Blame The Dead

by Gavin Lyall

  'They've got Nygaard, unless the drink's got him first.' Then something else occurred to me. 'There were three other survivors, weren't there? Were any of them from the engine-room?'

  'No. They were all deck-hands who'd been off watch at the time. So their evidence about the state of the engines wouldn't be worth a thing, what? And they weren't on the bridge either – everybody up there got killed – so they can't give more than guesses about the speed.'

  'They're going to need Nygaard, then.' I tossed the log-book on to the table and it blew ash from the overloaded ashtray. 'Was this the sort of damage you can repair at sea?'

  'Just can't say, old boy, and this sort of log doesn't give enough detail. It only says things like-' he picked up a piece of paper ' "still at half speed, engineers working on injection pump" at the end of each watch. Mind you, they'd had pump trouble a few weeks before. Once it took a couple of watches to fix it – about eight hours – once around twelve hours. Sounds as if they needed a new one, you know? This time it could have broken for ever – but Nygaard should be able to say. Pity the engine log wasn't 'the one to survive, really.'

  'What about invalidation?'

  'Eh? What? Oh – what Paul was going on about.'

  'What Fenwick wassupposed to have told him.'

  'Yes.' He peered at his fingernails and looked as if he were deciding whether to Tell Tales about the school bully. Finally he cleared his throat and said formally, 'There's nothing in here that suggests it might invalidate the policy at all. And it takes an awful lot to invalidate a Lloyd's policy, you know. That's one reason people insure with us -what?'

  I nodded moodily. 'Well – now what, then? '

  He began unrolling his shirt sleeves, slow and thoughtful. 'Legally, it must belong to the owners. ADP, I mean. The whole point of a log's to allow the owners to check up on what actually happened on a voyage – you know? So I suppose-'

  Then the phone rang. I picked it up. 'Yes?'

  Either it was an electric storm calling or one was bugging the line. A tinny, distant shout came through: 'Mister Card?'

  'That's me,' I shouted back.

  'It is Kari Skagen.'

  'Hello. How're things?"

  'Chief Engineer Nygaard is gone.'

  'Gone? You mean dead?' Behind me, I heard Willie jerk to Action Stations.

  'No, I think. He has gone away. From the Home. I do not know where.'

  'Well… what about Ruud?'

  'He does not know where.'

  'Christ Almighty.'

  'Pardon?' she shouted.

  'Never mind. But… Can you ask anybody else? At the Home and so on? And ring me again?'

  'Very well.'

  'Is there a number where I can get you?'

  She gave one. 'It is a university lodging house, so please leave a message if I am not there.'

  Til do that. See you – probably soon.'

  When I turned around, Willie was still standing tensed, wound up, and if I'd said 'Fly' he'd have grown feathers.

  He asked, 'Did somebody else get killed?'

  'No – well, I don't really know. But ADP's lost their witness.'

  A little while later I was nibbling on a Scotch – and the hell with it being just after four in the afternoon – and sitting in the one comfortable chair. Willie was still at the table, sipping coffee.

  'But when you come right down to it,' I said, 'there's no reason why he shouldn't have gone walkies just by himself. He's past the age of consent, and that place wasn't a prison or a mental bin. He can walk out any time he likes and go anywhere he chooses.'

  'Didn't you say he was short of money?' Willie asked.

  'I thought he probably was, but he could have a few quid hidden away – enough to go out on a private honk and now he's lying under some bush in the park dead of pneumonia.'

  He nodded. 'I suppose that is more likely. than anything sinister. So you're not going to rush back across there?'

  'Not yet, anyway. Kari can do more than I could. I'll wait to hear from her.' I splashed more Scotch into my glass.

  Willie raised an eyebrow and bounced the book in his hand with a weighing motion. 'You know, old boy, we're the only two people alive who've actually read this thing. The last few pages, anyway. Steen and Martin are dead and so are all the people who'd seen it on the ship itself. The deck-hands certainly wouldn't and there's no reason why the chief engineer should see a deck log – you know what I mean?'

  'Are you thinking it's the idol's eye or the moonstone and we're all doomed?'

  'Well, you seem to have been, rather.' He smiled wryly. 'But no – I mean nobody else actually knows what's written here. They're just guessing or assuming.'

  I eased my back and winced. 'They assume bloody hard, then.'

  'Oh, quite so. But the chief officer could have left these pages blank or filled them with rude rhymes – and you'd've had exactly the same troubles you've had these past couple of weeks. Funny.'

  'Hilarious.' I reached for the Scotch again.

  This time, Willie said, 'I say, old boy, isn't that stuff supposed to inflame a wound, you know?'

  'Let it try.'

  'I say, are you planning on getting smashed, old boy? '

  'Something along those lines. It's a Saturday night and the upper and lower classes traditionally get spiffled on Saturdays. The middle class just look on with jealous disapproval.'

  'That isn't the reason.'

  'No, that isn't the reason, Willie.'

  'Ah. That rather answers a question I was going to…'

  'No you weren't, Willie. Not you. You're far too much of a gentleman to ask it. Now get out and leave me to it.'

