Asking for the Moon Read online

  A smile touched the woman's lips, acting like a tiny light to reveal the true beauty of her features. But her eyes confirmed her twinship. They were the same unyielding grey discs as her brother's.

  She said, 'Some things are beyond working out with brains, Mr Dalziel. You just swim with the tide.'

  'Just what I keep telling these folk with degrees,' said Dalziel.

  'Inside,' said Tankie.

  Pascoe moved in first with the woman in close attendance. Dalziel came behind, the gun barrel still drilling into his spine.

  The cottage was almost as decrepit inside as out, but some effort had been made to render it inhabitable and there was a good smell of baking coming from the kitchen.

  'Scones,' said Dalziel expertly. 'I could murder a home-baked scone with fresh butter and some strawberry jam.'

  Wish he'd stop harping on about killing, thought Pascoe.

  They were herded past the kitchen into a stone-flagged, windowless room which must have been built as a dairy. Whatever the state of the rest of the building, this was solid, constructed of great granite blocks thick enough to keep out any warmth from the sun. It was lit by a solitary bulb

  dangling from the ceiling. It contained a narrow metal-framed bed covered by a thin flock mattress. By the bed stood a rusting metal locker, open to reveal various items of clothing.

  'Inspection in ten minutes,' said Trotter stepping back and slamming the door.

  Pascoe grabbed the handle and rattled it like they always did in the movies. But he'd heard the key turn in the lock, and the woodwork looked disturbingly solid.

  He turned to find Dalziel had taken his trousers off.

  'Sir, what are you doing?' he asked, not certain he wished to know the answer.

  'Like Judith said, you just swim with the tide. Even if you're a shark,' said Dalziel, removing his shirt. 'I were telling you how Tankie and me fell out, weren't I? Simple misunderstanding. God, I'd forgotten how this stuff itched!'

  He'd taken a khaki shirt from the locker and was putting it on. As he buttoned it up, he continued talking.

  Tour years back Tankie were getting close to discharge. Then some silly twat of a sergeant spoke to him insensitively. Naturally Tankie nutted him. Then he helped himself to a Champ and took off home. That's where I found him, waving an axe and demanding to know where his mam and Judith was. I told him his mam had taken badly and was down at the infirmary and I said if he gave me the axe, I'd make sure he got in to see her. He saw sense and gave me the axe and I drove him down the infirmary. Only when he got out of the car, the MPs were waiting for him. He seemed to think it were my fault. I still think I could have sorted things out and got him in to see his mam, only by the time I could make myself heard, Tankie had cracked one bugger's head open, broken another's arm and was marking time on a corporal's goolies. There weren't much scope for reasonable debate after that. They dragged him off, and a couple of hours later, his mam died. Christ, these are a bit tight. Long time since anyone thought I was thinner than I am!'

  He'd pulled on a pair of grey denim fatigue trousers and

  was having difficulty fastening them up. Next he squeezed his feet into one of the two pairs of boots in the bottom of the locker. The laces tied, he now began to lay all the remaining clothes on the bed and fold them into neat geometric shapes. Pascoe recalled seeing Sean Connery do this in The Hill.

  'You're getting ready for a kit inspection,' he said incredulously. 'This is what Trotter meant when he said you were going to be the Last National Service Man.'

  'Glad they taught you to think at yon kindergarten,' said Dalziel. 'Pity they didn't teach you to think fast.'

  'They taught me to think logically,' said Pascoe grimly. 'And logic tells me we should be looking for ways of getting out of here, not wasting time going along with this madman's fantasies.'

  'And that's your very best thought, is it?' sneered Dalziel. 'You listen to me, sunshine. Time for you to have great thoughts was back there at the gate when you were out of the car and Tankie were in it. But you missed your chance, and you're in the army now, and you're not paid to think!'

  'Now hold on,' said Pascoe. 'Of course I thought of making a run for it back there. But I believed him when he said he would blow you away. What I did manage to do though was drop my wallet with my warrant card in it by the gate. If someone finds it and hands it in . . .'

  He hadn't expected fulsome praise for his ingenuity but he was taken aback by Dalziel's expression, as if he'd chewed on a chocolate drop and found it was a sheep dottle.

  'All right,' he said defensively. 'At least I tried something which still seems better to me than just going along with Trotter.'

