Asking For The Moon dap-16

by Reginald Hill

  'Perhaps not,' said Pascoe equably. 'Think about it, anyway. Meanwhile I think at least we ought to have one of our people back on Europa. We've tied up your man long enough.'

  Again Druson looked doubtful.

  Dalziel, who was carving a steak like a Sunday joint, said, 'What's up, Ed? Scared we'll pick the killer and he'll make a run for Mars?'

  'Funny. Yeah, OK, why not? Anyone in mind?'

  'Rabal, the Spaniard's the obvious choice. She's the pilot. Also, though I've not talked to her myself yet, Andy here reckons she's in the clear and I've never known him wrong.'

  You lying bastard! thought Dalziel, chewing on his steak. He got the feeling that Druson for all his street-wisdom was being edged into doing exactly what Pascoe wanted.

  'OK,' said the American after a pause for thought. 'Why not? I'll arrange for one of our pods to make the transfer. No need to fuck around with that steam-powered module of yours!'

  Dalziel noted the transfer of irritation. You've got the feeling you've been stitched up as well, my lad, he thought. And you've no idea how or why!

  Pascoe pushed aside his almost untouched omelette and stood up.

  'If you'll excuse me,' he said. 'Couple of things to do. Back to work in, say, fifteen minutes, Andy?'

  He just about got the interrogative lift in, dulling the imperative edge of the sentence.

  'Whatever you say,' said Dalziel.

  They watched him walk away, a slim, upright figure, from behind very little changed from the young detective-constable Dalziel had spotted signs of promise in so many years ago.

  'Hard man, your boss,' opined Druson. 'And in a hurry. Man in a hurry can make mistakes.'

  'Whoever fixed the Frog's suit must have been in a hurry and he didn't make mistakes,' said Dalziel. 'Apart from leaving yon microprobe thing in his locker.'

  'Could be even that wasn't a mistake,' said Druson. 'Could be he got instructions to put himself under suspicion and stir things up between the Germans and the French.'

  'Oh aye. From which of his masters?' wondered Dalziel.

  'From whichever wanted it most,' said Druson. 'I'm just a plain security jock. I don't mess with politics. Now if you'll excuse me, Andy. Anything you want, just ask, OK?'

  He's getting worried about the lad wandering around free, thought Dalziel.

  He said, 'Aye, there's one thing you could tell me, Ed. What do you lot do about sex up here?'

  Back in their dome after lunch Dalziel said, 'Nice guy, Druson. Quite bright too, for a Yank.'

  'Indeed,' said Pascoe. 'This afternoon, Andy, let's whip them through at a fair old pace. Don't give them time to think. How does that-sound to you as a strategy?'

  It was the old Peter Pascoe's voice, easy, friendly, slightly diffident. But running through it now like a filament of high-tensile steel was the unmistakable tone of a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

  'Sounds fine,' said Dalziel.

  He followed Pascoe's instructions to the letter with Kaufmann, hitting him with rapid-fire questions all of which the German handled with the assurance of a man well grounded in the interrogative arts.

  'Did you like Lemarque?' he asked finally.

  'He knew his job, he did his work,' answered the German.

  'Aye, but did you like him?'

  Kaufmann considered, then said, 'As a man, no. He was like many small men, too aggressive. Always compensating for his lack of height.'

  'Give me an example.'

  'Well, I recall during training, he found out that O'Meara had been a boxer in his youth, an amateur, you understand. All the time after that, he made jokes about it, pretended to fight with him, challenged him to a bout in the gym.'

  'And did O'Meara take up the challenge?'

  'Naturally not. Such things would not be allowed. We were training for the mission. Physical injury would have been disastrous for any one of us.'

  'So what happened?'

  'Nothing,' said Kaufmann. 'O'Meara kept his temper, though I think it was difficult for him sometimes. Eventually Lemarque found a new target.'

  'Which was?'

  'Me, I think. The Germans in the wars of the last century, something like that.'

  'And you kept your temper too?'

  'Oh yes. Sometimes I imagined what I would like to do to the troublesome little creature, but it stayed in my imagination.'

  'Oh aye. And can you prove that?'

  The answer came unhesitatingly.

  'All I can say is, if I had decided to kill him, one thing is sure. Everyone would have been quite convinced it was an accident.'

