'Not more than once a day, sir. Howard. Oh yes. Jimmy Howard. Didn't so much take retirement as had it force-fed, if I remember right.'
Dalziel, who took too much pride in Wield's internet mind to be a bad loser, said, 'You usually do. So fill me in.'
'There was talk he was on the take, but before it got anywhere, he were picked up driving over the limit. Got himself a soft quack who gave him a note saying job stress, and no one stood in his way when he went for medical retirement with pension afore the case came up and he got kicked out without.'
'And the other? Being on the take?'
'Well, nowt was proved. But he's a hard-betting man and those who saw him at the races reckoned he couldn't be losing that much on a constable's take-home. Makes you wonder, don't it?'
'Wonder what, Wieldy?'
'Did TecSec not know about him? Or did they know and take him on despite? Or did they know and take him on because?'
Dalziel shook his head admiringly.
'That's a really nasty mind you've got there, Wieldy. Any reason other than natural prejudice?'
'It was you who said private security companies are guilty till proven innocent, sir,' said Wield reproachfully. 'I've not seen much of this lot, but there's something about them doesn't sit right.'
Dalziel regarded him thoughtfully. A Wield uneasiness was not something to be dismissed lightly.
'All right,' he said. 'Take a closer look. Let on it's these animal libbers we're interested in, how they acted when they got into the building last night. Which we are.'
'Right, sir. But it doesn't sound to me like ALBA will be prosecuting.'
'Big ears you've got. Listen, lad. No one tells me when to stop looking. And I'll keep this ANIMA bunch in view till I'm completely satisfied there's no link with Redcar.'
'You don't really think there could be a connection, sir?' said Wield dubiously. 'I mean from what's known about this lot, they're at the soft end of the movement.'
'First rule of this job is, take nowt on trust,' said the Fat Man sternly. 'Keep your eye on the ball and you'll not buy any dummies.'
This struck Wield as a bit rich when he recalled from Dalziel's complaint last night at not having been warned of the gender of the protesters that the main thing he seemed to have kept his eye on, and which he mentioned at least three times in the sergeant's mitigation, was Amanda Marvell's knockers.
He said, 'I'll make a note of that,' not bothering to muffle the sarcasm.
Dalziel snorted in exasperation and said, 'All right, so what's going off? Toad-licking season started early in Brigadoon, has it?'
This was Dalziel's name for Enscombe.
'Sorry, sir?'
'Jokes last night, and back there you were coming over like the press agent for disadvantaged chimps. So what's it all mean?'
'I don't much like what they're doing there,' admitted Wield. 'Sorry. I know I should keep my neb out.'
'Bloody right you should. Public needs protecting from a neb like yours. Any road, what was it you came in to tell me? You realize I've come out of there as thirsty as I went in, so it had better be important.'
'Not really, sir. Control came through on the radio. Said that woman in charge of the ANIMA lot, what's her name? Marbles …? Movables.. ?'
Wield forgetting a name was as likely as the Godfather forgetting a grudge, but Dalziel found himself saying, 'Marvell,' before he could stop himself.
'That's right. Seems she called in at the station, wanted to see you to make a statement. Could be you're right, sir, and she's come to confess.'
'Oh aye? Well, she had her chance to confess last night,' said Dalziel. 'Let her wait. She can sit around till she gets piles.'
'Oh she's not sitting around, sir. When she found you weren't there, she took off. Said for you to call at her flat, it 'ud be more comfortable there anyway. Says not to worry about turning up at lunch time as she can easily rustle up a snack. You want the address, sir?'
All this was said absolutely deadpan, and pans didn't come any deader than Wield's. But Dalziel was not fooled.
'No, I don't want the bloody address,' he snarled. 'And just because you look like the man in the iron mask, don't imagine I can't see you're smirking!'
He strode away. And Wield, his smirk now externalized, watched him go, thinking, and just because you look like a rhino in retreat, don't imagine I can't see you're horny!
ix
In a long narrow office as chaotic as the museum was neat, Pascoe drank strong tea with Major Hilary Studholme.
The major had listened to Pascoe's story with an attention as undiverted as his pistol. With a mental moue of apology in the direction of Ada, Pascoe had felt it better in the circumstances not to explicate her probable motives, and though stopping well short of any direct assertion of regimental pride, it was as nothing to the distance he stayed from even a hint of paranoiac loathing.
The production of his police ID finally convinced the major he was neither a dangerous lunatic nor a bomb-planting terrorist.
As Pascoe sipped his tea, the major riffled through a couple of leather-bound volumes with a dexterity remarkable in a man with only a left hand.
'Odd,' he said. 'Pascoe rings a definite bell, but there's no record of an NCO of that name buying it at Ypres in 1917. Could have lost his stripe, of course. There's a Private Stephen Pascoe got wounded. . could that be a connection, do you think?'
'I doubt it,' said Pascoe. 'Point is, it won't be Pascoe, will it?'
The single eye regarded him blankly, then the upper lip spasmed in a silly-ass grimace which laid the hairs of his moustache horizontal and he said, 'Sorry. Mind seeping out through my eye socket. Of course Pascoe would be your grandmother's married name. So, what was her maiden name?'
Pascoe thought then said, 'Clark, I think.'
Studholme grimaced. 'Got a hatful of Clarks in here,' he said, patting the leather-bound books. 'With an "e" or without? Got an initial?'
'Sorry,' said Pascoe. 'All I know about him is there's a photo with him showing off a lance corporal's stripe with the date 1914, then a scrawl, presumably my great-grandmother's, saying Killed Wipers 1917. That puzzles me a bit. I thought the big battle at Ypres was earlier in the war.'
'Oh yes? If that's the limit of an educated man's knowledge, Mr Pascoe, just imagine the ignorance of most of your fellow cits!'
Pascoe found himself ready to bridle. Studholme with his bristly moustache, clipped accent and sturdy tweeds, looked a prototypical member of the British officer class which liberal tradition characterized as snobbish, philistine, and intellectually challenged, not at all the kind of person a young(ish) Guardian-reading graduate, who could get Radio 3 and sometimes did, ought to let himself be lectured by.
On the other hand as a public servant in a police force threatened with radical restructuring, it would be impolitic as well as impolite to get up the nose of a war hero.
'I know what most educated people know about the Great War, major,' he said carefully. 'That even by strict military standards, it was an exercise in futility unprecedented and unsurpassed.'
Shit, that had come out a bit stronger than intended.
'Bravo,' said Studholme surprisingly. 'That's a start. Let me fill in a bit of detail. The first battle of Ypres took place in October and November 1914. British losses about fifty thousand, including the greater part of the prewar regular army. First Ypres marked the end of anything that could be called open warfare. During the winter both sides concentrated on fortifying their defences and after that it was trench warfare from the North Sea to the Swiss border till 1918.'