,’ the major admitted with the hint of a smile. ‘All right. May have been wrong. Still can’t be sure.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Pascoe. ‘Like another drink?’

Studholme shook his head.

‘Thanks but I’ll wait till I get home and can treat myself to a real nightcap. No offence, excellent orange juice.’

He sat down again, easing his right leg straight out in front of him. Did he have a prosthesis or just some muscle damage? wondered Pascoe. He felt a sympathetic twinge in his own leg damaged when he’d been trapped down Burrthorpe Main. Theoretically he’d made a complete recovery from that traumatic experience. His mind had other ideas.

He said, ‘So what’s the big mystery, major?’

Studholme said, ‘Tell me first of all. Your grandmother, why do you think she wanted her ashes scattered at regimental HQ?’

It was honesty time.

‘Not as a mark of respect, that’s for certain,’ said Pascoe. ‘She hated all things military, and the Wyfies in particular. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the nearest she could get to spitting in somebody’s face.’

‘Any idea why she felt so strongly?’

‘She lost her father in the war.’

‘Millions did.’

‘We all find our own way of dealing with things.’

‘Indeed,’ said the major frowning. ‘Though this was extreme.’

‘But you think you know why.’

‘Not absolutely certain—’

‘I think you are,’ interrupted Pascoe. ‘Perhaps not when you arrived, but now … yet you were going to go without saying anything. Why?’

‘Because of your face when you saw the name on that list. You looked like a man looking at his own tomb. I felt, perhaps it would be better …’

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