  'He had a point,' said Dalziel. 'But not just for him. How come with all their electronic know-how, whoever did it made such a pig's arse of covering their tracks?'

  'We've been through this, Andy,' said Pascoe. 'It must have been done in a hell of a hurry. I gather there's only room for one person at a time in the Europa's hold and the TV camera is blocked by the body. So the opportunity's there. But if anyone spent an unusually long time down there, it'd stick out in the recordings at Control, and it doesn't.'

  'Aye, well, mebbe I'll get the chance to see what it's like up there for myself before we're done,' growled Dalziel.

  'Still thinking we're not following proper procedure?' mocked Pascoe. 'You're such a stickler! It wasn't always like that, I seem to recall. Incidentally, I assume the new Andy Dalziel has been carefully checking out the order they got themselves ready in?'

  Dalziel looked uncomfortable and Pascoe allowed himself a superior smile.

  'Good news and bad news,' he said. 'The good news is you haven't missed anything by not checking, for the bad news is Lemarque was last into the hold, so it could have been anyone who fixed his suit!'

  'How does an Irishman get to be an astronaut?' asked Dalziel.

  Kevin O'Meara cocked his head on one side in best leprechaun fashion and said, 'Is it an Irish joke you're after telling?'

  'Sorry?'

  'Do I say, I don't know, and you say, he lights a rocket but doesn't retire till he's sixty-five? Or is it a real question?'

  'That's the only Sort I know.'

  'All right, then. Here's the story of me fascinating life and hard times. I joined the Air Force at sixteen, not out of any sense of patriotism, you understand – Nor law nor duty made me fight, Nor public men nor cheering crowds – you'll know your Yeats? No, the only reason I had was to learn to fly so I could become a commercial airline pilot, and make a lot of money, and spend me spare time pleasuring hostesses in palatial hotels. Now isn't that a reasonable ambition for a randy young buck?'

  'Sounds fair enough to me,' said Dalziel. 'What happened?'

  'I grew up. Or at least I grew older. Young men should be given their heart's desires straight away. If you wait till you've earned them…'

  He threw back his head and carolled, 'Oh, the youth of the heart and the dew in the morning, you wake and they've left you without any warning.' ^1

  'Don't ring us,' said Dalziel. 'So you just more or less drifted into the space programme, is that what you're saying?'

  'Isn't that the way of most things? You now, I dare say you just drifted into being a policeman.'

  'No,' said Dalziel. 'It was what I wanted.'

  'Was it now? OK, I'm sorry to hear that. I like my cops to be ordinary chaps like myself who can look at some poor devil in trouble and think: There but for the grace of God go I.'

  'If I'd fancied the mercy business, I'd have trained as a nun,' said Dalziel. 'From your file, I see you had a longish period of sick leave about four years back.'

  'Is it me file you've got there? Then you'll know more about meself than I'll ever want to know.'

  'It was after your wife died, right?'

  'Let me think. Yes now, you'll be right. Or was it after the budgie escaped? Drat this memory of mine!'

  'Not much to choose between a wife and a budgie, I suppose,' said Dalziel. 'All bright feathers and non-stop twittering. Your missus flew away too, didn't
she? Funny, that. You need to be a very cheeky sod to apply for sick leave "cos the tart who dumped you's got herself killed.'

  'That's me all over,' said O'Meara. 'More cheek than Sister Brenda's bum, as the saying is.'

  'She'd run off with a Frog, hadn't she?' persisted Dalziel. 'Died with him in a car accident. Terrible bloody drivers, these foreigners.'

  'Aha!' said O'Meara. 'At last I'm getting your drift! And here's me thinking you were just showing a friendly interest! Because me wife ran off with a Frog, as you call him, every time I see a Frenchman, I feel an irresistible desire to kill him, is that it? Sure now, it's a fair cop. Except it happens in this case, the Frog she ran off with was a Belgian!'

  'Let's not split hairs,' said Dalziel.

  'You're right. Many things I am, but not a hair-splitter Do I get a choice of wearing the cuffs in front or behind And what happens if I want to go to the little boys' room while I've got them on?'

  'You pray no one's been mucking about with your wiring This sick leave you had, exactly what was it that was supposed to be wrong with you?'

  'Oh, women's trouble, you know the kind of thing.'