  'You reckon?' said Dalziel. 'What do you want me to say? That you're not so green as you're cabbage looking? Consider it said. But you'd be well advised to stop being clever and think of nowt but survival. Your own personal survival.'

  'It's kind of you to be so concerned about me, sir,' said Pascoe only half satirically. 'But I get the impression it's you Tankie's really after.'

  'Right. And that's why I'll play along with the little game he's got planned. What I don't want is you trying any Boy's Own stuff. Don't lose sleep being grateful. Way I see it is, Tankie's not killed anyone yet. Last thing I want is him finding out how easy it is. Now sit down out of the way and let me get this lot sorted.'

  Pascoe squatted on the floor near the door, his back against the wall, and uneasily contemplated his new role as the buffer zone between Dalziel and death.

  Suddenly the Fat Man who'd been arranging the items on the bed with a housewifely deftness, snapped to attention, chin high, arms rigid, thumbs pointing straight down the side seams of his trousers. He even managed to hoist part of the bulge of his belly to swell the overhang of his chest.

  Pascoe had heard nothing, but now the door flew open sending him scrambling out of its path. Trotter strode in and snapped to a halt inches in front of the Fat Man. He was holding the sawn-off under his arm, like a sergeant major's stick, with his finger on the trigger and the barrel levelled at Dalziel's chest.

  But his back was to Pascoe, and for half a second he weighed up the odds of flinging himself onto Trotter's shoulders.

  Then he saw the fall shotgun barrel sticking through the doorway and met the still, grey eyes of Judith Trotter fixed unblinkingly on his face.

  Trotter was speaking in a low impassioned voice.

  'You are disgusting,' he breathed. 'You are the most disgusting fucking object it's been my misfortune to see since I joined this man's army. WHAT ARE YOU?'

  'Disgusting, sir!' bellowed Dalziel.

  'And what's this?' asked Trotter turning his attention to the bed.

  'My kit, sir!'

  'Kit? This milo heap of rubbish? I've seen cleaner looking gear in a Port Said bazaar. In fact, I've seen cleaner cat crap. And you've actually put it on your bed! You've got to sleep on

  this bed, soldier. This is unhygienic! UNHYFUCKINGGIENIC!'

  He stooped, took the mattress in his left hand and threw it against the wall, spilling all the kit onto the floor.

  'That's better. Probably saved your life there, soldier. Now when I come back in here in half an hour's time, I want to see this place looking so neat and fucking tidy you could invite Her Gracious Majesty the Queen Mother, God bless her, to sit down and take tea with you!'

  'Sir!' shouted Dalziel.

  Trotter stepped back and glanced down at Pascoe who wondered if he was meant to snap to attention too. Sod that!

  'You dropped this,' said Trotter tossing Pascoe's wallet onto the floor.

  'Oh yes. Thanks,' said Pascoe, trying to conceal his dismay.

  'Photo in there. You in a robe and funny hat.'

  'Graduation ceremony. When I got my degree. That means —'

  'I know what it fucking means! I could've gone to college!'

  Pascoe nodded, aiming at something between Sorry you missed out and It's not all it's cracked up to be, and trying to hide And I'm
to be Queen of the May

  'Old girl with you, that your mam?'

  'Grandmother.'

  'Where's your mam then?'

  Over Trotter's shoulder, Dalziel mouthed, 'Dead.'

  'Dead,' said Pascoe.

  Trotter nodded and said, 'This great-grandfather of yours in the Wyfies, squaddie was he? Or an officer?'

  Dalziel's huge lips formed the word, 'Captain.'

  Thinking, this could be a mistake, Pascoe said, 'I'm not sure but I think he was a captain.'

  'So you've got a degree, and your great-granddad was an officer, and you've still got to jump when this bag of dogshit says Jump!'

  'Life does funny things to you,' said Pascoe.

  'Don't I know it. What do you reckon to his boots?'

  Pascoe glanced at Dalziel's boots.

  'They're OK?' he said.

  'OK?' echoed Trotter incredulously.

  'Well, a bit dull, maybe.' Something in Trotter's expression showed him he was on the right track and warming to the role he went on, 'In fact I think they're pretty filthy.'

