Asking For The Moon dap-16

by Reginald Hill

  Surprisingly, only the Dutchman had brought a family photo. Perhaps he didn't trust his memory and was insuring against the shock of reunion. Marco Albertosi obviously felt he could not live without a set of AC Milan's European Gup Programmes. Silvia Rabal's trust in technology did not extend to nourishment and her talisman was a soft leather bag containing sachets of camomile tea and various other pods, seeds, and dried herbs. Dalziel recalled her spicy breath and inhaled deeply. Marte Schierbeck's memento was more mysterious. An old tinder-box. Perhaps she was worried about being marooned? He opened it and found it contained a small tube of contraceptive pills. Perhaps it was who she was marooned with that bothered her! Kaufmann had brought with him a miniature score of Beethoven's Emperor concerto. Dalziel marvelled that these squidges could echo as music in some men's minds. Or perhaps it was just a spy's code book after all. The only other book he found was in O'Meara's locker, an ornately bound New Testament with a brass catch.

  'Didn't strike me as religious,' observed Dalziel.

  'What's that?' said Pascoe.

  'New Testament in O'Meara's locker.'

  'Oh, you know the priest-ridden Irish. Never shake it off. Bring it out anyway.'

  'Hang on. Just one to go.'

  It was Lemarque's and it was completely empty. Presumably it had contained nothing except the journal and that had been removed as evidence.

  He gave a gentle push and floated backwards out of the hold into the deck area.

  'So. One New Testament. Not quite the kind of testament I was hoping for,' said Pascoe glumly.

  Dalziel undid the catch and opened the book. On the fly leaf, a book-plate had been stuck headed Holy Cross Youth Club: Award for service. Under this was a handwritten inscription To Kevin (K. 0.) O'Meara. Western District featherweight champion, 1993, 1994- Well done! It was signed, Father Powell (i Tim vi, 12).

  'All his success since, and this is what still matters to him!' said Pascoe reflectively.

  'You reckon?' said Dalziel, turning to the First Epistle to Timothy.

  The page containing Chapter 6 verse 12 was folded in half and when he straightened it out he saw that either deliberately or by chance some flakes of white powder had been trapped there. Some, of them floated free. Dalziel licked his finger and stabbed at them, then cautiously put it to his mouth.

  'What are you after, Andy? Coke? Forget it. Druggies don't make it on to the space programme, believe me!'

  'Why not? They let in spies and killers,' said Dalziel. 'It's not coke anyroad. But I know that taste…'

  'Probably dandruff. Sorry. All right, pass it here and I'll take it back for analysis just to keep you quiet.'

  Dalziel, who didn't think he'd been making any unusually loud fuss, folded the page back to retain the rest of the powder. As he did so he glanced at Verse 12. Fight the good fight of faith. No wonder young K. O. O'Meara had won his titles; he'd had the referee in his pocket. His eye strayed a few verses up the column. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. Now there's where Paul had got it wrong. He hadn't given God credit for space travel. Unless, as seemed not improbable, it wasn't a work of God after all.

  He fastened the catch and gave Pascoe the book. The taste was still in his mouth, its source both figuratively and literally on the tip of his tongue.

  Druson, who was reclining or hanging on the deck, depending how you looked at it, said, 'You guys gonna be much longer?'

  'As long as it takes,' said Pascoe with an authoritative snap which made Dalziel smile and Druson look sour.

  'What's in here?' asked Dalziel, examining a couple of doors in the bulkheads.

  'Galley and the heads,' said Pascoe.

  'Heads?'

  'Loos.'

  'Oh, the karzies. That's right. You said they just went normal here.'

  'Not exactly normal,' said Pascoe, opening a door. 'With no gravity, you need a suction system, otherwise you could be in deep trouble.'

  Dalziel examined the apparatus.

  'Do yourself a nasty injury with that,' he opined.

  He floated above the open door in silence for a while.

  'Penny for them,' said Pascoe.

  'Still charge a penny, do they,' said Dalziel. 'No, I was just thinking. The Frenchie was so chuffed at being the first to land, and he'd got his little speech ready and all; and he'd not been too long gone from Europa where he had summat like a proper bog…'

  'So?'

