Asking for the Moon: A Collection of Dalziel and Pascoe Stories

‘Good thinking. No, safely banged up. Inquest brought in accidental death.’

There was an absence of finality in his tone.

Pascoe said, ‘You don’t think it might have been … Judith?’

‘You’re not just a pretty face then?’ said Dalziel. ‘Aye, it did cross my mind. But I said, what the hell? No way I could prove it, no way I wanted to prove it!’

‘So why should this bother Trotter?’

‘’Cos I told him I could prove it,’ said Dalziel gloomily. ‘I got to thinking, I didn’t much fancy having to look over my shoulder for evermore in case Tankie were coming after me. So before they took him back to the glasshouse, I told him if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, I’d make sure his everloving sister got banged up even longer than he did. I thought, that’ll do the trick.’

‘Instead of which it just gave him another reason for wanting to sort you out.’

‘Worse. I reckon he told Jude. I don’t think she’d be risking everything she’s got just for love of Tankie. No, she’s got her own agenda here, protecting her own interests, her own life.’

‘While actually you don’t have anything on her at all! Great move, sir. Really clever thinking!’

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ said Dalziel without conviction.

‘Joe E. Brown. Some Like It Hot,’ said Pascoe.

‘What the fuck are you on about?’ said Dalziel. ‘Stand by! Here we go again.’

Once more he was a second ahead in detecting the key in the door.

This time Trotter didn’t enter the room but stood in the doorway. Pascoe saw his eyes take in the name scratched on the wall above the bed. Then he was screaming, ‘Prisoner! Double mark time!’

Dalziel began running on the spot.

‘Higher! Get them knees up higher!’ yelled Trotter. ‘You great bag of lard. We shouldn’t be feeding you, we should be fasting you till you start looking like a human being instead of a blubber fucking whale! At the double, forward march. Left wheel! Keep them knees up, d’you hear me? Lef’ri’lef’ri’lef’ri’ …’

Dalziel went out of the dairy with Trotter in close attendance. Pascoe took a tentative step towards the door, but Judith was there, the gun in her hands as steady as the grey eyes fixed on his face.

He forced himself to take another small step forward.

‘Next one takes you off the edge of the world,’ she said.

She had a low-pitched voice with a not displeasing huskiness. If she could hold a note, he could imagine her coming over like Bacall in To Have and Have Not. (Did Andy Williams really dub that?) He put on his Bogart lisp and said, ‘Somewhere this has got to stop, you must see that. So it makes sense, the sooner the better.’

The gun barrel moved forward as slightly but as certainly as a Socratic question exposing a flaw in his argument. He gave way before it, retreating both steps he’d advanced and another besides. Bogie wasn’t too proud to be scared. Remember Key Largo!

‘If you kill me …’ He meant to urge on her the inevitable consequences to herself, her brother, the moral health of the Nation, and the Rule of Law. Instead he heard pathos slipping into bathos as he concluded limply, ‘… I’ll be dead.’

Even as he thought, ‘Oh God! I didn’t really say that, did I?’ he saw a reaction. First she smiled … that was at the bathos. And then the smile faded and for the first time she blinked as if something other than blank watchfulness was trying to show itself in her eyes. Perhaps that was the pathos getting to her. Perhaps for the first time she was seeing him not just as an adjunct of the gross Dalziel but as a young man with a life still to live, wine still to drink, movies still to see, girls still to …

He found he was blinking tears back from his eyes. Well, it had been a hard day so far and he’d had no breakfast. Even as he fought against this weakness which he suspected unfitted him to be a policeman he found himself wondering how his complete breakdown would affect the woman, which perhaps meant he was cut out to be a cop after all.

Before he could test just how meltable she was, he heard the sound of Dalziel’s footsteps with their high-pitched lef’ri’lef’ri’lef accompaniment. The Fat Man appeared in the cell with a pint mug in one hand and a plate piled with some kind of stew in the other. At Trotter’s command he marked time at the foot of the bed. Despite all his efforts at steadiness tea slopped out of the mug at every step and gravy dripped off the edge of the plate.

‘Look what you’re doing to the officer’s meal!’ screamed Trotter. ‘I’ve a good mind to make you lick it up, you horrible man. HALT. LEFT TURN. Give the officer his meal and apologize for the mess you’ve made.’

‘SIR!’ shouted Dalziel breathlessly. ‘Here’s your meal, SIR! Sorry about the mess, SIR!’

He didn’t look well, thought Pascoe. Or perhaps that greyness round the mouth was his natural colouring. The eyes were lively enough, full of promissory vengeance which came across as all embracing rather than targeted.

Even if I get out of this lot, thought Pascoe, I don’t get the feeling I’ve much of a future in Mid Yorkshire!

He dug deep for his Alec Guinness voice. Because of the thickness in his throat it came out more Tunes of Glory than Bridge on the River Kwai.

‘Carry on, Mr Trotter.’

And the poor fat sod was off again, doubling back down to the kitchen presumably to get his own grub this time.

Pascoe looked speculatively at the woman. The old blankness was back. Impervious she might be to hot tears, but how would she react to hot stew in her face?

Badly, he answered himself. And in these confined quarters there wasn’t much chance of ducking out of the spread of two shotgun barrels.

He took a careful sip of his tea, then set it on the floor and examined the stew. There was a spoon half submerged in its rich brownness which gave off a good appetizing smell reminding him he’d missed breakfast. While there was life, there was hunger. He began to eat. It tasted as good as it smelt and he’d almost finished by the time Dalziel returned, clutching another mug and plate.

Trotter noticed his progress and said, ‘Sir! Like another helping, sir?’

He almost said yes, then he looked at Dalziel still double marking time, and thought it would mean another trip to the kitchen for the poor sod.

‘No, thank you, Mr Trotter,’ he said.

‘Right, sir. Thank you, sir. Prisoner, HALT! Stan’ atease. Next inspection in thirty minutes.’

Then he was gone. Dalziel waited till they heard the key turn in the lock before subsiding slowly onto the bed.

‘You OK, sir?’ said Pascoe.

The great grey head turned slowly towards him.

‘What’s up, lad? Worried in case I snuff it and there’s nowt between you and Tankie but your fancy degree? Rest quiet. There’s nothing wrong with me that a good woman and a bottle of Highland Park wouldn’t put right.’

‘Glad to hear it, sir. Talking of a good woman, was Mrs Dalziel expecting you to drop in at home before you went back to Wales? If so …’

‘Forget it, lad. There is no Mrs Dalziel now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘Dead?’

‘No such sodding luck,’ grunted the Fat Man. ‘Just divorced. You married?’

‘No sir.’

‘Good. First thing I’ve heard in your favour so far. Not engaged or owt like that? Girlfriend filling her bottom drawer?’

‘No sir. There was a girl at university …’