Blame The Dead

by Gavin Lyall

  'There is a – sort of club. Called Student Christian. We help old people and like that.'

  'So it was pure chance you drew him?'

  'Ja…' she stirred the gear lever around until she found a noise that suited her. 'But why did you-'

  But I was determined to keep this interrogation in my hands for a while longer. 'Hasn't he got any family?'

  'His wife is dead for ten years. They have no children. His sister lives in Denmark but she is also very old. So…'

  We turned a corner and I got slung against the door – which tried to open. I scrambled back into my seat. 'But can't his old employers at ADP do anything? Like get him out of that dump? Have you seen Mrs Smith-Bang?'

  'You know her? Yes, I have seen her. But she says she cannot pay more than his pension – and he says he does not want to leave the Home. He likes being with sailors.'

  Come to think of it, whyshould Mrs S-B pay any more? She hardly owed a bonus to a crew that had done at least its fair share of running the Skadi into legal history, at whatever speed. And overpaying a star witness can look bad in court.

  Then we turned on to the main road and she bollicksed the clutch work and we crossed two lines of fast traffic hoppity-hoppity-hop like a storybook bunny. A white Mercedes swerved around us and vanished ahead in a dying scream of its horn and my nerves.

  Kari said seriously, 'I am a better driver with boats.'

  I nodded breathlessly and she finally got a question in. 'Why did you come to see him – and bring the whisky?'

  'Just as a present. Is that bastard Ruud going to steal it?'

  'No. I asked him to, many times. If he did, he could stop Engineer Nygaard drinking very soon."

  'And clap hands if you believe in fairies,' I murmured.

  'Pardon?'

  'Never mind. Just believe I wouldn't have brought the Scotch if I'd known he was an alcoholic.' Wouldn't I, though? Well, it was a moral problem I didn't have to solve right now. 'But you know Nygaard's an important witness in a legal affair?'

  'Ja. He was on a boat that burned up.'

  'So I'm hardly the first person to come asking questions, right?'

  'Ja,'she admitted.

  'And did you ever hear of a man called Jonas Steen?'

  'Engineer Nygaard said about him. He did not like him.'

  'Maybe, but that wasn't why he got murdered.'

  'Hva?'she said incredulously.

  D'you want to know why women will never rule the world? Because they can't be bothered to read a newspaper to find out if they've taken over the world, that's why. Spread all over the front page, that story had been -and the radio, according to Mrs S-B.

  I tried to explain. When I'd finished, she asked carefully, 'But you do not think it was this man Lie who did it?'

  'Well…' Come to that, Lie might easily have done it; certainly he was an accessory. 'It's more a question of why it was done. Did Nygaard ever tell you what he told Steen?'

  She tried to remember, her forehead crinkling into a small frown. With that fine long hair, firm profile, and fair skin, she was quite a looker. Just too much character behind the blue eyes for me. 'I think he talked about the accident… and the rescue.'

  Great. Bloody marvellous. They wouldn't have mentioned the weather, as well? Or pollution or politics or the traffic problem?

  'Well,' I growled, 'if you can ever get him to tell you more about what Steen knew, it could help.'

  'Why should I help you?'

  I kept my temper for about the next five yards. 'Because Steen was murdered because oíit! And another man was murdered because of it ten days ago – a man Steen had been talking to! And Lie himself – oh hell's feathers, never mind, just go on being Christian charitable.'

  She was staring at me. Left to itself, the Volkswagen jumped like a terrier and snapped at a passing van. Both of us grabbed at the steering wheel.

  When we'd got it back on the leash again, she said, 'Do you mean that Engineer Nygaard may be killed also?'

  'I don't know. I really don't.' And I really didn't. 'Maybe they're counting on him doing it to himself. Drop me off at the railway station; I want to pick up my bags.'

  In the end, she offered to drive me to the airport as well and I accepted out of sheer devotion to duty. If anybody could get through to Nygaard, she seemed the likeliest -if s he wanted to try. And on her side, I think she was feeling a bit guilty about giving me the heave-ho from his room so promptly.