  'So how come he got so desperate he had to take a leak on the ladder with the eyes of the universe on him?'

  'No one would know,' pointed out Pascoe.

  'He'd know,' said Dalziel grimly. 'And the data would register on the monitors up here, so they'd know. And then it would be transmitted back to Control on Earth so everyone there'd know. And you can bet your bottom dollar someone would leak the leak to the tabloids, so every bugger in the universe would know! So why'd he do it?'

  'Stage fright? Or perhaps he drank something. Didn't someone mention something about coffee?'

  'Aye. The Dane said he'd been moaning on about how bloody awful it was.'

  'There you are, then,' said Pascoe dismissively. 'Coffee's supposed to be pretty diuretic, isn't it?'

  And the word switched on a light in Dalziel's lingual memory.

  'Bugger me!' he said.

  'Why?' said Pascoe with unusual facetiousness.

  'That powder in the Testament, I know what it is. It's ground-down Thiabon tablets!'

  'You what?'

  'Thiabon. Trade name for the latest thiazide drug. Quack put me on 'em last year for me blood pressure. They work by releasing sodium from the tissues and stimulating the kidneys to wash it out. In other words, they make you pee!'

  'A lot?'

  'Worse than draught lager,' said Dalziel. 'In coffee, I reckon they'd have most men going in half an hour. And the build-up's constant. No use crossing your legs. You've got to go!'

  'What are you saying, Andy?' asked Pascoe with a frown of concentration.

  'No use fixing Lemarque's suit unless you can be sure he's going to trigger the short circuit, is there? So you feed him a diuretic which you know about because you've been prescribed it yourself!'

  'Hey,' interposed Druson. 'You're not confessing, are you, Andy? It'll take more than that to get Kaufmann off the hook.'

  'No,' said Dalziel. 'But I know someone else who suffered from mild hypertension a while back and could have been put on these pills. Hey, lass. Got a minute?'

  Silvia Rabal came down from the bridge. Hair piled up in its comb and wearing a silkily thin leotard in yellow and green, she hovered before them like some tropical bird.

  Dalziel said, 'Before word came through that Lemarque was to be first out, who'd won when you drew lots?'

  She thought, then said, 'Kevin. But I do not think anyone really believed they would let us decide ourselves…"

  'Believing the impossible's never bothered the Irish,' said Dalziel. 'So in O'Meara's mind, he should have had the honour of being first out. And beside getting the Freedom of Dublin city and draught Guinness for life, it'd mean money in the bank when it came to writing his memoirs!'

  Pascoe was shaking his head, unimpressed.

  'It's a pretty feeble motive for killing a man,' he said. 'Now if you were saying it was a daft Irish joke…'

  'Why not?' exclaimed Dalziel v now in full flow. 'Why not that too? There's nothing he can do about stopping Lemarque, but he can ruin his big moment. If the timing's right, there he'll be, standing on the ladder with all eyes on him, just about to launch into his big speech when suddenly he's got to pee. All right, he may have the nerve to carry that off, but not if his suit's been fixed to give him a short sharp shock along the dong? Man'd need to be Christian martyr material not to register that! In fact with a bit of luck, he might even fall off the ladder! Great gag, eh? Only without realizing, O'Meara had fixed it so that all the electronics in the TEC would jam, and the joke goes sour, and the poor bloody Frog is ly
ing dead.'

  Pascoe regarded him doubtfully, hopefully, longingly, like a pagan on the brink of conversion, and Dalziel's brain started working overtime, drawing fragile threads together in an effort to plait a cord that would bear the other's soul up to heaven.

  'Someone, Kaufmann I think it was, said something about Lemarque twitting O'Meara about being a boxer. Suppose he knew that his nickname as a lad had been KO? Mebbe he'd taken a peek in yon Testament. And suppose what he scribbled in his journal wasn't Ka is getting angry, but Ko is getting angry. And if he was on the alert, mebbe when he felt his bladder filling up at a suspicious rate, he recalled the awful coffee he'd drunk and knew where to lay the blame. What he said just before he died, Oh mer… what he was trying to say was O'Meara!'

  It wasn't much, but a man in search of salvation will make do with a candle if he doesn't get offered a blinding light.

