when I joined up, and I was glad to be getting away from it all, believe me. But those boys don't forget so easily, and the top and the bottom of it is they came after me to do me old mates a few favours, like giving details of the guard routine at my training depot and looking the other way when I was on sentry so they could get into the arms store.
'Now I was young, but not so young I didn't know that once I started that road, I'd be on it for ever. So, I told our security officer. He was a real gem. He did a deal with the Brits, passing on all information on condition they did the cleaning-up job on their side of the border and pointed the finger a long way from me. A couple of days later, I don't know if it was a cock-up or policy, but the Brits laid an ambush and when the shooting stopped, all the wild men were dead, and me, I was both very guilt-ridden and very relieved, for this meant I was completely in the clear. Or so I thought. Only what I didn't reckon on was that full details of the affair would be carefully recorded in some great computer file where it would lie sleeping for all these years till Prince Charming here came along and woke it with a kiss!'
'He's good at that,' said Dalziel. 'And these names and addresses? They'd be relatives of the men who got killed? And members of your own family?'
'That's right. And if the first lot ever found out who bubbled their menfolk… they've got long memories back in Ireland, and they don't forgive. So now you know all about me, Mr Dalziel. And now you know too what nice company you've been keeping.'
Dalziel turned to Pascoe and said, 'Oh Peter, Peter, what have they done to you?'
'Come on, Andy!' protested Pascoe, looking uncomfortable. 'You've cut a hell of a lot of corners in your time, you can't deny it. And we've only got O'Meara's word for it that he turned his old chums in the first time they asked for his help. God knows what mayhem he contributed to before he got cold feet! And what'll happen to him now? He was planning to get out after this mission, we know that. He already has a deal tied up with a publisher, and this will do him no harm at all. An Irish jape that went tragically wrong. End of a promising career with full pension rights guaranteed. Punishment enough from his own conscience, sentence suspended. Advance sales astronomical, serialized in the Spheroid, he buys a castle in Killarney and he and his family live happily ever after. I'm practically doing him a favour!'
Dalziel had started shaking his huge head halfway through Pascoe's plaintive self-justification, but he didn't speak till it had run its course.
'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? I never met a Mick yet who didn't deserve ten times worse than he got!'
'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?'
'OK, 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 the real thing? That would shut the Americans up, eh? Not a Euro whizzkid out to please daddy, but a genuine geriatric, out to please no bugger but himself, 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. The other buggers are there to be used, aren't they? Everyone thought I got stuck because them above me didn't care for the colour of my eyes. Bollocks! I could make 'em and I could break 'em. And if I'd wanted… but I didn't. 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 pre-ordained 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 re-group and counter-attack 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 pre-arranged charade of accusation and confession, with the Yanks listening in helplessly. And preferably without a fat old steam-age cop sitting in the corner, 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
