Reginald Hill - Asking For The Moon

'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.

'What's going off?" he demanded in alarm. 'This thing's trying to feel me up!'

'It's all right,' assured Pascoe. 'It's just a wrap-around fabric to hold you in place when we achieve weightlessness. Honestly, it'll just be like riding in a limo, without any traffic jams.'

'If it's so bloody easy, why's the Federation making such a big thing about it?'

'It's like going up Mont Blanc,' explained Pascoe patiently. 'You can either book a table at the summit restaurant and take the scenic railway or you can pack your sarnies into your rucksack and climb. That way it's harder, but you get a lot more Brownie points. More important in the long run, it establishes the Federation's right to be there. Space is international now, but there may come a time when the carving up starts, and we don't want to be scavenging for crumbs under the Americans' chair.'

'Bloody hell,' said Dalziel. 'I'll leave the politicking to you, lad. I'll stick to nicking villains. If I survive the trip, that is.'

In fact, he was feeling better than he'd done for some time. The doctor had confirmed that his heart was in good order for a man of his age. He'd been more concerned about the high blood pressure related to Dalziel's gout, but the drugs Dalziel Was taking seemed to have this under control, and reluctantly he'd given the go-ahead. Now as the shuttle came swooping in over the moon's surface, the fat man was delighted to find that his gout symptoms had almost completely vanished.

'You were right, lad,' he admitted. 'There's nowt to this astronaut business.'

'Not this way,' agreed Pascoe. 'Mind you, Europa's not so luxurious.'

'Can't be, if they're still crapping in their breeks,' said Dalziel.

'Andy, I thought I'd explained,' said Pascoe long-sufferingly. 'They only need their TECs for moving around the moon's surface. In the mother ship they just wear light tunics. The TECs were kept in the hold. Each crew member has his or her own locker and each suit is individually tailored and has a name tag stuck to it, so it's quite clear that whoever tampered with Lemarque's was aiming at him and no one else. Now, have you got it?'

'All right, I'm with you,' said Dalziel. 'No need to go on about things. Christ, have you looked down there? It's like the M i on a Bank Holiday. All dug up and no bugger working. Where's this village at?'

'Let's see. Yes, there it is, down there, in the Sea of Tranquillity.'

'Those pimples? Looks like an outbreak of chicken pox.'

Dalziel wasn't altogether wrong. The Village, a complex of sealed domes linked by corridors, covering about five acres, did indeed resemble a patch of blisters on the lunar skin till their third braking orbit brought out the scale of the thing. Next time round, one of the domes loomed large before them, threatening collision, and then they were slipping smoothly into a docking bay, and suddenly the stars were out of sight.