Asking for the Moon

by Reginald Hill

  Back in the kitchen, he left the door ajar and put a bowl of milk on the floor. His teeth were chattering and he headed to the living-room, keen to do full justice to both the log fire and the whisky decanter. The telephone rang as he entered. For once Dalziel picked it up and Pascoe poured himself a stiff drink.

  From the half conversation he could hear, he gathered it was the duty sergeant at the station who was ringing. Suddenly, irrationally, he felt very worried in case Dalziel was going to announce he had to go out on a case, leaving Pascoe alone.

  The reality turned out almost as bad.

  'Go easy on that stuff,' said Dalziel. 'You don't want to be done for driving under the influence.'

  'What?'

  Dalziel passed him the phone.

  The sergeant told him someone had just rung the station asking urgently for Pascoe and refusing to speak to anyone else. He'd claimed what he had to say was important. 'It's big and it's tonight' were his words. And he'd rung off saying he'd ring back in an hour's time. After that it'd be too late.

  'Oh shit,' said Pascoe. 'It sounds like Benny.'

  Benny was one of his snouts, erratic and melodramatic, but often bringing really hot information.

  'I suppose I'll have to go in,' said Pascoe reluctantly. 'Or I could get the Sarge to pass this number on.'

  'If it's urgent, you'll need to be on the spot,' said Dalziel. 'Let me know what's happening, won't you? Best get your skates on.'

  'Skates is right,' muttered Pascoe. 'It's like the Arctic out there.'

  He downed his whisky defiantly, then went to put his overcoat on.

  'You'll be all right by yourself, will you, sir?' he said maliciously. 'Able to cope with ghosts, ghouls, werewolves and falling mill-girls?'

  'Never you mind about me, lad,' said Dalziel jovially. 'Any

  road, if it's visitors from an old stone circle we've got to worry about, dawn's the time, isn't it? When the first rays of the sun touch the victim's breast. And with luck you'll be back by then. Keep me posted.'

  Pascoe opened the front door and groaned as the icy air attacked his face once more.

  'I am just going outside,' he said. 'And I may be some time.'

  To which Dalziel replied, as perhaps Captain Scott and his companions had, 'Shut that bloody door!'

  It took several attempts before he could persuade the frozen engine to start and he knew from experience that it would be a good twenty minutes before the heater began to pump even lukewarm air into the car. Swearing softly to himself, he set the vehicle bumping gently over the frozen contours of the long driveway up to the road.

  The drive curved round the orchard and the comforting silhouette of the house soon disappeared from his mirror. The frost-laced trees seemed to lean menacingly across his path and he told himself that if any apparition suddenly rose before the car, he'd test its substance by driving straight through it.

  But when the headlights reflected a pair of bright eyes directly ahead, he slammed on the brake instantly.

  The cat looked as "if it had been waiting for him. It was a skinny black creature with a mangled ear and a wary expression. Its response to Pascoe's soothing noises was to turn and plunge into the orchard once more.

  'Oh no!' groaned Pascoe. And he yelled after it, 'You stupid bloody animal! I'm not going to chase you through the trees all bloody night. Not if you were a naked naiad, I'm not!'

  As though recognizing the authentic tone of a Yorkshire farmer, the cat howled in reply and Pascoe glimpsed its shadowy shape only a few yards ahead. He followed, hurling abuse to which the beast responded with indignant miaows. Finally it disappeared under a bramble bush.

  'That does it,' said Pascoe. 'Not a step further.'

  Leaning down he flashed his torch beneath the bush to take his farewell of the stupid animal.

  Not one pair of eyes but three stared unblinkingly back at him, and a chorus of howls split the frosty air.

  The newcomers were young kittens who met him with delight that made up for their mother's wariness. They were distressingly thin and nearby Pascoe's torch picked out the stiff bodies of another two, rather smaller, who hadn't survived.

  'Oh shit,' said Pascoe, more touched than his anti-sentimental attitudes would have permitted him to admit.

  When he scooped up the kittens, their mother snarled in protest and tried to sink her teeth into his gloved hand. But he was in no mood for argument and after he'd bellowed, 'Shut up!' she allowed herself to be lifted and settled down comfortably in the crook of his arm with her offspring.

