Reginald Hill - Asking For The Moon

'You are mistaken, I think,' she said, recovering her poise. 'They were rivals, yes. Each wanting to be the most macho, that is all.'

'You reckon? Mebbe they didn't bother you much. I'll be interested to hear what that Danish lass made of them. She's a lot more boyish than you, might have turned them on a bit more…" •

She looked ready to explode, recovered again and said, 'Yes, if you are interested in low-temperature physics, go to her.'

'No, thanks. Me, I prefer the high-temperature Latin type,' he said lecherously.

She gave him a thin smile and said, 'You talk a lot, Dalziel. Can you, I wonder – what is the phrase? – put your money where your mouth is?'

'Depends where you want me to put my mouth,' said

Dalziel negligently. 'Thanks for the offer, but. Mebbe later when I've' a minute to spare, eh?' Or a week, he thought ruefully. Though there had been a time… At least his diversionary tactics had worked.

'Offer? What offer? You do not think…' Suddenly she broke into indignant Spanish.

Dalziel yawned and said, 'Stick to English, luv. If a man's worth swearing at, he's worth swearing at in his own language. Now, I've read all the statements but I'm not much good at technical stuff, so mebbe you can give us a hand. First, these TECs, once they were activated in the module, you could monitor their circuits on Europa, is that right?'

'Yes.'

'And from Europa this info would go back to Earth Control?'

'Yes. There is non-stop transmission of pictures and technical data from Europa to Earth.'

'Aye,' scowled Dalziel. 'Made me miss Star Trek. But weren't there a transmission blackout from Europa as the module went down?'

'That is right. There was an electrical storm.'

He whistled and said, 'That must have been scary.'

'No,' she said with professional indifference. 'It happens often. Fortunately it did not last long and we got pictures back in time for the big event. Emile stepping on to the moon, I mean, not…'

She shuddered. A sympathetic smile lit Dalziel's face like a wrecker's lantern and he said, 'Don't take on, lass. Now, let's see. It were just Europa's Earth transmissions that were affected? You still kept your contact with the module?'

'There was a little interference but we still got pictures.'

'And technical data on the TEC circuits?'

'Yes,' she snapped with the growing exasperation of the expert at being made to repeat the obvious. Dalziel scratched his nose. To him, such exasperation was the reddening skin above a boxer's eye. You pounded at it till it split.

'And there was no sign of owt wrong with Lemarque's suit? No hint that his circuits had been mucked around?'

'I have said so in my statement!' she cried. 'There was nothing till the moment when he made water. Then pouf! it is finished. No one can say it was my fault! There were two of us watching. It was a systems malfunction I think, no one to blame. Who has been blaming me. ..?'

'Calm down, woman!' bellowed Dalziel. 'You'll be gabbling away in Spanish again just now, and then where will we be? Have another drink. That's it, straight down. If you buggers drank more of this stuff and less of that gangria, you'd mebbe not need to run around screaming like banshees and slaughtering bulls. Now, get it into your noddle, nobody's blaming you, least of all me. So, just a couple more questions…'

Pascoe and Dalziel had agreed to confer between interviews.

'Anything?' asked Pascoe.

'She's been bonking either the Italian or the Frog or mebbe both, and she doesn't much care for the Dane, so mebbe she got in on the act too. And she says that Albertosi and Lemarque didn't much hit it off.'

'She volunteered all this?'

'I prodded a bit. Told her I suspected they were a couple of poofters.'

'Oh Andy. Any more disinformation I should know about?'

'I told her you were a right bastard, and I said she weren't on my list of suspects.'

'And isn't she?'

'You know me, lad. You're on my list till I get the evidence to cross you off. She certainly had less chance than the others of fiddling with Lemarque's suit. Mind you, she got very agitated when she thought I was hinting she were to blame for not monitoring the TEC transmissions properly. That electrical storm checked out, did it?'

'Happens all the time, evidently. And there were two of them doing the monitoring.'

'Aye. I take it, from what you're saying, you haven't clamped the Kraut in irons? Not even for spying? He is a spy, I take it?'

'Oh yes, no question. He doesn't deny it.'

Dalziel considered, then said gently, 'Now that should be a great big plus for the Yanks' theory that he knocked the Frog off. So why do I get the feeling it's nowt of the sort?"

Pascoe regarded him blankly. Time was when Dalziel reckoned he could have followed most of his old colleague's thought-processes along a broad spoor of telltale signs, but not any more. Perhaps time had dulled his perception. Or perhaps it had honed Pascoe's control.

Then the younger man smiled and was his old self again.

'I'm glad to see the nose is getting back into shape, Andy,' he said. 'The truth is, I knew all about Kaufmann's relations with the Arabs long before Druson told me. As usual, the CIA have only managed to get half a story. The more important half is that Kaufmann's a double, always has been. Oddly enough, that's partly the reason he got into the Fed's space programme in the first place. He's a high flier in every sense and was due a promotion. The Arabs were licking their lips as the logical career step would have taken him into a very sensitive area of missile guidance. His own people recognized how hard it would be to keep up his act with duff info at this level, so someone came up with the bright idea of nominating him for the moon shot. That way, he kept his cred with the Arabs by passing them what is in their terms a lot of relatively antiquated space technology. The Yanks were right about that at least!'

He laughed, inviting Dalziel to join in his amusement. But the fat man was not to be manipulated so easily.

'Fuck me rigid!' he said angrily. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?'

' 'Need-to-know, remember, Andy? Look, for all I knew, the Americans had got it right, Kaufmann was the killer, and I was into damage-limitation. I didn't see a need to load you down with classified stuff that wasn't necessary.'

Dalziel swallowed his irritation with difficulty and said, 'Meaning, now you've talked, he's definitely off your list?'

'Ninety per cent, I'd say. But I'd still like your opinion, Andy, and it'll be a better opinion now you know this spy business didn't really figure as motive.'

'Because if Lemarque had threatened to tell the Fed that Kaufmann was an agent, it wouldn't be much of a threat, as they know already?'

'Right.'

'But suppose he was threatening to tell the Arabs that Kaufmann was a double?'

'In that case,' said Pascoe quietly, 'Kaufmann would have told us and Lemarque would have been taken care of much more discreetly.'

Dalziel digested this, then shook his head unhappily and said, 'Oh, Pete, Pete. Listen,. lad, I'm far too old a dog to be learning new tricks. If this is a good old-fashioned killing because some bugger's been dipping his hand or his wick where he shouldn't, that's fine. But if it's spies and politics and that kind of crap, better beam me down to the twilight zone.'

Pascoe smiled and said in a kindly tone, 'I think you're mixing your programmes, Andy. And if you're going to try for pathos, better lose a bit of weight. Look, why do you think I brought you along? I've learnt enough new tricks to deal with the politics, but some of the old tricks may have gone a bit rusty. If it is just a good old-fashioned killing, and it could be, I'm relying on you to sort it out. You're my fail-safe, Andy. OK? Now let's get on. I've got the Irishman and you've got the Dane. And try to hold back on the Hamlet jokes, won't you?'