  At intervals when it didn't seem likely to distract her from keeping us alive, I learned that she wasstudying history and English, that her parents lived somewhere farther south, that she wasn't engaged. She didn't learn as much from me; I tried to give the impression that I worked for a big legal firm in London.

  At the airport, it turned out that the only way I could get home that night was to fly a local to Oslo, change for Gothenburg in Sweden, then pick up the eleven-thirty-five pm for London. The ticket desk thought I was crazy and ma›be insulting their country; besides, the trouble I was going to to get out of it, but they wrote me out a whole pack of tickets.

  Then we had half an hour to wait for the Oslo plane, so she took a coffee while I had a beer – despite her disapproving frown. I honestly don't think the girl could help it any more than Nygaard could, by now, help the opposite approach.

  I asked casually, 'Did Nygaard ever talk to you about the collision?'

  'No – not truly. I asked him, but he said he cannot remember much.'

  'How was he rescued?'

  'He was on a… a raft, you call it. For all the night and in the day also. Then a fishing-boat found him. I think it, with the burns…' she tapped her forehead. 'Made him forget, you understand?'

  'Yes.' I could also understand what impression he'd make in court. But you aren't supposed to pick your witnesses like casting a movie, though I've known it happen. Kari added, 'That is why he drinks so much now, of course.'

  'Uh-huh? And who buys him his booze? You?'

  I'd've got less reaction from suggesting we stretch out on the cafeteria table and become just good friends. I said hastily, 'All right, all right – you just keep him clean and tidy. But whodoes buy his whisky and aquavit and so forth?'

  Now she was just puzzled. 'Himself, of course. He goes out.'

  'I mean who pays for it? I know Norwegian pensions are good, but to stay in his condition he's drinking nearly a bottle a day. Over a hundred kroner; maybe thirty quid a week before he's paid a penny for bed and breakfast.'

  'Oh, no.'

  'Oh, yes. That's what it costs.'

  She looked puzzled. Like most teetotallers, she'd assumed that all it took to become an alcoholic was a couple of secretive gulps before noon. But you have to work at it, although it doesn't seem like work at the time.

  She said slowly, 'Perhaps Herr Ruud would know…'

  'You could ask. But he seems pretty protective about the old boy.'

  ']a. They were friends on the ship – how do you say that?'

  'Shipmates.'

  'In the war. When Herr Ruud lost the leg. And after that he could not be an officer, so…'

  The loudspeaker crackled something that could be my flight. I stood up and held out my hand. It got a genuine warm shake, and I got a real smile. She said, 'I am sorry I was – too quick, hasty.'

  'Never mind.' I gave her one of my cards – the one with my address and phone but not profession on. 'If he tells you anything about Steen – give me a ring, would you? I'll pay you back.'

  She nodded.

  I hurried out across the wet tarmac and when I looked back from the top of the plane's steps she was standing out in the drizzle herself, waving rather formally.

  The best you could say of the trip home was that nobody found my pistols. I had a three-hour break for dinner in Oslo, then an hour's drinking at Gothenburg. I reached Heathrow just before two in the morning, and bed just after three. And stayed there until eleven the next morning.

  Twenty-seven

  I rang Har
row first, then tried for Willie. He rang me back before lunch. 'Can you make a board meeting before the end of the afternoon?'

  'Er, I think so – d'you mean with young David, too? '

  'That's the idea. He's free to go out to local cafés after four-fifteen. I fixed a date for four-thirty.'

  'Rather. Jolly good. Would you like me to pick you up?'

  'That's not a bad idea.' Then we could leave my car – which just might get recognised – out of it. 'But have you got anything less conspicuous than the Tiger Royal?' He chuckled. 'What about a red Mini-Cooper?' It would have to do. So I arranged to meet him outside the Swiss Cottage pub at four o'clock. Getting over there would give me space to lose an extra shadow I happened to be throwing.

  But meantime, there was one extra piece of insurance I wanted to take out. I drove over to my rifle-and-pistol club and conned the resident watchdog into letting me use the pistol range; in winter, it doesn't usually open on weekdays. Then I put fifty rounds through the Mauser HSC and afterthat the rifling marks would be distinctly different from those on any bullet they dug out of Steen's head.

