He put his hand out and the door handle turned, unlocked. He went into the lighted cabin, shut and locked the door behind him, and turned to where she lay on the narrow bed. And looking down at her, he knew at once that the gift had been refused and that he, Andrew Raikes, was doomed because he had come to make it too late.
Chapter Fifteen
She was lying diagonally across the bed on the downturned covers, flat on her back and wearing only a pair of flame-coloured silk briefs. Her head was turned a little to one side, and her posture had made her right, full breast sag a little against the flesh of her bent right arm. Her left arm was outstretched, as though she had flung it out in sleep, and hung halfway over the side of the bed, the fingers widespread. On the floor below the top half of her nightdress was lying in a scarlet mound, the cabin lights marking black shadows in the valleys of its creases and flounces. Her auburn hair was tied back for the night in a red ribbon, her eyes were open and there was a neat hole drilled with symmetrical exactitude half an inch above the bridge of her nose. A thin trickle of blood had dried from it to mark a slanting line to the top of her left eyebrow.
He looked from her away to the right, to the man who stood with his back to the porthole, and he made no effort to reach for his pocket and his automatic. The man stood, tall, grey-white haired, shoulders hawk-stooped under the dinner jacket, eyes shadowed by thick brows, his right hand holding a gun with a silencer fitted to it. In his lapel was a white carnation. He stood there rock-still, watching Raikes and the long face, hawk-nosed, was carved, pale alabaster.
Raikes said, ‘Why?’ The syllable was thick and agony-loaded.
Mandel said, ‘Because she was part of you. Just as Berners was. You don’t think this is a simple exercise in treachery, do you?’
‘I trusted you. I did the job for you.’
‘Without a hitch, as I knew you would. I came aboard at Le Havre. I’ve watched the whole thing—with admiration.’
‘Then why kill us? Why?’
Mandel moved forward, knowing the shock in Raikes, knowing perhaps the grief and the weight of resignation that locked his body, knowing perhaps, too, that he was as close, to deserving human compassion as he had ever been in his life. He put the muzzle of the gun against Raikes’s breast and then reached into his right-hand pocket and took out the automatic. He stepped back and put the automatic in his own pocket and stood in the shadowed angle made by the wardrobe and the shower compartment.
Mandel said, ‘Because of Sarling. Look at this face and you’ll see for the first time something of what his was once like. We were seven brothers and he the closest to me. The only one. We all went our ways but long ago he helped me to mine. And later when he needed it, I helped him. But I never knew anything of his affairs. Between us—alone in our family—there was love. Out of my love I have begun to pay for his blood. The only sorrow I have is that I could not personally kill Berners. But the woman has gone. And now you. I saw her first at the funeral. She never saw me. She had no idea who I was when I stepped in here tonight.’
‘She carried my child,’ And for that, for the now slow-dying other life inside her dead body Raikes knew that he was going to kill this man. Knew, not how, but knew.
‘She helped kill my brother.’
‘He asked for death from the first day he knew about me.’
‘He dreamt a dream, and only after his murder did I know from you what it was.’
‘It was a dirty dream.’
‘It was his dream.’
‘It was his dream or mine. And his dream was dirty. Just as your love for him is dirty. You could have killed me long ago without bringing us all to this. You could have spared her and Berners and killed me. But you had to have your profit on the gold deal as well. You know less of love than I do. For the first time I’ve found a man I can pity more than myself. Mandel, Sarling, filth!’ Raikes spat at the man’s feet.
Mandel smiled, a quick unfreezing of face muscle, and said, ‘My brother would have understood. No matter what you do in this life, combine it with profit if you can. Goodbye, Raikes.’
