Asking for the Moon Read online

  He took a careful sip of his tea, then set it on the floor and examined the stew. There was a spoon half submerged in its rich brownness which gave off a good appetizing smell reminding him he'd missed breakfast. While there was life, there was hunger. He began to eat. It tasted as good as it smelt and he'd almost finished by the time Dalziel returned, clutching another mug and plate.

  Trotter noticed his progress and said, 'Sir! Like another helping, sir?'

  He almost said yes, then he looked at Dalziel still double marking time, and thought it would mean another trip to the kitchen for the poor sod.

  'No, thank you, Mr Trotter,' he said.

  'Right, sir. Thank you, sir. Prisoner, HALT! Stan' atease. Next inspection in thirty minutes.'

  Then he was gone. Dalziel waited till they heard the key turn in the lock before subsiding slowly onto the bed.

  'You OK, sir?' said Pascoe.

  The great grey head turned slowly towards him.

  'What's up, lad? Worried in case I snuff it and there's nowt between you and Tankie but your fancy degree? Rest quiet. There's nothing wrong with me that a good woman and a bottle of Highland Park wouldn't put right.'

  'Glad to hear it, sir. Talking of a good woman, was Mrs Dalziel expecting you to drop in at home before you went back to Wales? If so . . .'

  'Forget it, lad. There is no Mrs Dalziel now.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe. 'Dead?'

  'No such sodding luck,' grunted the Fat Man. 'Just divorced. You married?'

  'No sir.'

  'Good. First thing I've heard in your favour so far. Not engaged or owt like that? Girlfriend filling her bottom drawer?'

  'No sir. There was a girl at university . . .'

  'Oh aye. The one got you auditioning for An Inspector Calls? She still hanging around?'

  'No sir. Not the type who hangs around. Not the type who likes her boyfriends joining the police force either.'

  'One of them? Then you're well rid of her,' growled Dalziel. 'Ee, that weren't half bad. Wouldn't like to fetch me another helping, would you?'

  He'd been demolishing his stew as he talked and now he thrust the plate towards Pascoe who took it and half rose before he remembered.

  'Nice to see that being an officer for five minutes hasn't spoilt your manners,' grinned Dalziel.

  Angrily Pascoe threw the plate onto the bed. It skidded off the mattress, hit the stone-flagged floor and shattered.

  'Clever,' said Dalziel. Tha knows who'll get the blame for that?'

  'Why the hell aren't we talking about how to get out of here instead of exchanging dull details of our domestic lives?' demanded Pascoe. 'Everyone seems to think you're so bloody marvellous, why don't you do something to prove it?'

  'Got a temper, have you?' said Dalziel not disapprovingly. All right. Here. Take hold of that.'

  He reached down and picked up two long sharp shards of china, one of which he handed to Pascoe.

  He went on. 'First chance we get, we jump 'em. You grab the lass, get a hold of her hair, stick that into her throat or her eye, any bit of her you can get at that'll do a lot of damage. Think you can manage that, lad?'

  Pascoe looked at the fragment of plate and imagined sinking it into one of those pale grey eyes . . .

  'I'm not sure, sir . . .' he said.

  'Oh aye? So while I'm doing the business on Tankie, Jude's turning my spine into bonemeal? No thanks. We need another plan. Your turn.'

  He tossed the plate shard back onto the floor and looked expectantly at the younger man.

  'I don't know,' cried Pascoe. 'I meant something more like escaping . . . this isn't a prison, I mean it wasn't built to keep people in. Surely we can find a way to get out. . . ?'

  'Like the Count of Monte Cristo, you mean? Now that were a good movie. Robert Doughnut, weren't it? Only they had to dig for about twenty years, didn't they? About the same amount of time you spent in school, learning fuck all. Tell you what, why don't you take the first shift, lad?'

  It wasn't so much the words as the Fat Man's more-in-pain-than-in-anger expression that got to Pascoe.

  He said, 'You're forgetting something. It wasn't the tunnel that got him out, it was the old sod dying and being dumped in the sea in a sack. Our only problem is going to be, where will we find a sack big enough?'

  He'd gone too far. If Dalziel looked big before, now he seemed to swell monstrously like the genie let out of the bottle in The Thief of Baghdad.