  It was quicker to continue through the orchard than to return to the car. As he walked across the lawn towards the kitchen door he smiled to himself at the prospect of leaving Dalziel in charge of this little family. That would really test the fat man's love of animals.

  The thought of ghosts and hauntings was completely removed from his mind.

  And that made the sight of the face at the upstairs window even more terrifying.

  For a moment his throat constricted so much that he could hardly breathe. It was a pale face, a woman's he thought, shadowy, insubstantial behind the leaded panes of the old casement. And as he looked the room behind seemed to be touched by a dim unearthly glow through which shadows moved like weed on a slow stream's bed. In his arms the kittens squeaked in protest and he realized that he had involuntarily tightened his grip.

  'Sorry,' he said, and the momentary distraction unlocked the paralysing fear and replaced it by an equally instinctive resolve to confront its source. There's nothing makes a man angrier than the awareness of having been made afraid.

  He went through the open kitchen door and dropped the cats by the bowl of milk which they assaulted with silent delight. The wise thing would have been to summon Dalziel from his warmth and whisky, but Pascoe had no mind to be wise. He went up the stairs as swiftly and as quietly as he could.

  He had calculated that the window from which the 'phantom' peered belonged to the study and when he saw the door was open he didn't know whether he was pleased or not. Ghosts didn't need doors. On the other hand it meant that something was in there. But the glow had gone.

  Holding his torch like a truncheon, he stepped inside. As his free hand groped for the light switch he was aware of something silhouetted against the paler darkness of the window and at the same time of movement elsewhere in the room. His left hand couldn't find the switch, his right thumb couldn't find the button on the torch, it was as if the darkness of the room was liquid, slowing down all movement and washing over his mouth and nose and eyes in wave after stifling wave.

  Then a single cone of light grew above Eliot's desk and Dalziel's voice said, 'Why're you waving your arms like that, lad? Semaphore, is it?'

  At which moment his fingers found the main light switch.

  Dalziel was standing by the desk. Against the window leaned the long painting of the pre-Raphaelite girl, face to the glass. Where it had hung on the wall was a safe, wide open and empty. On the desk under the sharply focused rays of the desk lamp lay what Pascoe took to be its contents.

  'What the hell's going on?' demanded Pascoe, half relieved, half bewildered.

  'Tell you in a minute,' said Dalziel, resuming his examination of the papers.

  'No, sir,' said Pascoe with growing anger. 'You'll tell me now. You'll tell me exactly what you're doing going through private papers without a warrant! And how the hell did you get into that safe?'

  'I've got you to thank for that, Peter,' said Dalziel without looking up.

  'What?

  'It was you who put Eliot in touch with our crime prevention officer, wasn't it? I did an efficiency check the other morning, went through all the files. There it was. Eliot, George. He really wanted the works, didn't he? What's he got out there? I thought. The family jewels? I checked with the firm who did the fitting. I know the manager, as it happens. He's a good lad; bit of a ladies' man, but clever with it.'

  'Oh God!' groaned Pascoe. 'You mean you got details of the alarm syste
m and a spare set of keys!'

  'No, I didn't!' said Dalziel indignantly. 'I had to work it out for myself mainly.'

  He had put on his wire-rimmed National Health spectacles to read the documents from the safe and now he glared owlishly at Pascoe over them.

  'Do you understand figures?' he asked. 'It's all bloody Welsh to me.'

  Pascoe consciously resisted the conspiratorial invitation.

  'I've heard nothing so far to explain why you're breaking :he law, sir,' he said coldly. 'What's George Eliot supposed •o have done?'

  'What? Oh, I see. It's the laws of hospitality and friendship you're worried about! Nothing, nothing. Set your mind at rest, lad. It's nowt to do with your mate. Only indirectly. Look, this wasn't planned, you know. I mean, how could I plan all that daft ghost business? No, it was just that the Fletcher business was getting nowhere .. .'

  'Fletcher?'

  'Hey, here's your income tax file. Christ! Is that what your missus gets just for chatting to students? It's more than you!'

  Pascoe angrily snatched the file from Dalziel's hands. The fat man put on his sympathetic, sincere look.

