The Wood Beyond by Reginald Hill Page B

source of most of the family warmth in his upbringing, but hope of any real rapprochement had died with the old lady's reaction to Rosie's birth.
    'A girl,' she said. 'You planning any more?'
    'We'll have to see,' said Pascoe.
    'Doesn't matter. Maybe it's best you should be the last of the Pascoes. I sometimes wonder if Mother didn't have the right of it after all.'
    Slightly enigmatic this last comment might have been, but the general tenor of her indifference to the birth of her great-granddaughter was unmistakable and, in Pascoe's proudly paternal eyes, unforgivable. Hereafter contact was intermittent and formal, which didn't stop him from feeling a tremendous upsurge of guilt at the news of her death and the realization that he hadn't seen her for almost two years.
    Ellie had felt neither the indignation nor the guilt. And she would definitely have gone to the funeral, she assured herself, if Rosie's cold hadn't interfered.
    Or maybe, she added with that instinctive honesty which kept her certainties this side of fanaticism, maybe I'd have found some other reason, like cleaning an old tennis shoe.
    'It really got to her, didn't it?' she said. 'Losing her dad like that in the war. It dominated her life. I hope I'm not that obsessive?'
    'We'd better ask Rosie in twenty years or so,' said Pascoe lightly. 'Any calls by the way?'
    'From on high, you mean? Yes, naturally. His Fatship rang first thing this morning, asked if you were back yet. Implied that you were an overeducated rat swimming away from an overloaded ship. Something about animals rights and finding bones in a wood?'
    'Wanwood House, ALBA Pharmaceuticals, I was there in the summer, remember? I heard on the news some activists had got in the grounds and discovered human remains. So he's missing me? Good! What did you tell him?'
    'I said that your family and fiduciary duties were such as would probably detain you in Warwickshire until late this evening at the earliest.'
    'Excellent,' said Pascoe. 'Many thanks.'
    'For what?'
    'For lying for me.'
    'Isn't that a wife's duty, lying for her husband, vertically and horizontally?'
    'Well, yes, of course,' said Pascoe. 'Tell me, how dutiful are you feeling?'
    Before Ellie could reply the doorbell rang.
    'Shit,’ said Pascoe. 'If it's him, tell him I'm still fiducing.'
    'And your car came back by itself? Good trick.'
    Through the frosted panel of the front door, Ellie could see at once it wasn't Dalziel. With a bit of luck it would just be a Jehovah's Witness who could be told to sod off with utmost dispatch. She was feeling pleasantly randy and there was a good hour or more before she needed to think about picking up Rosie from school.
    It wasn't a Witness, it was Wendy Walker, looking like a good advert for the afterlife.
    'Hi, Ellie,' she said. 'Spare a mo for a chat?'
    'Yes, of course,' said Ellie brightly. 'Come in.'
    Wendy moved past her and stopped by the secretaire.
    'Nice,' she said.
    'Make me an offer,' said Ellie. 'Come into the kitchen.'
    They sat opposite each other at the stripped pine table.
    'Coffee?' said Ellie.
    'No thanks. OK if I smoke, but?'
    There were several reasons why it wasn't, each of them absolute.
    On the other hand, to be asked permission by someone who would have lit up in Buck House without reference to the Queen was a flattery it seemed churlish to deny.
    She said weakly, 'All right but I'll open a window.'
    It was a counterproductive move, merely adding the risk of primary pneumonia to that of secondary cancer.
    Drawing a curtain to cut down the draught, she said, 'Sure you wouldn't like a coffee?'
    'To sober me up you mean?' said Wendy aggressively.
    'No, I didn't, actually. But do you need sobering up?'
    'No. Sorry I snapped. Did have a couple at lunch time but that doesn't make me a drunk.'
    'No, of course it doesn't. Was there something particular .. . ?'
    'We went on a raid last night.'
    'Wanwood House? Was that you?'
    'You know about it?'
    'Only what I heard on the news and that