  'Pretty filthy,' said Trotter savouring the words. 'Why don't you tell him?'

  'Yes. Certainly. Look, you, er, Dalziel' - it came out Dyeel — 'why are your boots so, er, filthy?'

  'Don't have any polish,' said the Fat Man. 'Aagh!'

  The groan was pumped out of him by a sudden jab of the sawn-off shotgun into his belly causing the landslide of his newly promoted chest.

  'What do you do when you're addressed by an officer?' screamed Trotter. 'What do you say?'

  'I salute, sir!' shouted Dalziel saluting. 'And I say sir, sir! Please, sir, I don't have any polish, sir!'

  'That's better. And you watch it, soldier. I catch you not addressing this officer correctly and you'll start to wish you hadn't been born.' To Pascoe he said, 'This one needs watch-ing, sir. Perhaps you could keep an eye on him make sure he gets to work on them boots.'

  'But if he doesn't have any polish . . .' objected Pascoe weakly.

  'He can spit, can't he?' said Trotter. 'Ought to be able to. Full of piss and wind, I'm sure he's got some spit to spare. Next inspection in thirty minutes if that suits you, sir.'

  'Er yes. Er, fine. Er . . . carry on.'

  He had a vague recollection from The Bridge on the River Kwai that that's the sort of thing they said. It seemed to work. Trotter crashed in a thunderous salute, span on his heel and marched out. The door closed behind him and the key rattled in the lock.

  'Not bad,' said Dalziel, sitting on the bed. 'Though you'll need to work on it a bit.'

  'Work on what?' demanded Pascoe.

  'Being an officer. You're lucky, lad. He's decided to treat you as a genuine buckshee, not just surplus to requirements. You're on the team, but you'd best play to the rules else you might get dropped, from a great height.'

  The Fat Man had taken off his boots and was examining them with pursed lips.

  'Candle, a metal spoon and some blacking and I'd have these bright enough to get a kiltie done for indecent exposure.'

  Pascoe worked this out, then asked, 'You've been in the army, have you, sir?'

  'Aye, I've done the state a bit of service,' said Dalziel,

  spitting on the boot. He wrapped a huge khaki handkerchief

  his own, not part of Trotter's issue) round his index finger

  and began polishing the toecap in with tiny circular

  movements.

  'And which way did it send you? Mad or bad?' enquired Pascoe.

  Dalziel stopped polishing and regarded him almost sympathetically.

  'Don't give up, lad,' he said.

  'I'm sorry?'

  'Only reason a sprog like you reckons he can get cocky with someone like me is you don't hold much hope we're ever going to get out of this. My advice is, until you're dying and I'm dead, stay polite and call me sir. Except when Tankie's around that is. Then I'll call you sir and you can call me what you like, short of vulgar abuse. Vulgar abuse is for warrant officers and NCOs.'

  The fat oaf isn't joking, realized Pascoe. Curiously it was almost comforting.

  He said, 'What did Trotter mean, he could have gone to university?'

  'Now that's a good question. More you know about a man, the more you open up opportunity.'

  'For negotiation, you mean?'

  'For kicking his bollocks into his brain-pan,' growled Dalziel. 'I've been trying to fill you in on the background

  ever since you let yourself get dragged into this. One thing you've got to grasp about Tankie is, he's no deadhead. He were a bright lad. Passed eleven plus, went to the grammar, got 'O' levels, and it were right enough, he could've stayed on for his 'A's and mebbe gone to college, but that would've meant going away, leaving his sister and his mam alone wi' his father. Now he were a real bruiser, Thomas. Tankie were named for him, but he'd never answer to Tommie so that's why he got Tankie. He grew into it when he got on in his teens, but he were nowt alongside Thomas. Made me feel like a ballet dancer, he did!'

  Pascoe had a brief vision of Dalziel in a tutu. It was like a snip from Fantasia.

  'Glad to see you can still smile, lad,' said the Fat Man. 'Lose your sense of humour, and what you got left? Your job, maybe. But what's a job to a man wi' a degree?'

  'This Thomas, am I right in assuming Tankie didn't get on with him?' said Pascoe.

  'Am I right in assuming . . .' mocked Dalziel. 'I bet you're a whizz in an interrogation, lad! Yes, you're bloody right! He were a violent sod were Thomas, and he made no distinction of friend, foe or family.'