  While I was there I also fired the derringer for the first time. The kick and bang were something very extra special – with a barrel that length the cartridge was practically exploding in the open air – but both the waterlogged rounds went off, although God knows where they went off to. I fired another six shots and it wasn't until I'd closed in to ten yards that I could even see where I was putting them: way high to the right. Don't shoot till you can smell the garlic on their breath.

  I had a beer and a sandwich on the way home and got in just as the telephone started ringing.

  'Major. Where the bloody hell haveyou been?'

  Dave Tanner, of course. 'Sorry about that, Dave. Something -came up. I'm back now.'

  'Yes?' he asked sourly. 'And for how long?'

  'Can't see anything else coming up. Have you got anything for me?'

  'I had it last Monday. I don't know if we've still got it. But I'll check and let you know.'

  'Thanks, Dave.'

  He rang off. I stood there with the phone in my hand, remembering I hadn't asked about Pat Kavanagh; Dave could likely have heard of him. But he didn't exactly owe me any favours and you don't want to build up too much of a debit. It could wait.

  Willie was right on time. I folded myself up into the Mini-Cooper's front seat – why a man of his height and income chose that even as a second or third (or ninth, for all I knew) car, I just couldn't guess. We scuttled away up the Finchley Road.

  Today he was the country squire: cavalry twill trousers, flared hacking jacket, thick, soft shirt with a faint check – just like the last three generations of Winslows except that he wore the silk neck-scarf flapping loose and theirs would have been tied like a riding stock. Wherever Willie put his immortal gift of originality, it wasn't into his wardrobe.

  'Any news on H and Thornton? ' I asked.

  'Sorry, old boy. They're not solicitors – I checked.'

  'Something in shipping? A line?'

  'Not a shipping line. But-'

  'Marine surveyors? Or any other sort of subsidiary firm?'

  'You mean chartering brokers or forwarding agents or ship-brokers or warehousing agents or a bunkering firm or perhaps just the two chaps who have the barnacle-scraping concession on Ilfracombe lifeboat?' He gave me a quick, dry sideways glance.

  'All right,' I growled. 'So shipping's still bigger business than most people think. But-'

  'But,' he said firmly, 'one chap I mentioned it to at Lloyd's said he thought he'd heard it before only it didn't sound quite right somehow, you know?'

  'What sort of chap?'

  'A solicitor.'

  That didn't tell me anything, though. I gave up. 'How's the syndicate getting on?'

  'Hardly at all, what? We'll probably merge with one of the bigger ones – best thing, I dare say. We only kept going as a small affair because of Martin,'

  'Tell me: am I right in thinking he had only about the minimum deposit in Lloyd's – even for an underwriter?'

  He took his time answering; hell, he took his time deciding whether or not to answer at all. He was driving a wide but busy road with a precise opportunism, keeping in a lower gear than most drivers would have done, and letting the engine work for its living. It didn't create any great hush, but it made for some natty wrong-side overtaking.

  But finally he got caught at a traffic light. Willie took a long cigarette from a magnetic-based box clinging to the dashboard, lit it with a rolled-gold Dunhill, and said, 'You were almost asking that at the funeral, weren't you, old boy?'

  'Almost.'

  'You're sure it's really relevant?'

  Just then we took off at the speed of scandal. I hauled my head back from the rear seat and said, 'It could be. But I'm not planning to put it in my best-selling memoirs anyway.'

  He grinned quickly. 'Sorry, old boy. Yes – Martin only had about ten or eleven thousand in the kitty and you can't go much below that. I suppose with a place in the country and a flat in London and David going to Harrow… and then the bad years at Lloyd's, well – he just couldn't build it up.'

  I could have told him a little more detail about Fenwick's income and outgo, but I didn't think he'd like the way I'd got it. The point was that he'd confirmed my basic thesis. Well, almost.

  We swung left down Hendon Way and speeded up. After a time, Willie asked, is there anything more you want to check on before you see David?'

  'Why? – are you worried I might have found out something about his father that you think he shouldn't know?'