  He tried to recall how Sabu had got him back in again. By persuading him he couldn't get back in again!

  He forced a smile and said, 'You got a temper too, sir? Maybe we're a matching pair.'

  For a moment, the Fat Man trembled on the brink of nuclear fission. Then, slowly subsiding, he snarled, 'Man who can believe that should stick to directing traffic.'

  His anger must have dulled his hearing for he was still on the bed when the door flew open and Trotter erupted, yelling, 'What the hell's going on here? Who broke that plate? Prisoner giving you trouble, sir?'

  Dalziel was back at rigid attention, the genie well back inside.

  Pascoe said, 'Accident, Mr Trotter. Prisoner rather emotional. Private interview with officer i.e. As per regulations.'

  He was gabbling. He tried to change it to the sternness of reproof, decided that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea and stuck with his gabble.

  Happily Trotter wasn't paying him much attention. He stepped back to the doorway, picked up a bucket of hot water his sister had set down there and said, 'Throwing food around the place, are you, Dalziel? You may look like a pig and eat like a pig but you're not going to turn this place into a sty. I want every inch of this tip scrubbed out by the time I get back, understood?'

  'SIR!'

  Without a glance at Pascoe, Trotter about turned and marched out.

  Oh dear, thought Pascoe. Perhaps I'm being written out of the script.

  Dalziel was on his knees carefully gathering up the broken pieces of plate tunelessly whistling what might have been a bosh shot at 'Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kitbag' or possibly the scherzo from Beethoven's Fifth. Pascoe looked at the bucket. There was a toothbrush floating in it.

  He took it out and said, 'What's this for?'

  'Scrubbing the floor,' said Dalziel.

  'You're joking!'

  'Well, you know what they say. If you can't take a laugh you shouldn't have joined. What's up, lad? You've got that gormless college look on thy face again.'

  Pascoe said slowly, 'He had this bucket ready when he came in. As if he knew about the broken plate in advance.'

  'Coincidence. Good guesser,' suggested Dalziel.

  'Maybe. Or maybe . . .' He stopped voicing the words but mouthed at Dalziel, '. . . he's listening!'

  To his amazement Dalziel roared with laughter and applauded.

  He's bluffing, thought Pascoe. The old bastard's only pretending he knew all along. How could he ... oh shit! The wallet. He'd told Dalziel he'd dropped his wallet and a few minutes later Trotter had come in with it. Dalziel had worked it out, this fat, loutish, stupid ... It was the animal cunning thing, of course. OK, so he'd worked it out, but he didn't have that wider mental scope which might have enabled him to use his knowledge. Whereas if he, Peter Pascoe, BA, had realized, he would have . . . what? He tried to think of some way of utilizing the situation.

  He looked at Dalziel who was now down on his knees methodically scrubbing the floor with the toothbrush.

  Pascoe said, 'Sir . . .'

  'Aye?' prompted the Fat Man, but Pascoe was finding speech problematical. Suppose he said . . . ? But if he said . . . ?

  Dalziel said, 'Do you* reckon the scientists in them vivisectionist places pay much heed to the squeaking of the rats?'

  Pascoe whispered, 'You think he's going to kill us then?'

  'Speak up, lad. Can't hear you.'

  'Do you think he's going to kill us?' shouted Pascoe.

  'Depends. He is doolally, even Tankie couldn't deny that. But is he so far g
one that killing a man he hates is worth spending the rest of his life banged up for? And if he thinks it is, then he may decide to chuck you in for good measure, that's what you really want to know, isn't it?'

  'But why kill me? I've done nothing?'

  He knew he sounded plaintive, but if Tankie were listening, then perhaps this was a plea for his life and he wasn't going to let embarrassment stand in the way.

  'Well,' said Dalziel judiciously, 'he might do it 'cos he thinks you're one of my boys, an extension of me so to speak. If he's not cottoned on how far from the truth that is, let me set him right. I've never seen you in my life afore today, right? You've been transferred into the squad behind my back without my agreement, and having had the pleasure of seeing you in action this last couple of hours, I think I can fairly promise if I do come out of this alive to make it my life's work to get you sent back to whatever kindergarten you escaped from! No offence intended.'

  'None taken,' said Pascoe. 'In the same spirit of openness, may I say that I'd rather serve as an underground maintenance man in a sewage works than continue in your employ, sir.'