  'Wasn't anything done about him?' demanded Pascoe indignantly.

  'Oh we kept him straight in the pubs and streets,' said Dalziel. 'But in them days, what a man got up to in his own house was his own business, short of breaking bones, and not even then sometimes. There was some as said there was more than just beatings went on when the kids were young.'

  'Incest, you mean?' said Pascoe horror-struck. 'And you say nothing was done?'

  'You need complaint, you need proof,' said Dalziel grimly. 'One of these days it's all going to start coming out, things that go on behind closed curtains. My old boss, Wally Tallantire, used to say, "An Englishman's home is his knocking-shop, Andy." That's why the church and the Tories rabbit on about the family. Keeps it under wraps.'

  This cold view of society chilled Pascoe to the marrow. He said, 'If you thought something like that was going on . . .'

  'I didn't, 'cos apart from a few D and Ds, Thomas didn't really bother us. It weren't till Tankie got his call-up papers the family came to my notice. Came as a shock to Tankie. Everyone knew National Service were coming to an end and the clever buggers were finding six new ways of getting deferred before breakfast every sodding morning. Tankie just said he weren't going. That's when I came in the picture. I arrested him, told him not to be stupid and if he didn't let himself be handed over to the army he'd end up in a civvy jail for the duration, and while you could get home from the army, you didn't get leave from prison - though the way things are going, they'll soon be sending the buggers off to Majorca for a few days in the summer!'

  Avoiding the temptation of an excursion into the interesting territory of penal philosophy, Pascoe said, 'Not the best advice you ever gave by the sound of it. Sir.'

  'Aye, you're right there,' admitted Dalziel. 'The army took him, and once they'd got him, well, as long as he kept on breaking their rules, they were going to keep locking him up in their prisons.'

  'But he gave them cause, didn't he?' said Pascoe, surprised by the sympathetic tone of Dalziel's voice.

  'Oh aye. He weren't a tearaway, but he had a talent for violence. Not surprising, if you think about it. Kids learn from the way they're brought up, even if it's the wrong way. He hated his dad for being violent, but that was the only way he ever saw for getting the things you wanted from life.'

  Pascoe knew sociologists who'd needed a whole lecture to make much the same point. Get Dalziel on campus and maybe they could have got throug
h the degree course in a fortnight! Mind you, he doubted if they made mortarboards to fit heads like that.

  'You keep on grinning, your face'll stay like that,' said Dalziel warningly. 'People may stop asking you to funerals.'

  All the time he talked, his forefinger kept up its tiny circles

  on the toe of the boot. Occasionally he examined his progress and administered further salivary unction.

  'Did Tankie try to stand up to his father, then?' asked Pascoe.

  'Oh aye. But it were no contest. Might be different now he's broadened out and learnt a few dirty tricks. But back then, it took me all my strength to sort the bugger out.'

  'You had a fight with him?' cried Pascoe.

  'Aye, well, after the first couple of times Tankie bunked off from the barracks and headed home, I started getting some idea of the lie of the land. So I thought mebbe I could set the lad's mind at rest by having a quiet word with Thomas. By God. I'd not want many quiet words like that!'

  'What happened?'

  'I didn't want to talk in public - this were unofficial, fewer

  folk who saw us the better. So I waited for him in the ginnel

  that runs from back of their house to the main road. I spoke

  him fair. I said, "Thomas, tha's got to stop beating thy wife.

  If tha wants exercise, there's plenty nearer thy own weight

  as'll be only too pleased to give it thee." And he said, "Name

  one." And I hit him.' ^

  Puzzled by this apparent non sequitur, or perhaps even ignoratio elenchi, Pascoe said, 'You hit him? Why?'

  'I reckoned if I'd said, "Me for one," he'd have hit me. So it seemed daft to waste time on the courtesies. Big mistake I made was giving him a fair blow on the chin. It knocked him back but it was a long way off knocking him out. Well, after that, he kicked me to one end of the ginnel and I kicked him all the way back. In the end it settled nowt. Don't know if thumping ever does, but you certainly don't get a man to see things your way by fighting a draw with him.'

  Pascoe thought, John Wayne did in The Quiet Man, but this is the real Wild West up here.