  Dalziel slapped the file down on his knee with a crack that made the Irishman flinch.

  'End of happy hour,' he snarled. 'Let's have some straight answers, right?'

  'Oh God!' cried the Irishman, clenching his fists in a parody of a boxer's defences. 'You don't mean you're after fighting with the gloves off, is that it? I never could abide bare fists. Bare anything else you care to name, but not the bare fists!'

  Dalziel looked at him thoughtfully and said, 'Yes, I'd heard summat about you being a boxer. And about the little Frog taking the piss.'

  'Now that's what I call an unfortunate choice of phrase,' said O'Meara.

  'I told you, lad. Cut the comedy! Let's just talk about you and Lemarque and the boxing ring, shall we?'

  'I thought we agreed to whip this lot through double quick,' said Pascoe irritably.

  'Sorry. He bothered me, that one. Something not right.' 'Ah, the famous nose again. What kind of not-rightness?' 'Too many jokey answers and I got the feeling he was trying to steer me around all the time.'

  'So what did you end up not getting answers about that you asked questions about?'

  Dalziel considered, then said, 'Hard to say exactly. One thing was why he got sick leave after his wife snuffed it, but that can't have owt to do with anything, can it?' 'Unlikely. What was wrong with him, anyway?'

  'Don't know. That's the point I'm making,' said Dalziel

  'There should have been a medical report in his file. Hang about, I've still got it here. Sorry. Let's see. Emotional trauma, blah blah; physical symptoms, insomnia, slight hypertension blah blah; treatment, counselling and unpronounceable drugs; passed fit for duty, 7.10.06. Nothing there that's relevant, I'd say. Maybe he just doesn't like talking about that time. Stick this in his file, will you?'

  Dalziel glanced at the medical report, shrugged and said, The bugger's still not right. How'd you do with Danish bacon? Fancy a slice?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'You don't fancy her or you don't think she's in the frame?'

  'I don't think that Miss Schierbeck would judge any man worth killing,' said Pascoe. 'So. One each left. We're not doing too well, Andy.'

  'Come on,' said Dalziel. 'You've scuppered the Yanks' motive for Kaufmann being the killer, haven't you?'

  'Because he's a double? We knew that before I left Earth. It would still be very embarrassing to have to make that public in his defence. No, the only thing that's going to please my masters and cut the ground right from under the Americans' feet is for us to come up with the undeniably genuine perpetrator. There can't be any cover-up or fit-up. We need the real thing and, we need it fast!'

  After thirty minutes with Adriaan van der Heyde, Dalziel was convinced that either the Dutchman wasn't the real thing or if he was, it would take thumbscrews, rack and Iron Maiden to prise it out of him. He'd heard Pascoe's door open and shut after only ten minutes, signalling that the Commissioner was following his own precept of speed. It annoyed Dalziel to be accused of dragging his feet, annoyed him even more to suspect that perhaps it was age that was making him take so long.

  'Look,' he said in desperation, 'let's say you're in the clear, right? Which of the others do you reckon most likely?'

  The stolid Dutchman scratched his nose, then said very definitely, 'Albertosi.'

  'What?' It occurred to Dalziel that, though it seemed unlikely, it would be nice to pin this on the Italian, not least because Pascoe obviously felt able to dismiss him so quickly.

  'Why do you say that?' he asked. 'You reckon mebbe he was jealous of Lemarque?'

  'Jealous? Sexually, you mean?' The Dutchman shook his head. 'That's all the British can think of. Sex!'

  'Must be something to do with living above sea-level,' said Dalziel. 'All right, tulip. What do you say his motive was?'

  'Revenge.'

  There was an unnerving certainty about the man's manner and delivery.

  Even Dalziel who was not easily impressed by the trappings of honesty couldn't help feeling he had better pay close attention here.

  'You'd best explain,' he said.

  The Dutchman nodded, took a deep breath and began to speak in a measured didactic tone which for a while disguised the incredible content of his allegations.

  'Lemarque was approached by a consortium who wanted his help to take over the holy water bottling business in Lourdes. It is a multi-million-franc industry, you understand. He pretended to agree but went to the police. Unfortunately behind this consortium are people who decree that the price of betrayal of their confidence is death. Marco Albertosi was instructed to carry out the sentence.'

