Asking For The Moon

'Aha!' said O'Meara. 'At last I'm getting your drift! And here's me thinking you were just showing a friendly interest! Because me wife ran off with a Frog, as you call him, every time I see a Frenchman, I feel an irresistible desire to kill him, is that it? Sure now, it's a fair cop. Except it happens in this case, the Frog she ran off with was a Belgian!'

'Let's not split hairs,' said Dalziel.

'You're right. Many things I am, but not a hair-splitter Do I get a choice of wearing the cuffs in front or behind And what happens if I want to go to the little boys' room while I've got them on?'

'You pray no one's been mucking about with your wiring This sick leave you had, exactly what was it that was supposed to be wrong with you?'

'Oh, women's trouble, you know the kind of thing.'

Dalziel slapped the file down on his knee with a crack that made the Irishman flinch.

'End of happy hour,' he snarled. 'Let's have some straight answers, right?'

'Oh God!' cried the Irishman, clenching his fists in a parody of a boxer's defences. 'You don't mean you're after fighting with the gloves off, is that it? I never could abide bare fists. Bare anything else you care to name, but not the bare fists!'

Dalziel looked at him thoughtfully and said, 'Yes, I'd heard summat about you being a boxer. And about the little Frog taking the piss.'

'Now that's what I call an unfortunate choice of phrase,' said O'Meara.

'I told you, lad. Cut the comedy! Let's just talk about you and Lemarque and the boxing ring, shall we?'

'I thought we agreed to whip this lot through double quick,' said Pascoe irritably.

'Sorry. He bothered me, that one. Something not right.' 'Ah, the famous nose again. What kind of not-rightness?' 'Too many jokey answers and I got the feeling he was trying to steer me around all the time.'

'So what did you end up not getting answers about that you asked questions about?'

Dalziel considered, then said, 'Hard to say exactly. One thing was why he got sick leave after his wife snuffed it, but that can't have owt to do with anything, can it?' 'Unlikely. What was wrong with him, anyway?'

'Don't know. That's the point I'm making,' said Dalziel

'There should have been a medical report in his file. Hang about, I've still got it here. Sorry. Let's see. Emotional trauma, blah blah; physical symptoms, insomnia, slight hypertension blah blah; treatment, counselling and unpronounceable drugs; passed fit for duty, 7.10.06. Nothing there that's relevant, I'd say. Maybe he just doesn't like talking about that time. Stick this in his file, will you?'

Dalziel glanced at the medical report, shrugged and said, The bugger's still not right. How'd you do with Danish bacon? Fancy a slice?'

'I don't think so.'

'You don't fancy her or you don't think she's in the frame?'

'I don't think that Miss Schierbeck would judge any man worth killing,' said Pascoe. 'So. One each left. We're not doing too well, Andy.'

'Come on,' said Dalziel. 'You've scuppered the Yanks' motive for Kaufmann being the killer, haven't you?'

'Because he's a double? We knew that before I left Earth. It would still be very embarrassing to have to make that public in his defence. No, the only thing that's going to please my masters and cut the ground right from under the Americans' feet is for us to come up with the undeniably genuine perpetrator. There can't be any cover-up or fit-up. We need the real thing and, we need it fast!'

After thirty minutes with Adriaan van der Heyde, Dalziel was convinced that either the Dutchman wasn't the real thing or if he was, it would take thumbscrews, rack and Iron Maiden to prise it out of him. He'd heard Pascoe's door open and shut after only ten minutes, signalling that the Commissioner was following his own precept of speed. It annoyed Dalziel to be accused of dragging his feet, annoyed him even more to suspect that perhaps it was age that was making him take so long.

'Look,' he said in desperation, 'let's say you're in the clear, right? Which of the others do you reckon most likely?'

The stolid Dutchman scratched his nose, then said very definitely, 'Albertosi.'

'What?' It occurred to Dalziel that, though it seemed unlikely, it would be nice to pin this on the Italian, not least because Pascoe obviously felt able to dismiss him so quickly.

'Why do you say that?' he asked. 'You reckon mebbe he was jealous of Lemarque?'

'Jealous? Sexually, you mean?' The Dutchman shook his head. 'That's all the British can think of. Sex!'

'Must be something to do with living above sea-level,' said Dalziel. 'All right, tulip. What do you say his motive was?'

'Revenge.'

There was an unnerving certainty about the man's manner and delivery.

Even Dalziel who was not easily impressed by the trappings of honesty couldn't help feeling he had better pay close attention here.

'You'd best explain,' he said.

The Dutchman nodded, took a deep breath and began to speak in a measured didactic tone which for a while disguised the incredible content of his allegations.

'Lemarque was approached by a consortium who wanted his help to take over the holy water bottling business in Lourdes. It is a multi-million-franc industry, you understand. He pretended to agree but went to the police. Unfortunately behind this consortium are people who decree that the price of betrayal of their confidence is death. Marco Albertosi was instructed to carry out the sentence.'

For a second Dalziel was reduced to a rare speechlessness. Then he burst out, 'For Christ's sake, are you telling me Albertosi is a Mafia hit man?'

'His family is Sicilian, did you know that?'

'No, I bloody didn't! Come on, lad, where's your hard evidence for all this? For any of it!'

'Lemarque's last words. They were incomplete.'

'Oh mer… So?'

'He was trying to say Omerta!' said the Dutchman. 'The Mafia's code of silence.'

For a long moment Dalziel stared into van der Heyde's grave, unyielding face.

Finally he said, 'Are you taking the piss?'

Another long moment, then…

'Yes,' said van der Heyde. And his face crazed like an overtired Delft plate into a myriad lines of laughter.

The pod spun round the moon in a climbing orbit and Earth swam into view like a schoolroom globe. It was easy for Dalziel to pick out Africa and India, but Yorkshire was invisible under a cloud. He felt a sharp pang of homesickness.

'Long way back, huh?' said Druson, observing him sympathetically.

'Long way to come just to hear a Dutchman crack a joke, right enough,' said Dalziel.

He had rewarded van der Heyde with a glass of Scotch. One glass led to another and he'd finally emerged from the interview with a feeling of childish self-satisfaction at having so blatantly ignored Pascoe's repeated instruction to hurry things along. Logically he had no cause to feel irritated when he found that Pascoe had joined Silvia Rabal in the pod taking her up to Europa, but he did. Even the return of Druson with the nightwatch and the message that his 'boss' wanted him up there too didn't mollify him.

'Boss'. He couldn't recall the last time he had acknowledged a boss, and he certainly wasn't about to start with a jumped-up detective-sergeant who'd struck lucky!

Mistaking his irritation, Druson said, 'Don't take it to heart, Andy. So the German still looks the man most likely, so what? Let the politicians work it out.'

'Eh? What makes you think I give a toss about politics?'

'You don't?' Druson looked at him shrewdly and said, 'I almost believe you, Andy. So what do you care about?'

'A fair measure in a clean glass,' said Dalziel. 'That'll do me.'

'And Commissioner Pascoe, is that how he feels too?'

'Peter? Straight as a donkey's shaft,' said Dalziel. 'Too honest for his own good sometimes.'