clear. Dalziel was to make sure the Spaniard too made no contact with the Village.
Dalziel had seen no particular evidence of the kind of group loyalty which 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?'
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, fallal 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.'
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 com plained 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'd been spying for the Arabs and had been 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.'
'I was going to, with or without your permission,' observed Dalziel. 'Now your lot, being clever college- educated buggers like yourself, soon sussed out what had really happened, only there was no way to prove it. So someone really clever came up with the solution – let's accept what the Yanks say about Lemarque's death being deliberate, but let's fit somebody else up instead!'
'And how were we going to manage that, Andy?'
'Well, you had a head start, knowing that Kaufmann had been a double agent, which cut the ground from under the
Yanks when it came to motive. But there was still a question of concrete evidence.'
'Concrete? Ah, I see. Like the good old days of slipping half a brick into a suspect's pocket?'
'Oh, you've come a long way from that, Peter,' said Dalziel. 'Anyone can plant a half-brick. Or a New Testament for that matter. But you needed more evidence. You needed an admission, and that requires a long, strong lever,'
'Which I just happened to have about my person?'
'That's where it would have to be, wouldn't it?' said Dalziel. 'I mean, if the Yanks had got us bugged, they'd not be shy about searching our luggage, would they? Though what they'd have made of a harmless list of names and addresses, I'm not sure.'
Pascoe's hand went involuntarily to his breast pocket and Dalziel laughed.
'It's all right, lad. I put it back after I'd taken a shufti while you were in the shower. I knew there had to be something, and it had to be in writing so you could slip it over to O'Meara while you were interrogating him. Then, after giving him time to take this list in, there'd likely be another piece of paper with his instructions on, like, You're going to confess to killing Emile Lemarque, or else?
'Or else what, Andy?' inquired Pascoe. 'You're losing me.'
'Oh, I think I may have done that already,' said Dalziel coldly. 'I can make a stab at guessing what that list meant, but why should I bother when I can get it from the horse's mouth. So how about it, Paddy? I've never known an Irishman keep quiet for so long!'
He poked O'Meara savagely in the ribs and he opened his bright blue eyes and abandoned his pretence of sleep.
'Now there you are, Andy, me old love,' he said brightly. 'I should have known a man with a face like an old potato couldn't be as thick as he looks! No, no, that's enough of the punching. One thing I learned as a young boxer was not to fight outside me weight. And I got right out of my weight when I was a boy, believe me. Oh, the company I kept, you'd not believe it. Wild men, terrible men, men who drank Brit blood for breakfast and ate Proddy flesh for tea. I was just a messenger, a look-out, a tea-boy, nothing heavy, and I thought I'd put it all behind me
