One Small Step

by Reginald Hill

  Pascoe regarded him doubtfully, hopefully, longingly, like a pagan on the brink of conversion, and Dalziel’s brain started working overtime, drawing fragile threads together in an effort to plait a cord that would bear the other’s soul up to heaven.

  ‘Someone, Kaufmann I think it was, said something about Lemarque twitting O’Meara about being a boxer. Suppose he knew that his nickname as a lad had been KO? Mebbe he’d taken a peek in yon Testament.

  And suppose what he scribbled in his journal wasn’t Ka is getting angry, but Ko is getting angry. And if he was on the alert, mebbe when he felt his bladder filling up at a suspicious rate, he recalled the awful coffee he’d drunk and knew where to lay the blame. What he said just before he died, Oh mer … what he was trying to say was O’Meara!’

  It wasn’t much, but a man in search of salvation will make do with a candle if he doesn’t get offered a blinding light.

  Pascoe said with fervent gratitude, ‘Andy, how have I managed without you all this time? I felt there was something about O’Meara when I talked to him. I mentioned it to you, didn’t I? Like he was playing a game with me, almost like there was something he wanted me to know … Mr Druson, I need to get back to the Village straightaway.’

  Druson was looking as if his side’s twenty-point lead had been clawed back in the fourth quarter and now in the dying seconds of the game he was watching the opposition shaping to kick a field goal.

  ‘Come on, you guys!’ he mocked, trying for time-out. ‘I like baloney, but this is ridiculous! Let’s just look at the facts here …’

  ‘The only fact that need concern you, Colonel, is that we are getting into that pod and that during the flight there will be no talking with your base other than essential technical exchanges. I’m sure you understand me.’

  Pascoe’s tone was courteous, his voice quiet. But it was the quietness of deep space which can boil a man’s blood in millisecs if he challenges it unprotected.

  Druson clearly believed he had that protection for now he substituted belligerence for mockery.

  ‘Now listen here. No limey cop gives me orders anywhere and especially not round the moon. Christ almighty, it’s taken you guys half a century to get here in this junk heap. We’ve been living here for more than—’

  Pascoe cut across him like Zorro’s sword through a candle.

  ‘Colonel Druson, you are presently on Federation territory and I would be quite within my rights to arrest you and fly the pod back myself with you under restraint. Oh yes, I could do it, believe me. Nor would my powers diminish on the moon’s surface, which is by UN accord international territory where my authority is at least equal with that of your own Commander, who, incidentally, has received instructions from your President to extend me all facilities and full cooperation. I hardly think you want to be at the centre of a diplomatic incident which would wipe a mere accidental death right off our television screens. Do you?’

  Now for the first time Dalziel admitted to himself how far beyond him Pascoe had gone. He’d always known that the sky was the limit for the lad, but somehow, somewhere, a step had been taken which he’d not noticed, a small step which had taken his protégé into territory where not even the mightiest of leaps could have taken Dalziel.

  Druson too was taken by surprise, but like Dalziel he was a pragmatist.

  ‘OK, OK, Commissioner,’ he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m not taking on the UN, believe me. Down we go, and I’ll button my lip all the way, I promise.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pascoe. ‘Andy, perhaps you’d stay here till another pod fetches you. It would be a bit crowded for the three of us, I think.’

  He smiled as he spoke, but his eyes flickered to Silvia Rabal and his finger touched his lips. The message was 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?’

  viii

  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, fella! 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.’

  They shook hands and Dalziel returned to his quarters. Pascoe was already there with his suitcase open on the bed.

  ‘You move quick,’ said Dalziel. ‘Not like way back when you’d take half a day to make sure a suspect was sitting comfortable.’

  ‘It was like I said, Andy. He was longing to get it off his chest, but it seemed daft to confess when he didn’t have to. All it needed was the realization that we had firm evidence. That was down almost entirely to you, Andy. You were brilliant! Fancy a job in the Justice Department?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Dalziel. ‘Good beer doesn’t travel. So all’s well, eh? No aggro in the Federation after all.’

  ‘The Irish will feel a mite embarrassed but they’re used to that,’ said Pascoe. ‘Main thing is, whatever happens about the Germans, poor Lemarque’s unfortunate death won’t affect the outcome. It’ll be down to honest political debate.’

  ‘Oh aye? What was that thing they taught us about in grammar lessons, when two things are put together that don’t make proper sense? Like freezing fire. Or southern beer.’

  ‘An oxymoron, you mean.’

  ‘Aye, yon’s the bugger. Well, honest political debate sounds like one of them to me. And all them as claims they engage in it, I reckon they’re oxy-bloody-morons too!’

  Pascoe laughed and said, ‘You don’t change, Andy. Thank God! Come on. Don’t hang about. I’m going to have a quick shower. All this frantic activity’s made me sweat. You get yourself packed. We’re on our way home in half an hour!’

  They rose from the moon in a smooth accelerating orbit. As they slipped round for the second time, beneath them they glimpsed the heavy squat bulk of Europa, like some beautifully preserved steam engine on display outside a modern jet-station.

  Then their flight path straightened out and they sped like a silver arrow towards the gold of Earth.

  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 f
ace.

  ‘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 becaue 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 complained 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, particularly when they’re sweet-talking the Frogs over this Kraut business. 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 East 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, and even to suggest that the Yanks were fitting Kaufmann up would have caused a huge row with America which nobody wanted. 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 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 my 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! A
nd 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 half way 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?’