  'Never fret, lad. I won't spread it around. Where was I? Oh yes, Fletcher. I've got a feeling about that fellow. The

  tip-off sounded good. Not really my line, though. I got Inspector Marwood on the Fraud Squad interested, though. All he could come up with was that a lot of Fletcher's business interests had a faint smell about them, but that was all. Oh yes, and Fletcher's accountants were the firm your mate Eliot's a partner in.'

  'That's hardly a startling revelation,' sneered Pascoe.

  'Did you know?'

  'No. Why should I?'

  'Fair point,' said Dalziel. 'Hello, hello.'

  He had found an envelope among the files. It contained a single sheet of paper which he examined with growing interest. Then he carefully refolded it, replaced it in the envelope and began to put all the documents read or unread back into the safe.

  'Marwood told me as well, though, that Fletcher and Eliot seemed to be pretty thick at a personal level. And he also said the Fraud Squad would love to go over Fletcher's accounts with a fine-tooth comb.'

  'Why doesn't he get himself a warrant then?'

  'Useless, unless he knows what he's looking for. My tipster was too vague. Often happens with first-timers. They want it to be quick and they overestimate our abilities.'

  'Is that possible?' marvelled Pascoe.

  'Oh aye. Just. Are you going to take that file home?'

  Reluctantly, Pascoe handed his tax file back to Dalziel, who thrust it in with the others, slammed the safe, then did some complicated fiddling with a bunch of keys.

  'There,' he said triumphantly, 'all locked up and the alarm set once more. No harm to anyone. Peter, do me a favour. Put that tart's picture back up on the wall. I nearly did my back getting it down. I'll go and mend the fire and pour us a drink.'

  'I am not involved in this!' proclaimed Pascoe. But the fat man had gone.

  When Pascoe came downstairs after replacing the picture, Dalziel was not to be found in the living-room. Pascoe tracked

  him to the kitchen, where he found him on his hands and knees, feeding pressed calves-tongue to the kittens.

  'So you found 'em,' said Dalziel. 'That's what brought you back. Soft bugger.'

  'Yes. And I take it I needn't go out again. There's no snout'll be ringing at one o'clock. That was you while I was freezing outside, wasn't it?'

  'I'm afraid so. I thought it best to get you out of the way. Sorry, lad, but I mean, this fellow Eliot is a mate of yours and I didn't want you getting upset.'

  'I am upset,' said Pascoe. 'Bloody upset.'

  'There!' said Dalziel triumphantly. 'I was right, wasn't I? Let's get that drink. These buggers can look after themselves.'

  He dumped the rest of the tongue on to the kitchen floor and rose to his feet with much wheezing.

  'There it is then, Peter,' said Dalziel as they returned to '.he living-room. 'It was all on the spur of the moment. When Mrs Eliot suggested we spend.a night here to look for her ghosts, I just went along to be sociable. I mean, you can't 3e rude to a woman like that, can you? A sudden shock, and :hat dress might have fallen off her nipples. I'd no more .mention of really coming out here than of going teetotal! But next morning I got to thinking. If we could just get a bit of i pointer where to look at Fletcher . . . And I remembered you saying about Eliot doing your accounts at home.'

  'Income tax!' snorted Pascoe. 'Does that make me a crook? Or him either?'

  'No. It was just a thought, that's all. And after I'd talked to Crime Prevention, well, it seemed worth a peek. So come down off your high horse. No harm done. Your mate's not in trouble, OK? And I saw nowt in his safe to take action on. So relax, enjoy your drink. I poured you brandy, the scotch is getting a bit low. That all right?'

  Pascoe didn't answer but sat down in the deep old armchair and sipped his drink reflectively. Spur of the moment, Dalziel had said. Bloody long moment, he thought. And what spur? There was still something here that hadn't been said.

  'It won't do,' he said suddenly.

  'What's that?'

  'There's got to be something else,' insisted Pascoe. 'I mean, I know you, sir. You're not going to do all this just on the off-chance of finding something to incriminate Fletcher in George's safe. There has to be something else. What did you expect to find, anyway? A signed confession? Come to that, what did you find?'