  Pascoe said with fervent gratitude, 'Andy, how have I managed without you all this time? I felt there was something about O'Meara when I talked to him. I mentioned it to you, didn't I? Like he was playing a game with me, almost like there was something he wanted me to know… Mr Druson, I need to get back to the Village straightaway.'

  Druson was looking as if his side's twenty-point lead had been clawed back in the fourth quarter and now in the dying seconds of the game he was watching the opposition shaping to kick a field goal.

  'Come on, you guys!' he mocked, trying for time-out. 'I like baloney, but this is ridiculous! Let's just look at the facts here.. .'

  'The only fact that need concern you, Colonel, is that we are getting into that pod and that during the flight there will be no talking with your base other than essential technical exchanges. I'm sure you understand me.'

  Pascoe's tone was courteous, his voice quiet. But it was the quietness of deep space which can boil a man's blood in millisecs if he challenges it unprotected.

  Druson clearly believed he had that protection for now he substituted belligerence for mockery.

  'Now listen here. No limey cop gives me orders anywhere and especially not round the moon. Christ almighty, it's taken you guys half a century to get here in this junk heap. We've been living here for more than-'

  Pascoe cut across him like Zorro's sword through a candle.

  'Colonel Druson, you are presently on Federation territory and I would be quite within my rights to arrest you and fly the pod back myself with you under restraint. Oh yes, I could do it, believe me. Nor would my powers diminish on the moon's surface, which is by UN accord international territory where my authority is at least equal with that of your own Commander, who, incidentally, has received instructions from your President to extend me all facilities and full cooperation. I hardly think you want to be at the centre of a diplomatic incident which would wipe a mere accidental death right off our television screens. Do you?'

  Now for the first time Dalziel admitted to himself how far beyond him Pascoe had gone. He'd always known that the sky was the limit for the lad, but somehow, somewhere, a step had been taken which he'd not noticed, a small step which had taken his protege into territory where not even the mightiest of leaps could have taken Dalziel.

  Druson too was taken by surprise, but like Dalziel he was a pragmatist.

  'OK, OK, Commissioner,' he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. 'I'm not taking on the UN, believe me. Down we go, and I'll button my lip all the way, I promise.'

  'Thank you,' said Pascoe. 'Andy, perhaps you'd stay here till another pod fetches you. It would be a bit crowded for the three of us, I think.'

  He smiled as he spoke, but his eyes flickered to Silvia Rabal and his finger touched his lips. The message was clear. Dalziel was to make sure the Spaniard too made no contact with the Village.

  Dalziel had seen no particular evidence of the kind of group loyalty which might have her radioing a warning, but Pascoe was right to be cautious. All the same, Dalziel felt a little disgruntled that having done all the nose-work, he wasn't going to be in at the kill.

  Still, as Druson had just acknowledged, it was no use kicking against a brick wall. Best to lean back against it and enjoy the sun on your face.

  He watched the pod detach itself from Europa, then he turned to. Silvia Rabal who was relaxing against a bulkhead with her legs tucked up beneath her, looking more like an exotic bird than ever.

  'Right, luv,' he said, beaming broadly. 'Now what can an old vulture like me and a bright little cockatoo like you do to pass the time? With a bit of luck, mebbe we'll get an electrical storm, eh?'

  It was the youngster who'd brought the whisky who piloted Dalziel back to the Village. He called Dalziel 'pops' a couple of times, but the fat man was not in the mood to respond and most of the journey passed in silence.

  The first person he saw as he climbed from the pod was Druson whose face told him all.

  'Seems the Shamrock folded like a zed-bed,' said the

  Colonel. 'Full admission, signed, sealed and delivered. Just the way you called it, Andy.' '

  'Oh aye? You might look more pleased,' said Dalziel.

  'You too,' said Druson, regarding him shrewdly. 'Time for a snort?'

  'Best not,' said Dalziel, to his own surprise as much as the American's. 'I'll need to find out what the lad's planning.'

  Druson smiled and said, 'Last I saw of your lad, he was talking to the two congressmen and the Air Force general he'd just dumped off the next shuttle. I never heard a guy sound so polite as he says up yours, fallal So it looks like it's goodbye time, Andy. And I guess I'd better chuck in a congratulations. You two are a real class act. Though I'm still not sure if it's Laurel and Hardy or Svengali and Trilby.'

