Charles Ardai - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

“Oh Pete, Pete,” he said now. “Christ, but you’ve started running slow since you’ve not had me to wind you up! You don’t really imagine I’m bothered about this poor Paddy and his tribal troubles, do you?”

“So why the shaken head, the plummeting sigh, the heartfelt reproach?” asked Pascoe, trying unsuccessfully for lightness.

“Because in all my years of cutting corners, as you put it,” said Dalziel heavily, “I did a lot of chancy things, but I never screwed up a mate. I badgered you, and I bullied you, and I buggered you about something rotten. But I never took advantage of you, or made a dickhead out of you, or fobbed you off with a load of lies. Did I?”

“Well,” said Pascoe uncertainly, “there were a couple of...”

“Did I?”

“Okay, no. In principle, in essence, at the end of the day, no, you didn’t.”

“So why’ve you done it to me, lad? Why’ve I spent the last few days with your hand up my arse working my jaw hinges like Charlie McCarthy? Don’t answer that. I’ll tell you. It wasn’t my sodding expertise and independence you wanted. With your clout, you could have had any bright young thing in the game at your service, spouting your script with a will. But why risk an act when for no extra cost you can have a genuine geriatric, who would trip over the truth with his walking frame and leave the Yanks too bothered and bewildered to cry, ‘Foul!’ Was it all your plan, Pete? Every bit of it? Or did some other genius set it off and you just threw me in as a makeweight to make sure you got your share of the glory?”

His voice never rose above a murmur, but its pace increased and its timbre changed, as waters that start soft and slow become harsh with menace when the meadows give way to rock and the stream starts accelerating towards the cataract.

O’Meara said, “Oh dear. If you two girls are going to quarrel, I really am going to sleep.”

And sinking back, he closed his eyes once more.

Pascoe too had slumped back into his couch. He did not speak for a long time, then said simply, “Andy, you’re absolutely right. What I did was unforgivable. I don’t know how...”

His voice failed.

Dalziel said, “It’s a tightrope, lad. The higher you go, the more dangerous it gets. Me, I got as far as I could safely. Beyond that, I didn’t fancy the trip. One small step in the wrong direction and you can end up bent, or you can end up using people. People that matter, I mean. Your mates. Where I was was right for me. Anything more would have been giving a face-lift to a cuddy’s backside. But I always thought: There’s one bugger I know that I’ll trust to go all the way; who’ll be able to look up without getting delusions and down without getting giddy; who’ll not change to fit changes; who’ll not let new honours get more important than old mates...”

Now it was his voice that died away.

When Pascoe finally spoke, his voice was tight with restraint.

“Andy, I’m sorry. More sorry than ever I’ve been about anything. I’ve let you down and I know it. God knows if I can hope to put things right with you, but I’ll try, I promise I’ll try. But there’s a more pressing problem even than that. I’ve got to ask you something, not as a friend or even an ex-friend, but as a Federal Justice Commissioner. Andy, you’ve got knowledge, possibly dangerous knowledge, about O’Meara, about Kaufmann, about the fit-up, about everything.

“Andy, what are you going to do about it?”

What are you going to do about it?

Dalziel rubbed a hand like an eclipse across his face.

This was the second time that day he’d been asked this question.

Then as now he had not given an immediate answer, though he doubted if the delay would have the same result now as then.

His doubts had started long before their arrival on the moon; as soon as Pascoe had telephoned him, in fact. He was no Holmes or Poirot to be hauled out of retirement to solve one last all-baffling case. He was a pensioned-off bobby, suffering from gout, flatulence, distiller’s droop, and the monstrous regiment of visiting nurses.

So what the hell was the lad playing at?

He hadn’t worked it out straightaway but he’d soon worked out the role Pascoe wanted him to play. The old steam-age detective puffing his way to the preordained terminus! And to start with, he’d really enjoyed playing it. Of course in the old days he’d have done things his way. They’d have visited Europa to get the feel of the ship before interrogating the suspects. But his resistance to Pascoe had been token. It was the lad’s game, so play to his rules. And the lad had been right. It was pointless planting his clues till he was sure the victim of the fit-up was going to play ball. Mind you, it had been rather offensive the way he’d shovelled them at Dalziel thereafter, as if he really did think his old taskmaster was past it! Best thing that could be said for him was he was working to a timetable. If they hadn’t caught this shuttle, they’d have had to wait forty-eight hours for the next, and that would have given the Yanks time to regroup and counterattack O’Meara with a better offer.

Once Pascoe had got the famous stubby finger to point at the Irishman, all he had to do was get back to the Village as quickly as possible and go through the prearranged charade of accusation and confession, with the Yanks listening in helplessly. And preferably without a fat old steam-age cop sitting in the comer, nebbing in with awkward questions.

So the cunning bastard had left him on Europa , with the alleged task of making sure Silvia Rabal didn’t broadcast anything of what had taken place, this from a ship which was pumping out sound and pictures twenty-four hours of the day!

At this stage he still wasn’t sure what was going off. Mebbe Pascoe genuinely believed O’Meara was the perpetrator and had at last learned a lesson Dalziel had once despaired of teaching him, that like faith without works, belief without evidence got you nowhere, so where was the harm in giving God a helping hand?

But it rankled not to be admitted to the plan, if that was the plan.

And also, like a stuffed owl, the case against O’Meara looked right, but it didn’t fly.

With these thoughts in his mind he had watched the pod depart, then turned to look at Silvia Rabal, no stuffed owl this but a living and exotic creature of the air, and matters forensic were flushed from his mind.

“Right, luv,” he said. “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?”

Even though his tone was nostalgically playful rather than lewdly insinuating, it was not the most gallant of things to say, and had her reaction been scornful abuse, mocking indifference, or even righteous indignation, he would have accepted it as his due. But what rounded those huge dark eyes was surprise; more than surprise, shock; in fact, more than shock — fear!

And suddenly, in a flash — but not at all sudden in truth, for this was where the subtle independent microcircuits of his mind had been directing him while Pascoe was busy with spanner and wrench at the pistons and cogs of his consciousness — he saw the stuffed owl topple off its perch to be replaced by warm, living, tremulous...

“Tell me, luv,” he said. “What’s French for cockatoo?”

She went floating away up into the bridge, fluttering her supple hands over the bank of control lights, and for a moment both terrifying and exhilarating he thought she might be going to send them blasting off into the depths of space.

But then she turned and floated back to face him.

She said, “Kakatoès. He called me Ka when we were... in private. But you know this, and more. From the start I saw you were the dangerous one.”