  Dalziel looked at him, his eyes moist with sincerity.

  'Nowt, lad. Nowt. I've told you. There'll be no action taken as a result of anything I saw tonight. None. There's my reassurance. It was an error of judgement on my part. I admit it. Now does that satisfy you?'

  'No, sir, to be quite frank it doesn't. Look, I've got to know. These people are my friends. You say that they're not mixed up in anything criminal, but I still need to know exactly what is going on. Or else I'll start asking for myself.'

  He banged his glass down on the arm of his chair so vehemently that the liquor slopped out.

  'It'll burn a hole, yon stuff,' said Dalziel, slandering the five-star cognac which Pascoe was drinking.

  'I mean it, sir,' said Pascoe quietly. 'You'd better understand that.'

  'All right, lad,' said Dalziel. 'I believe you. You might not like it though. You'd better understand that.'

  'I'll chance it,' replied Pascoe.

  Dalziel regarded him closely, then relaxed with a sigh.

  'Here it is then. The woman Giselle is having a bit on the side with Fletcher.'

  Pascoe managed an indifferent shrug.

  'It happens,' he said, trying to appear unsurprised. In fact, why was he surprised? Lively, sociable, physical Giselle and staid, self-contained, inward-looking George. It was always on the cards.

  'So what?' he added in his best man-of-the-world voice.

  'So if by any chance, Eliot did have anything which might point us in the right direction about Fletcher. . .'

  Pascoe sat very still for a moment.

  'Well, you old bastard!' he said. 'You mean you'd give him good reason to do the pointing! You'd let him know about Giselle . . . Jesus wept! How low can you get?'

  'I could have just let him know in any case without checking first to see if it was worthwhile,' suggested Dalziel, unabashed.

  'So you could!' said Pascoe in mock astonishment. 'But you held back, waiting for a chance to check it out! Big of you! You get invited to spend the night alone in complete strangers' houses all the time! And now you've looked and found nothing, what are you going to do? Tell him just on the off-chance?'

  'I didn't say I'd found nothing,' said Dalziel.

  Pascoe stared at him.

  'But you said there'd be no action!' he said.

  'Right,' said Dalziel. 'I mean it. I think we've just got to sit back and wait for Fletcher, to fall into our laps. Or be pushed. What I did find was a little anonymous letter telling Eliot what his wife was up to. Your mate knows, Pe
ter. From the postmark he's known for a few weeks. He's a careful man, accountants usually are. And I'm sure he'd do a bit of checking first before taking action. It was just a week later that my telephone rang and that awful disguised voice told me to check on Fletcher. Asked for me personally. I dare say you've mentioned my name to Eliot, haven't you, Peter?'

  He looked at the carpet modestly.

  'Everyone's heard of you, sir,' said Pascoe. 'So what happens now?'

  'Like I say. Nothing. We sit and wait for the next call. It should be a bit more detailed this time, I reckon. I mean, Eliot must have realized that his first tip-off isn't getting results and now his wife's moved back into town to be on Fletcher's doorstep again, he's got every incentive.'

  Pascoe looked at him in surprise.

  'You mean the ghosts . . .'

  'Nice imaginative girl, that Giselle! Not only does she invent a haunting to save herself a two hours' drive for her kicks, but she cons a pair of thick bobbies into losing their sleep over it. I bet Fletcher fell about laughing! Well I'm losing no more! It'll take all the hounds of hell to keep me awake.'

  He yawned and stretched. In mid-stretch there came a terrible scratching noise and the fat man froze like a woodcut of Lethargy on an allegorical frieze.

  Then he laughed and opened the door.

  The black cat looked up at him warily but her kittens had no such inhibitions and tumbled in, heading towards the fire with cries of delight.

  'I think your mates have got more trouble than they know,' said Dalziel.

  Next morning Pascoe rose early and stiffly after a night spent on a sofa before the fire. Dalziel had disappeared upstairs to find himself a bed and Pascoe assumed he would still be stretched out on it. But when he looked out of the living-room window he saw he was wrong.

  The sun was just beginning to rise behind the orchard and the fat man was standing in front of the house watching the dawn.

  A romantic at heart, thought Pascoe sourly.