Asking for the Moon by Reginald Hill Read Free Book Online

headed home. Only this time it were my home he headed for. My missus opened the door and Tankie just walked* in.'
    'My God, that must have been a terrible shock for your wife!'
    'Aye, might have killed a weaker woman,' said Dalziel with a faint note of regret. 'But once she realized it were me he'd come to kill, they got on like a house on fire. They were sitting having a cup of tea when I walked in. Luckily I'd had some bother with the car and took the bus home, so he had no warning. He jumped up and spilt his tea over his lap. Must've been hot 'cos he didn't half yell! Then I hit him with the teapot and he stopped yelling.'
    'And your wife . . . ?'
    'She started yelling. It were her Crown Derby pot. I said, serve you right for getting the best china out for a nutter like Tankie, but she didn't see it like that. Why the hell am I telling you all this, Pascoe?'
    He turned a coldly speculative gaze on the young DC ike a man looking for the watermark in a suspect pound note.
    Memo to self, thought Pascoe. This is not a man the details of whose domestic life you want to know.
    He said, 'You mentioned another reason Trotter has for bating you.'
    'Did I? Not important.'
    'Shouldn't I be the judge of that?' insisted Pascoe. 'You keep telling me it's my balls on the block too.'
    This sudden descent into the demotic clearly impressed the Fat Man more than any amount of epagogic argument.
    He said, 'Mebbe you're right. It's to do with Thomas, Tankie's dad. He died just at the time his mum took ill. I reckon he gave her a punch too many, bust something in her gut. She'd never blow the whistle on him, but he got his comeuppance all the same. Fell into the canal one night coming home pissed. Drowned. Tankie got compassionate for the funeral. Manacled to an MP, naturally. I weren't there, but I heard he spat into the grave.'
    'He wasn't on the loose when his father drowned then?'
    '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. Lewis. 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