He raised the automatic and fired as Raikes moved to him. The bullet smashed through Raikes’ left shoulder, high up and close to the neck and he was flung to his right and fell. As he fell, his mind a red flame of shock and pain, his hands went out seeking, and caught Mandel’s right ankle as he hit the ground before him. Feeling leather, and material and hard flesh Raikes rolled and pulled, not for the moment knowing he rolled and pulled, holding in a fierce one-handed grip the only security left to him. He heard the second muted explosion and with a far detachment felt his body leap and twist as the bullet went home, smashing through his back above his left hip. But then Mandel was down, hauled down, pulled down, dragged down to him and, sightless with pain for a while, he grappled the length of the man with his hands, clawing and seeking and then found, lean and warm and taut with stretched tendons, the man’s neck. His fingers closed on the flesh and squeezed, strong fingers and hands that from boyhood had lifted and pulled, taken him up trees, mad-swinging along masonry cornices at Alverton, hands that had cornsack-lifted and stag-hunting horse curbed, pushed and pulled tirelessly on the double saw with Hamilton, boat-rowed for miles up lochs against wind … and now, tightening, they slowly throttled the life from Mandel whose body lashed and kicked against him as a great salmon’s body lashes and kicks and leaps free from the gaff on the boat boards … and then there was no more lashing, no more movement.
Raikes lay breathing and bleeding, his breath, half saliva, staining the carpet close to his mouth, and then he opened his eyes and the cabin’s unwelcome world came back.
He pulled himself up took the gun from Mandel and, wanting in this fast out-running spate of time to have no doubt clog his mind, he held the gun to the man’s head and shot him where Berners had been shot and where Belle had been shot. Then he dropped the gun and there were only two thoughts in his mind, that he must go clean, leaving no dirty trail to wind anyone back to Alverton, that there must be a sharp-cut finish of all that said Raikes, said family, said ancestry, and that with the finish there should be profit for no one.
He moved, feeling the clam and pull of the blood sticky under his clothes, to the dressing table, found paper and then in Belle’s handbag a ballpoint pen … a ballpoint pen, and the gods who had rejected him, added the final irony, for it wrote in red to match his own blood.… Slowly he formed the words:
From your unwelcome bridge guest. Tell the French authorities that the bullion will be off-loaded at the Château Miriat, Loudeac, Brittany within the next hour. Confirmation source this message, Cabin 4004.
Slowly, feeling the strength going from him, he folded the note in four and on the outside wrote, Urgent. Captain William Warwick. Then he stood up and went to Belle. Looking down at her, note in hand, he bent forward and took up her left hand and kissed it, and the flesh was still warm, and he knew only the truth that, although he would have never known how to love her in the way she would have wanted love from him, he would have taken her to Alverton and cherished her and loved the child and with that she would have had more happiness than she could ever have dreamt she could have had with him, or perhaps with any other man.
He turned to the console under the dressing table mirror and pushed the bell for the steward. He went to the door and out to the alleyway. He shut the door and trapped the note against the jamb just above the handle as it closed so that the steward could not miss it.
He turned into the main run of the portside alleyway. The whole of this deck was cabin accommodation and as far ahead of him as he could see the alleyway was clear, though he knew that all over the ship now the search would be under way, and messages would be thick in the air to shore stations. The Chief Security Petty Officer would be organizing a search of all public rooms and the lifeboats, and the Night Hotel Officer would have alerted the bedroom stewards to make as many discreet cabin checks as they could. But he had no fear of being found because he walked n
ow, forcing his left side to obey him, under the absolute protection of those who ten minutes ago had rejected his tardy gift. He walked down the narrow, quiet chasm between the cabins and went into the furthest aft lift and rode up to One Deck and from there walked out into the night and a thin lash of rain on the Lido Deck.
He went to the starboard rail and leaned over, alone on the deck, but with him was the thought of Berners and of Belle, and then thought of them faded as the dark surge of foam-flecked water below brought back water memories, river memories, brother memories, and there was a curious happiness in him and a great calmness as he climbed the rail and let himself drop over. Before he hit the water, he heard his father’s voice come back over the years, the gentle, patient voice, saying … Fight the water and it’s your enemy. Go with it and it’s your friend. He dropped into it and let himself go … drifting away, soon to be spent and softly drawn down.
Copyright
First published in 1969 by Heinemann
This edition published 2013 by Bello
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Copyright © Victor Canning, 1969
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