  'Glad we've got all that cleared up,' said Dalziel. 'On the other hand if Tankie thinks that, just because he's topped me, he's got to top you as well to give him a chance of getting away with it, well, he really has flipped it. He's in the frame already. Fingerprints all over my car. He wasn't wearing gloves, was he? And God knows who saw him around the place. Then they'll find this cottage eventually. Lot depends on how clever Jude was. I reckon she'd have to set it up. Probably didn't want to, all she's got to lose. But she owes Tankie, 'cos without him things 'ud've been even worse for her and her mum all them years. And he's her twin. And the bother he got into with the army was mainly because of his family. So, did she find this hole through an ad or go through an agent? Wieldy told me that he were told they'd gone off on a trip. Sooner or later they'll trace t'others. Could take days. Or it could be they've done it already and the army's crawling around the bushes outside.'

  Did he really believe that? wondered Pascoe. Of course not, else he wouldn't be saying it. Would he?

  'Mind moving your feet?' said the Fat Man. 'I need to scrub under them. By the by, here's a tip. If the tear gas comes in, stick your head in this bucket of water.'

  'That will help with the gas?' asked Pascoe.

  'Nay, it's just that the sharpshooters have been taught not to blast off at a man with his head in a bucket!'

  He bellowed a laugh, and Pascoe thought disgustedly, he's a total clown. Except that the eyes regarding him were shrewd and almost sympathetic.

  'No use feeling sorry for yourself, lad,' said Dalziel. 'Like my old ma always used to say, there's plenty worse off than you.'

  'Name one.'

  'That poor lass Judith for a start,' said Dalziel. 'Tankie's got nowt to lose except his freedom, and to tell truth, I reckon that after all this time, the notion of being free scares the shit out of him. But Judith's got a life to go back to. OK she'd get her knuckles rapped for helping him, but no one's really going to blame her for running scared of a loonie like Tankie and jumping when he says jump! Look at me. I'm jumping aren't I? And I've not got any kids or loved ones he can threaten. We snuff it, but, and Jude can say goodbye to all that. Cleft stick, poor cow. How about you, Sonny Jim? You got anyone who'll miss you, apart from the Inspector Calls lass?'

  'I told you, she's history,' said Pascoe shortly. 'When I told her I wanted to be a cop, she and her mates started singing that song from Going My Way whenever I came into the bar. The one with the line: or would you rather be a

  Pig?'

  'Bing Crosby,' said the Fat Man. He started to sing in a booming baritone, 'Would you like to swing on a star? Carry moonbeams home in a jar? Daft bloody words. Daft bloody woman. You're well shut of her. How about family? Is your mam really dead?'

  'No, I'm glad to say. Nor my father. And I've got two elder sisters, so there's still an active family unit in existence.'

  'Oh aye? Sounds right cosy. I bet you have active family unit reunions at Christmas and birthdays and such,' sneered Dalziel.

  The old bastard certainly had a nose for sniffing out

  trouble, thought Pascoe, feeling a great longing to launch the toe of his shoe at the kneeling man's buttocks.

  I'd probably break my leg, he thought.

  He said, 'I think my private life is none of your business, just as yours is none of mine. As long as we do the job we're paid for . . .'

  Dalziel paused in his scrubbing and looked up at him, the great mouth rounding in big-close-up astonishment.

  'We? he said. 'As in you and me? In the same word? Like we were doing the same job? Now listen, sunshine, you'd better get yourself disenchanted. Man who can believe we've got owt in common except two bollocks and a bunghole, and I'm not sure about you, could end up owning a lot of clapped-out used cars.'

  'Oh you're right, sir,' said Pascoe angrily. 'I'm so sorry. I'd heard a lot about you and I now see I was wrong not to believe every incredible word. From the moment I heard you this morning allegedly giving evidence on behalf of that poor woman, I knew the last thing I wanted was to be tarred with your brush. Sir!'

  'No need to get personal,' said Dalziel looking hurt. 'What were wrong with my evidence anyway?'

  'Wrong? You were the main prosecution witness ..."

  'No, lad. That were the woman,' corrected Dalziel gently.

  'Yes, and just because she was a prostitute and you felt there was little chance of a conviction, you'd clearly decided the whole thing was a waste of time!'

