Asking For The Moon

'And you saw or heard nothing?' said Ellie.

'There may have been some scratching. A rat perhaps. It's an old house. But it's only a house. I have to go down to London for a few days tomorrow. When I get back we'll start looking for somewhere else. Sooner or later I'd get the urge anyway.'

'But it's such a shame! After all your work, you deserve to relax for a while,' said Ellie. 'Isn't there anything you can do?'

'Exorcism,' said Pascoe. 'Bell, book and candle.'

'In my experience,' said Dalziel, who had been consuming the malt whisky at a rate which had caused the waiter to summon his workmates to view the spectacle, 'there's three main causes of ghosts.'

He paused for effect and more alcohol.

'Can't you arrest him, or something?' Ellie hissed at Pascoe.

'One: bad cooking,' the fat man continued. 'Two: bad ventilation. Three: bad conscience.'

'George installed air-conditioning himself,' said Pascoe.

'And Giselle's a super cook,' said Ellie.

'Well then,' said Dalziel. 'I'm sure your conscience is as quiet as mine, love. So that leaves your randy yokel. Tell you what. Bugger your priests. What you need is a professional eye checking on things.'

'You mean a psychic investigator?' said Giselle.

'Like hell!' laughed Ellie. 'He means get the village bobby to stroll around the place with his truncheon at the ready.'

'A policeman? But I don't really see what he could do,' said Giselle, leaning towards Dalziel and looking earnestly into his lowered eyes.

'No, hold on a minute,' cried Ellie with bright malice. 'The Superintendent could be right. A formal investigation. But the village flatfoot's no use. You've got the best police brains in the county rubbing your thighs, Giselle. Why not send for them?'

Which was how it started. Dalziel, to Pascoe's amazement, had greeted the suggestion with ponderous enthusiasm. Giselle had reacted with a mixture of high spirits and high seriousness, apparently regarding the project as both an opportunity for vindication and a lark. George had sat like Switzerland, neutral and dull. Ellie had been smilingly baffled to see her bluff so swiftly called. And Pascoe had kicked her ankle savagely when he heard plans being made for himself and Dalziel to spend the following Friday night waiting for ghosts at Stanstone Farm.

As he told her the next day, had he realized that Dalziel's enthusiasm was going to survive the sober light of morning, he'd have followed up his kick with a karate chop.

Ellie had tried to appear unrepentant., 'You know why it's called Stanstone, do you?' she asked. 'Standing stone. Get it? There must have been a stone circle there at some time. Primitive worship, human sacrifice, that sort of thing. Probably the original stones were used in the building of the house. That'd explain a lot, wouldn't it?'

'No,' said Pascoe coldly. 'That would explain very little. It would certainly not explain why I am about to lose a night's sleep, nor why you who usually threaten me with divorce or assault whenever my rest is disturbed to fight real crime should have arranged it.'

But arranged it had been and it was small comfort for Pascoe now to know that Ellie was missing him.

Dalziel seemed determined to enjoy himself, however.

'Let's get our bearings, shall we?' he said. Replenishing his glass, he set out on a tour of the house.

'Well wired up,' he said as his expert eye spotted the discreet evidence of the sophisticated alarm system. 'Must have cost a fortune.'

'It did. I put him in touch with our crime prevention squad and evidently he wanted nothing but the best,' said Pascoe.

'What's he got that's so precious?' wondered Dalziel.

'All this stuff's pretty valuable, I guess,' said Pascoe, making a gesture which took in the pictures and ornaments of the master bedroom in which they were standing. 'But it's really for Giselle's sake. This was her first time out in the sticks and it's a pretty lonely place. Not that it's done much good.'

'Aye,' said Dalziel, opening a drawer and pulling out a fine silk underslip. 'A good-looking woman could get nervous in a place like this.'

'You reckon that's what this is all about, sir?' said Pascoe. 'A slight case of hysteria?'

'Mebbe,' said Dalziel.

They went into the next room, which Eliot had turned into a study. Only the calculating machine on the desk reminded them of the man's profession. The glass-fronted bookcase contained rows of books relating to his hobby in all its aspects from architectural histories to do-it-yourself tracts on concrete mixing. An old grandmother clock stood in a corner, and hanging on the wall opposite the bookcase was a nearly lifesize painting of a pre-Raphaelite maiden being pensive in a grove. She was naked but her long hair and the dappled shadowings of the trees preserved her modesty.

For a fraction of a second it seemed to Pascoe as if the shadows on her flesh shifted as though a breeze had touched the branches above.

'Asking for it,' declared Dalziel.

'What?'

'Rheumatics or rape,' said Dalziel. 'Let's check the kitchen. My belly's empty as a football.'

Giselle, who had driven out during the day to light the fire and make ready for their arrival, had anticipated Dalziel's gut. On the kitchen table lay a pile of sandwiches covered by a sheet of kitchen paper on which she had scribbled an invitation for them to help themselves to whatever they fancied.

Underneath she had written in capitals BE CAREFUL and underlined it twice.

'Nice thought,' said Dalziel, grabbing a couple of the sandwiches. 'Bring the plate through to the living-room and we'll eat in comfort.'

Back in front of the fire with his glass filled once again, Dalziel relaxed in a deep armchair. Pascoe poured himself a drink and looked out of the window again.

'For God's sake, lad, sit down!' commanded Dalziel. 'You're worse than a bloody spook, creeping around like that.'

'Sorry,' said Pascoe.

'Sup your drink and eat a sandwich. It'll soon be midnight. That's zero hour, isn't it? Right, get your strength up. Keep your nerves down.'

'I'm not nervous!' protested Pascoe.

'No? Don't believe in ghosts, then?'

'Hardly at all,' said Pascoe.

'Quite right. Detective-inspectors with university degrees shouldn't believe in ghosts. But tired old superintendents with less schooling than a pit pony, there's a different matter.'

'Come off it!' said Pascoe. 'You're the biggest unbeliever I know!'

'That may be, that may be,' said Dalziel, sinking lower into his chair. 'But sometimes, lad, sometimes…'

His voice sank away. The room was lit only by a dark-shaded table lamp and the glow from the fire threw deep shadows across the large contours of Dalziel's face. It might have been some eighteenth-century Yorkshire farmer sitting there, thought Pascoe. Shrewd; brutish; in his day a solid ram of a man, but now rotting to ruin through his own excesses and too much rough weather.

In the fireplace a log fell. Pascoe started. The red glow ran up Dalziel's face like a flush of passion up an Easter Island statue.

'I knew a ghost saved a marriage once,' he said ruminatively. 'In a manner of speaking.'

Oh Jesus! thought Pascoe. It's ghost stories round the fire now, is it?

He remained obstinately silent.

'My first case, I suppose you'd call it. Start of a meteoric career.'

'Meteors fall. And burn out,' said Pascoe. 'Sir.'

'You're a sharp bugger, Peter,' said Dalziel admiringly. 'Always the quick answer. I bet you were just the same when you were eighteen. Still at school, eh? Not like me. I was a right Constable Plod I tell you. Untried. Untutored. Hardly knew one end of my truncheon from t'other. When I heard that shriek I just froze.'

'Which shriek?' asked Pascoe resignedly.

On cue there came a piercing wail from the dark outside, quickly cut off. He half rose, caught Dalziel's amused eye, and subsided, reaching for the whisky decanter.