“Thank you,” said Pascoe. “Andy, perhaps you’d stay here till another pod fetches you. It would be a bit crowded for the three of us, I think.”
He smiled as he spoke, but his eyes flickered to Silvia Rabal and his finger touched his lips. The message was clear. Dalziel was to make sure the Spaniard made no contact with the village.
Dalziel had seen no particular evidence of the kind of group loyalty that might have her radioing a warning, but Pascoe was right to be cautious. All the same, Dalziel felt a little disgruntled that having done all the nose-work, he wasn’t going to be in at the kill.
Still, as Druson had just acknowledged, it was no use kicking against a brick wall. Best to lean back against it and enjoy the sun on your face.
He watched the pod detach itself from Europa, then he turned to Silvia Rabal, who was relaxing against a bulkhead with her legs tucked up beneath her, looking more like an exotic bird than ever.
“Right, luv,” he said, beaming broadly. “Now what can an old vulture like me and a bright little cockatoo like you do to pass the time? With a bit of luck, mebbe we’ll get an electrical storm, eh?”
8.
It was the youngster who’d brought the whisky who piloted Dalziel back to the Village. He called Dalziel “pops” a couple of times, but the fat man was not in the mood to respond and most of the journey passed in silence.
The first person he saw as he climbed from the pod was Druson, whose face told him all.
“Seems the Shamrock folded like a zed-bed,” said the colonel. “Full admission, signed, sealed, and delivered. Just the way you called it, Andy.”
“Oh aye? You might look more pleased,” said Dalziel.
“You too,” said Druson, regarding him shrewdly. “Time for a snort?”
“Best not,” said Dalziel, to his own surprise as much as the American’s. “I’ll need to find out what the lad’s planning.”
Druson smiled and said, “Last I saw of your lad, he was talking to the two congressmen and the air force general he’d just dumped off the next shuttle. I never heard a guy sound so polite as he says Up yours, fella! So it looks like it’s goodbye time, Andy. And I guess I’d better chuck in a congratulations. You two are a real class act. Though I’m still not sure if it’s Laurel and Hardy or Svengali and Trilby.”
“Is that a compliment?” wondered Dalziel. “It’s about time you buggers learnt to speak plain English. Cheers anyway, Ed. And thanks for the scotch.”
They shook hands and Dalziel returned to his quarters. Pascoe was already there with his suitcase open on the bed.
“That was quick,” said Dalziel.
“It was like I said, Andy. He was longing to get it off his chest, but it seemed daft to confess when he didn’t have to. All it needed was the realization that we had firm evidence. That was down almost entirely to you, Andy. You were brilliant! Fancy a job in the Justice Department?”
“No, thanks,” said Dalziel. “Good beer doesn’t travel. So all’s well, eh? No aggro at the summit after all.”
“The Irish will feel a mite embarrassed but they’re used to that,” said Pascoe. “Main thing is, poor Lemarque’s unfortunate death won’t affect the outcome. It’ll be down to honest political debate.”
“Oh aye? What was that thing they taught us about in grammar lessons, when two things are put together that don’t make proper sense? Like freezing fire. Or southern beer.”
“An oxymoron, you mean.”
“Aye, yon’s the bugger. Well, honest political debate sounds like one of them to me. And all them as claims they engage in it, I reckon they’re oxy-bloody-morons too!”
Pascoe laughed and said, “You don’t change, Andy. Thank God! Come on. Don’t hang about. I’m going to have a quick shower. All this frantic activity’s made me sweat. You get yourself packed. We’re on our way home in half an hour!”
They rose from the moon in a smooth accelerating orbit. As they slipped round for the second time, beneath them they glimpsed the heavy squat bulk of Europa, like some beautifully preserved steam engine on display outside a modem jet station.
Then their flight path straightened out and they sped like a silver arrow towards the gold of Earth.
Dalziel raised himself on his couch. O’Meara was lying to his left, his eyes closed, his breath shallow, a childlike relaxation smoothing the crinkled face.
“Looks as innocent as a newborn baby, doesn’t he?” said Pascoe, who occupied the couch to Dalziel’s right.
“Aye, he does,” said Dalziel. “Mebbe that’s because he is.”
“I’m sorry?”
Dalziel turned to face the younger man and said in an exaggerated whisper, “Safe to talk now, is it?”
Pascoe thought of looking puzzled, changed his mind, grinned, and said, “Quite safe. Clever of you to spot it.”
“They brought me Glenmorangie,” said Dalziel. “I’d not mentioned any brand till we got to our rooms and I complained that Druson had forgotten. I checked it out again at lunch. Druson was listening all right. And you knew, but decided not to warn me.”
Pascoe didn’t deny it.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t see any point. We weren’t going to be saying anything we cared about them hearing, were we?”
Dalziel considered, then said, “No, lad. We weren’t. You because you’re a clever bugger and knew they were listening. And me because...”
“Because what, Andy?” prompted Pascoe with lively interest. “Because, not knowing, I’d just come across as a simple old copper doing his job the way he’d always done it.”
“I don’t think I’m quite with you,” said Pascoe.
“Oh yes you are. You’re only hoping you’re not,” said Dalziel. “Let me spell it out for you, lad. Here’s what I think really happened back there. When the Frog snuffed it, the Yanks checked out his TEC. They found a malfunction but no definite sign of outside interference, so it looked like a bug had got into that particular circuit. Tragic accident. Trouble was, the suit was an American design and they don’t like looking silly. So mebbe the first idea was to muck the circuits up a bit to make it look like a maintenance fault, not a design fault. Then someone, Ed Druson most likely, had a better idea. How about setting the French and the Germans at each other’s throats by pinning this on Kaufmann? They’d known for some time he was flogging stuff to the Arabs, and were watching for the best chance to use this info to maximum advantage. A dead Frog blackmailer, a murdering Kraut spy; all they needed was a bit of evidence. So they mucked about with the suit to make the fault look deliberate, planted yon microprobe thing in Kaufmann’s locker, leaked the news to the press, and sat back.”
“And the entry in Lemarque’s journal? They forged that too, I suppose?”
“Probably not. Too dangerous. That was just a stroke of luck. God knows what it really means.”
Pascoe leaned back on his couch, shaking his head in a parody of wonder.
“Andy, this is fascinating! Have you been doing a lot of reading in your retirement? Fantasy fiction perhaps?”
“Don’t get comic with me, lad,” snarled Dalziel. “And don’t think you can pull that rank crap you got away with on Druson either. You may be a federal bloody commissioner, but me, I’m a private citizen, and I can recollect you telling me more than once in that preachy tone of thine that in England at least being a private citizen outranks any level of public service you care to mention. Or have you changed your mind about that too?”
“No,” said Pascoe quietly. “I’m sorry. Go on.”