  'Aye, well, you're half right, I'll give you that,' Dalziel replied disconcertingly. 'That's exactly the line yon donkey-pizzle, Martineau, was taking. So I just made sure the jury got a wink and a nod that this weren't no jolly punter willing to pay for a quick bang, but a career sex offender who won't be stopped till it's lopped off!'

  'Oh, yes? Easy to say that now,' sneered Pascoe.

  'Nay, lad. Easier not to say it at all and I don't know why I bothered,' sighed Dalziel. 'What's a sprog daft enough to correct a magistrate's jokes know about giving evidence?'

  Pascoe digested this then exploded, 'So you've been spying on me as well!'

  'I went into a public court to see one of my junior officers giving evidence, yes. Bet you thought you were doing all right, too, eh?'

  'Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Damn sight better than you anyway,' said Pascoe who was almost beginning to enjoy the crackling heat of his burning bridges.

  'Oh aye? Tell you what. Ten bob says my scrote got sent down, your pair walked free.'

  Pascoe did a mental double-take. Against volition, his jaw, as craggily set as Spencer Tracy's in the expectation of moral showdown, dropped. He must have missed something. Otherwise how come he'd moved from career-ending confrontation to settling matters with a friendly bet like two chaps in a pub?

  He looked at the Fat Man with growing suspicion. Could it possibly be that this cop, so obviously the archetypical bruiser who got results by kicking down doors and beating out questions in Morse code on a suspect's head, was in fact jerking him around with words? No! Reason wouldn't admi^ it ... or was it pride that wouldn't admit it? He tried to bring to mind the scene in the court . . . the jury laughing . . . Martineau furious*. . . was that the key . . . ? Should he have listened more carefully . . . ?

  Dalziel straightened up and broke wind.

  'Better out than in,' he said. 'So, is it a bet?'

  'I'd need odds,' said Pascoe. 'There's two of mine.'

  'You cheeky sod. All right. Ten bob to a quid. How's that?"

  'Done,' said Pascoe.

  'Grand. And I reckon this is done too."

  He pushed himself to his feet rather creakingly and massaged his knees. Then he looked at his watch and said, 'I'll never make it back to Taff-land in time for the kick-off now. Not to worry. I daresay I'll see a bit too much of yon little bugger over the next ten years or so. Here, Tankie's taking his time about the next inspectio
n, isn't he?'

  'I'm not complaining,' said Pascoe.

  'Well, you bloody well should be. Officer present, prisoner ready for inspection, and the RSM absent from parade? It's not bloody on! Excuse me, SIR!'

  And Pascoe, who was getting used to finding himself tumbling in zero gravity every time he began to feel something like firm ground beneath his feet, was hardly surprised to be pushed aside as the Fat Man began to beat a thunderous rhythm on the door accompanied by a raucous bellow of, 'Come on, Tankie, let's be having you. Plenty of time to sit around playing with yourself when this lot's over. Charley, Charley, get out of bed! Charley, Charley . . .'

  Pascoe got well clear of the door but this time instead of being flung violently against the wall, it swung slowly open. Trotter stood there, the sawn-off shotgun at the high port. His face was so impassive, it just needed a cheroot to get him auditioned for a spaghetti western.

  He didn't look like he'd come to play at inspections.

  'This do you then?' said Dalziel cheerfully, picking up the bucket. 'The floor's so clean you could eat your dinner off it. Shan't be needing this any more.'

  And in an act too suicidal for Pascoe to find an appropriate reaction, the Fat Man hurled the water in Trotter's face.

  It wasn't the preliminary to an escape attempt. Dalziel just stood there roaring with laughter. Nor did Trotter react with , any explosive show of anger. Instead, the water dripping down his face, he slowly and deliberately brought the gun barrel to bear on Dalziel's chest.

  'Nay, Tankie, fair do's,' protested the Fat Man. 'When you chucked your bucket in yon colour sergeant's face, he didn't shoot you, did he? And there were a lot worse than water in it! Mind you, I'm not saying he didn't feel like it, but he kept control.'

  'I'm not a bloody colour sergeant,' grated Trotter.

  'That's right. And I'm not a squaddy and this ain't the glasshouse. So where does that get us? You want to prove that if I had to put up with what you had to put up with,