Asking For The Moon

…'

'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 gone 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.'