  'Is that a compliment?' wondered Dalziel. 'It's about time you buggers learnt to speak plain English. Cheers anyway, Ed. And thanks for the Scotch.'

  Dalziel raised himself on his couch. O'Meara was lying to his left, his. eyes closed, his breath shallow, a childlike relaxation smoothing the crinkled face.

  'Looks as innocent as a newborn baby, doesn't he?' said Pascoe, who occupied the couch to Dalziel's right.

  'Aye, he does,' said Dalziel. 'Mebbe that's because he is.'

  'I'm sorry?'

  Dalziel turned to face the younger man and said in an exaggerated whisper, 'Safe to talk now, is it?'

  Pascoe thought of looking puzzled, changed his mind, grinned and said, 'Quite safe. Clever of you to spot it.'

  'They brought me Glenmorangie,' said Dalziel. 'I'd not mentioned any brand till we got to our rooms and I com plained that Druson had forgotten. I checked it out again at lunch. Druson was listening all right. And you knew, but decided not to warn me.'

  Pascoe didn't deny it.

  'Sorry,' he said. 'Didn't see any point. We weren't going to be saying anything we cared about them hearing, were we?'

  Dalziel considered, then said, 'No, lad. We weren't. You because you're a clever bugger and knew they were listening. And me because. ..'

  'Because what, Andy?' prompted Pascoe with lively interest.

  'Because, not knowing, I'd just come across as a simple old copper doing his job the way he'd always done it.'

  'I don't think I'm quite with you,' said Pascoe.

  'Oh yes you are. You're only hoping you're not,' said Dalziel. 'Let me spell it out for you, lad. Here's what I think really happened back there. When the Frog snuffed it, the Yanks checked out his TEC. They found a malfunction but no definite sign of outside interference, so it looked like a bug had got into that particular circuit. Tragic accident. Trouble was, the suit was an American design and they don't like looking silly. So mebbe the first idea was to muck the circuits up a bit to make it look like a maintenance fault, not a design fault. Then someone, Ed Druson most likely, had a better idea. How about setting the French and the Germans at each other's throats by pinning this on Kaufmann? They'd known for some time he'd been spying for the Arabs and had been watching for the best chance to use this info to maximum advantage. A dead Frog blackmailer, a murdering Kraut sp
y; all they needed was a bit of evidence. So they mucked about with the suit to make the fault look deliberate, planted yon microprobe thing in Kaufmann's locker, leaked the news to the Press, and sat back.'

  'And the entry in Lemarque's journal? They forged that too, I suppose?'

  'Probably not. Too dangerous. That was just a stroke of luck. God knows what it really means.'

  Pascoe leaned back on his couch, shaking his head in a parody of wonder.

  'Andy, this is fascinating! Have you been doing a lot of reading in your retirement? Fantasy fiction perhaps?'

  'Don't get comic with me, lad,' snarled Dalziel. 'And don't think you can pull that rank crap you got away with on Druson either. You may be a Federal bloody Commissioner, but me, I'm a private citizen, and I can recollect you telling me more than once in that preachy tone of thine that in England at least being a private citizen outranks any level of public service you care to mention. Or have you changed your mind about that too?'

  'No,' said Pascoe quietly. 'I'm sorry. Go on.'

  'I was going to, with or without your permission,' observed Dalziel. 'Now your lot, being clever college-educated buggers like yourself, soon sussed out what had really happened, only there was no way to prove it. So someone really clever came up with the solution – let's accept what the Yanks say about Lemarque's death being deliberate, but let's fit somebody else up instead!'

  'And how were we going to manage that, Andy?'

  'Well, you had a head start, knowing that Kaufmann had been a double agent, which cut the ground from under the

  Yanks when it came to motive. But there was still a question of concrete evidence.'

  'Concrete? Ah, I see. Like the good old days of slipping half a brick into a suspect's pocket?'

  'Oh, you've come a long way from that, Peter,' said Dalziel. 'Anyone can plant a half-brick. Or a New Testament for that matter. But you needed more evidence. You needed an admission, and that requires a long, strong lever,'

  'Which I just happened to have about my person?'