  For a second Dalziel was reduced to a rare speechlessness. Then he burst out, 'For Christ's sake, are you telling me Albertosi is a Mafia hit man?'

  'His family is Sicilian, did you know that?'

  'No, I bloody didn't! Come on, lad, where's your hard evidence for all this? For any of it!'

  'Lemarque's last words. They were incomplete.'

  'Oh mer… So?'

  'He was trying to say Omerta!' said the Dutchman. 'The Mafia's code of silence.'

  For a long moment Dalziel stared into van der Heyde's grave, unyielding face.

  Finally he said, 'Are you taking the piss?'

  Another long moment, then…

  'Yes,' said van der Heyde. And his face crazed like an overtired Delft plate into a myriad lines of laughter.

  The pod spun round the moon in a climbing orbit and Earth swam into view like a schoolroom globe. It was easy for Dalziel to pick out Africa and India, but Yorkshire was invisible under a cloud. He felt a sharp pang of homesickness.

  'Long way back, huh?' said Druson, observing him sympathetically.

  'Long way to come just to hear a Dutchman crack a joke, right enough,' said Dalziel.

  He had rewarded van der Heyde with a glass of Scotch. One glass led to another and he'd finally emerged from the interview with a feeling of childish self-satisfaction at having so blatantly ignored Pascoe's repeated instruction to hurry things along. Logically he had no cause to feel irritated when he found that Pascoe had joined Silvia Rabal in the pod taking her up to Europa, but he did. Even the return of Druson with the nightwatch and the message that his 'boss' wanted him up there too didn't mollify him.

  'Boss'. He couldn't recall the last time he had acknowledged a boss, and he certainly wasn't about to start with a jumped-up detective-sergeant who'd struck lucky!

  Mistaking his irritation, Druson said, 'Don't take it to heart, Andy. So the German still looks the man most likely, so what? Let the politicians work it out.'

  'Eh? What makes you think I give a toss about politics?'

  'You don't?' Druson looked at him shrewdly and said, 'I almost believe you, Andy. So what do you care about?'

  'A fair measure in a clean glass,' said Dalziel. 'That'll do me.'

  'And
Commissioner Pascoe, is that how he feels too?'

  'Peter? Straight as a donkey's shaft,' said Dalziel. 'Too honest for his own good sometimes.'

  He spoke with a force he didn't quite understand the need for.

  'He's done well for an honest man,' observed Druson neutrally. 'But at least he brought you along, so that's a point in his favour, I'd say.'

  Dalziel tried to work out the drift of Druson's comments as they came in to dock with Europa, but once aboard he needed all his concentration to keep him from bouncing around like a ball in a bingo jar. On the US lunar shuttle he had been safe in the embrace of his wrap-around couch, so this was his first true experience of untrammelled weightlessness. Pascoe watched with open amusement, but Silvia Rabal showed a deal of concern which Dalziel found flattering till he realized she was more worried about her delicate instruments than his delicate body.

  Finally, having discovered that the basic art was to reduce his energy output by ninety per cent, he gained sufficient control to follow Pascoe on a tour of the ship.

  The fact that every dimension was usable made it feel surprisingly large. There were three main compartments: the bridge, which was the principal control area in the bow; the deck, which was the large central section housing most of the accommodation facilities; and the hold. This was basically a narrow cylinder walled by storage lockers, seven of which had the crew's names stencilled on them.

  Dalziel almost filled the central space.

  'You'd need to be a bloody contortionist to muck around with one of them TECs down here,' he said, pulling at the door marked van der Heyde. 'Locker' proved a misnomer. It was held shut only by a magnetic catch and flew open. A framed photo came floating out and he grabbed it.

  'These people are highly trained pros,' said Pascoe, behind, or above, or underneath him. 'Also they're very fit and fairly thin. What's that you've got?'

  'Family snap,' said Dalziel, passing back a photo of two very plain girls and a scowling woman. 'You can see why he took to space. They're allowed personal stuff, then?'

  'Within reason. Weight's not the problem it was.'

  'Not for some,' said Dalziel. 'Let's have a shufti.'

  He began opening other lockers. This felt more like real police work! But he soon began to feel that these souvenirs of Earth were better material for a psychiatrist than a simple bobby.