Asking For The Moon

Now the reporters were united in a wild surmise. The Onlooking eyebrows were lowered, the Defending spectacles raised. But once again it was the earnest seeker of enlightenment from the Spheroid who so well expressed what everyone was thinking. 'You mean he pissed himself to death?'

Dalziel laughed so much he almost fell out of bed, though the nurse noted with interest that some internal gyroscope kept his brimming glass of Lucozade steady in his hand. Recovering, he downed the drink in a single gulp and, still chuckling, listened once more to his erstwhile underling.

Pascoe was explaining, 'While there would certainly be a severe shock, this was not of itself sufficient to be fatal. But the short circuit was induced. in such a way as to drain completely and immediately all power from the TEC, cutting dead all systems, including the respiratory unit. It was the shock that made him fall. But it was the lack of oxygen that killed him, before the dust had started to settle.'

This sobered the gathering a little. But newsmen's heartstrings vibrate less plangently than their deadlines and soon Pascoe was being bombarded with questions about the investigation, which he fielded so blandly and adroitly that finally Dalziel switched off in disgust.

'What's up?' asked Miss Montague. 'I thought you taught him everything he knows.'

'So I did,' said Dalziel. 'But one thing I could never teach the bugger was how to tell reporters to sod off!'

He poured himself another glass of Lucozade. The nurse seized the bottle and raised it to her nostrils.

'I think this has gone off,' she said.

'Tastes all right to me,' said Dalziel. 'Try a nip.'

Miss Montague poured herself a glass, raised it, sipped it delicately.

'You know,' she said thoughtfully, 'you could be right.' 'I usually am,' said Dalziel. 'Cheers!'

At nine that night the telephone rang.

'This is a recording,' said Dalziel. 'If you want to leave a message, stick it in a bottle.'

'You sound very jolly,' said Pascoe.

'Well, I've supped a lot of Lucozade,' said Dalziel, looking at the gently snoring figure of Nurse Montague on the sofa opposite. 'What's up?'

'Just a social call. Did you see me on the box?'

'I've got better things to do than listen to civil bloody servants being civil and servile,' growled Dalziel.

'Oh, you did see it, then. That's what we call diplomatic language out here in the real world,' said Pascoe.

'Oh aye. Up here it's called soft soap and it's very good for enemas.'

Pascoe laughed and said, 'All right, Andy. I never could fool you, could I? Yes, this whole thing has got a great crap potential. To start with, we reckon the Yanks deliberately leaked their suspicion of foul play to bounce us into letting them take full control of the investigation. Now, we're not terribly keen on that idea.'

'Oh aye? Don't the~y have jurisdiction anyway?'

'Certainly not. Space is international by UN treaty. But they're established up there with all the facilities, so on the surface it's a generous, neighbourly offer, only… Look, it's a bit complicated. ..'

'Come on, lad, I'm not quite gaga and I do read the papers still,' snarled Dalziel. 'This is all about the Eurofed Summit, isn't it?'

'Is it?' murmured Pascoe. 'Do expound.'

'All right, clevercuts. There's a lot of Euros reckon all them trade agreements they signed in the nineties have worked out a lot better for the Yanks than anyone else. Plus some of the soldier boys would like to give NATO the elbow and concentrate on a pure Eurofed force, dumping America, and buying nowt but made-in-Europe hardware. As usual it's the French stirring up most trouble. If they can get the Germans to go along, the rest will follow, no problem. So anything that gets the Krauts and the Frogs at each other's goolies just now will be very good news in Washington.

'Conclusion. The Americans have elected the German crew member number one suspect, and you reckon any investigation they mount will make bloody sure that's where the finger points. How's that for a bit of close political analysis?'

'Marvellous,' breathed Pascoe admiringly. 'Who speaks so well should never speak in vain.'

'I don't know about in vain, but I do prefer in plain English. So what have they got on this German, then?'

There was a long pause.

'Come on, lad,' said Dalziel. 'They must have a pretty good case against him, else you'd not be so worried.'

'Yes, they do. But it's not… Look, Andy. I'm sorry, but the thing is, security. You're not cleared for this. It's a need-to-know classification and the only people who need to know outside of government are the investigating officers. So I really can't tell you any more. Not unless I appointed you an investigating officer!'

He said this with a light dismissive laugh, but Dalziel had had many years' experience of interpreting Pascoe's light laughs.

'All right, lad,' he said softly. 'What's going off? Spit it out and make it quick, else this phone goes back down so hard it'll need a jemmy to prise it back up.'

'There's no fooling you, is there, Andy?' said Pascoe. 'OK. Straight it is. I've been asked to take charge of the case, not because I'm the best, but because I'm not French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish or Irish. Meaning none of the countries actually involved in the Europe's mission will trust any of the others to give them a fair deal! They've given me a free hand. They've also given me four days to get a result.'

'Any result?'

'The truth, Andy,' said Pascoe heavily. 'That's the result I'm looking for.'

'Only asking,' said Dalziel. 'So how come you're wasting time talking to a clapped-out candidate for the boneyard?'

'Andy, I need eyes and I need a nose. All right, I know I could have any of the Yard's top men for the asking. Only, nowadays they get to the top by being on top of the technology and that's no use to me here. Technology's a two-way ticket. If you live by it, you can be fooled by it. Also the Yard's best will still be on the way up. Europe's wide open to an ambitious man nowadays. But ambitious men need to tread carefully, else when their names come up for advancement there can be more vetoes in the air than flies round a dustbin. So what I need is a seat-of-the-pants copper with a bloodhound's nose, who's got nothing to lose or to gain, and who doesn't give a tuppenny toss about any bugger. I fed this data into my computer and it let out a huge burp. So I picked up the phone and I rang you, Andy. What do you say?'

'You cheeky sod!' exclaimed Dalziel. 'I say you must be off your trolley! My nose is so out of practice I can hardly tell Orkney from Islay. As for seat-of-the-pants, I've been stuck in bed with gout for nigh on a fortnight, and I don't want no jokes either.'

'Who's laughing?'Andy, what you clearly need is a place where you won't have to worry about putting pressure on your foot, and I can help you there.'

'Hold on,' said Dalziel. 'I didn't quite get that. This must be a bad line. You are talking about bringing the Europe's crew back to Earth for investigation, aren't you? Well, aren't you?

'Andy!' said Pascoe reprovingly. 'First thing you taught me was, good investigation starts at the scene of the crime. And anyway, you always expected the moon from me. So how can you turn me down now that I'm finally offering it to you?'

Space travel weren't so bad after all, thought Andy Dalziel. It put him in mind of an occasion half a century ago when he'd supped about twenty pints and ended up on his back in a rowing boat drifting slowly down the cut, looking up at a midnight sky, heavy and dark as a nautch-girl's tits, all studded with a thousand stars.

He should have realized how easy it must be when Pascoe told him the Yanks had dumped a minority party senator and his wife to make room for them on their state-of-the-art lunar shuttle which had been ferrying distinguished visitors to the moon for half a decade. But he'd still been protesting even as Pascoe urged him into the soft yielding couch.