  'Yes.' From Willie, that was good blunt stuff. For a moment, it threw me. Then I managed to ask, 'Such as what?'

  'God knows, old boy. But there must have been something -what? People don't get shot for nothing.'

  'Tell that to the next innocent bystander at a bank raid.' I stared at the road and wondered. But David had hired me first. 'No, I'll tell you both everything at the same time.'

  He nodded, seeming quite contented. After that, we hardly said a word until we'd parked at the top of the Hill itself. By then, both pavements were crawling with groups of schoolboys hurrying here and there and all wearing straw boaters that made them look like actors in costume against that gloomy, dank afternoon. The style seemed to be for the hat tipped right forward and the elastic chinstrap bunching up the hair at the back of the neck. Anyway, that's how David was wearing it when we met outside a small café. We shook hands formally all round, then went on in.

  Long ago, the proprietor must have realised that his main clients were interested in quantity of food for money and nothing else. Apart from a jukebox, the only overhead in the place was the ceiling, and that looked a fairly written-down value. Willie looked cautiously around the grimy, rough-plastered walls speckled with notices and shuddered delicately.

  David said politely, 'What would you like? – I'll get it. The hamburger and onions is rather nice.'

  'Just tea,' I said quickly.

  'Coffee, please,' said Willie and then caught my hard stare and realised what the coffee would be like in there and said, 'No, sorry – tea.'

  When David had gone, we sat down at one of half a dozen simple riot-proof tables. Only one other was occupied, by a group of fifteen-year-old Harrovians who glanced at us and forgot us.

  'Good God,' Willie muttered. 'You forget how… primitive. schoolboys are.'

  'I'm sure you never were.'

  'I wasn't at Harrow, of course, but…,' he stared at the group. 'Just look at that lot, what? They look as if they've run an assault course through pig-food in those clothes. And yet I'll bet I know half their families.'

  'Willie, you're a snob.'

  'Oh, yes, rather.'

  David came back with our teas, a Coke and a meat pasty for himself. 'Well, sir,' he started. 'Mr Winslow told me about the chap Steen getting killed, of course. But did you find out any more?'

  I said pompously, 'We now know what we're looking f
or is the log of the Skadi.'

  Willie said, 'Oh, that ship? Well, sorry, old boy, but we aren't looking forthe log. Do you mean the deck log or the engine log or the rough draughts of either, or the official log? Not to mention the movements book-what?'

  'So don't mention it, then,' I growled. 'Mrs Smith-Bang didn't tell me.'

  'Oh, you saw her?'

  'You know her?'

  'Everybody in shipping knows her. And the ADP line was one of our regulars."

  'So I gathered. Well-' And I started to tell my story.

  They listened quietly, Willie sipping his tea and looking equally pained at each sip, David just ploughing through his pasty and watching me carefully.

  When I finished, Willie said, 'You do live, don't you?'

  'Barely.'

  David said, 'You were jolly lucky about your Mauser and finding it first.'

  'Not entirely. The other side was counting on luck as well. Somebody else might have found the body before I could possibly have got there – I could have had a perfect alibi, like boozing in a bar with the king, or something.'

  'It was still your pistol,' he pointed out.

  'Oh, yes, but I'd only have been in trouble with the Min of Def for not having reported it lost. That's not murder. No, they had the luck that theoretically I could have done the killing and the bad luck that I was snoopy enough to get there first and start fiddling the evidence. Or unfiddling it.'

  Willie said slowly. 'So it mattered more to them to kill Steen before you saw him than to get you blamed for it?'

  T'm sure of that.'

  'But all he was going to do – from his notes – was tell you about the Chief Engineer, Nygaard, and where he lived.'

  'And H and Thornton. And anything else he thought of before he saw me.'

  'Yees.' He scratched his cheekbone.

  David asked, 'But why was Daddy having to take this log to Arras?'

  Willie watched me carefully. I shrugged. 'Being blackmailed, I think.'

  'Was he? What about?'

  T don't really know; it doesn't matter. The important thing is that they tried the same trick with me and I ended up doing exactly the same thing: playing along to see if I could find out who was behind it, and taking some protection. I took Draper, like your father had taken me.'