  Thirty-three

  I woke slowly and immediately tried to get back to sleep again. Awake hurt too much. And for a time I just lay there, trying to dream of the calm, innocent golden days of childhood, with the gentle warm breezes through the tall summer pines, and- Christ, my childhood hadn't been anything likethat! I slammed my feet on the floor and got myself mostly on top of them and worked my way towards the kitchenette. My head felt soft and bloated and my hands were waving like flags; give me a gun and I couldn't have hit William Tell Junior, let alone the apple on top.

  But the water in the tap ran hot and there was some instant coffee in a jar and I could just remember how to put the two together. After that, I propped my bottom against the sink and stared at the message I'd pencilled on the opposite wall: buy eggs. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

  After twenty minutes, give or take half an hour, I could remember the secret formula for making the coffee percolator work. While it did, I washed and shaved fairly close to my face, and put on some clothes. The suitcase I'd taken to Bergen was still sitting there only half unpacked. Today I'd really have to do something about it, or at any rate maybe. By then it was past eleven.

  I'd just finished my second cup of real coffee and was thinking of reapplying for associate membership in mankind when the phone went. It was Jack Morris, from the Ministry. On a Sunday?

  'How're you doing buster?"

  'Staggering along. What are you doing awake on a Sunday?'

  'Just keeping in touch. Hold on…" The phone went quiet. I rammed it against my ear, trying to pick out barking dogs, squawling children, birdsongs. Very faintly, in the distance. I heard another phone buzz.

  Jack came back on. 'We had a little talk about getting your name in the papers, remember?'

  'I remember.'

  'I understand you've been making guest appearances in the Norwegian press.'

  I carried the phone across to the window. The sky beyond the church was the colour of a coalminer's bath water and not much drier. The street shone dully, empty except for parked cars.

  'Didn't know you read Norwegian,' I said. 'Anyway, I only found a dead man over there. Could happen to anybody.'

  A blue Triumph 1500 turned in from Haverstock Hill and drifted casually towards my block.

  'I've had a busy twenty-four hours, bus
ter. The Kent bobbies were on to me about this time yesterday and they donot love you. They have the wild idea that you don't only carry guns and take shots at people but then you tip other people off about what's happened and get them sending sharp solicitors down to play habeas corpus. They wanted to know if that counts the same as raping the royal family and burning a naval dockyard. I said yes.'

  The Triumph hesitated by the forecourt to my building, decided there wasn't room, and crawled along a bit farther.

  I said, 'They'd never have got Mockby and they'd always have taken a plea on unlawful wounding. I just cooled things down and speeded them up. And anyway, my gun was licenced.'

  Two large men in short, dark car coats climbed out of the Triumph and moved slowly but purposefully towards the block.

  Jack said heavily, 'Your gun was licenced. Jesus, you'd better think of something more interesting than that. You remember I said when we wanted you, you'd hear sirens? You can hear sirens, buster.'

  'Thanks, Jack.' I slammed the phone down and ran.

  The bastard: trying to pin me down on the end of the phone like that. Or maybe he'd been warning me – if I was bright enough to take a hint. He might feel he owed me that much.

  I yanked open my front door, reached the lift, and pressed the button. As I ran back I could hear it start whining upwards, and that might give me an extra minute. Whatever sort of cops they were, they'd be the sort whose feet prefer riding lifts to climbing stairs.

  Back inside my own door, I threw an unopened laundry parcel into the Bergen suitcase, added the log, the derringer and clip, my wallet and passport, thanked God I'd put on real shoes and not slippers, remembered the pigskin hip flask, then grabbed up a sports jacket and my sheepskin and started travelling.

  The lift was still whining back down, so I tiptoed down the first flight of stairs – noise carried in that stairwell – then heard it open, shut, and start back up. Now I could afford to run. I ran.

  The Escort was on the far side of the road but that didn't matter because the landings in our block don't have windows.

  Nobody could see me – unless they'd left a third man in the car, but they'd looked a bit casual for that. And they hadn't. I shoved the case into the back seat, started up, and drove soberly away.

  For the moment, I was fireproof. I hadn't shot any coppers or raped any children, so I wasn't worth a real hunt. Just a description on the teletypes with a please-keep-a-look-out-for, and not even that for maybe an hour. But knowing Jack and Jack knowing me, the airports and docks would be specially notified; I could have trouble there. Still, for the moment I was fireproof.

  I drove into the big car park at the bottom of Hampstead Heath and finished dressing out of sight of the road or houses. With fawn trousers, a green shirt, black-and-grey tweed jacket, and a brown silk tie I thought I'd lost in Brussels six months ago but found in a pocket of the suitcase, I was liable to lose my place in the Ten Best-Dressed Men List. But as long as I looked complete I didn't mind looking terrible.

  The derringer and clip went on my left forearm again, spare rounds in my pocket, and then I started taking the pigskin flask apart.

  I'd found it in Cyprus when the original owner had departed for Russia in – obviously – rather more of a hurry than I'd just left home. It was a lovely piece of work, but the KGB have always been the Aspreys of the espionage business. It poured whisky, of course, but when you wound the cap hard the wrong way the whole short neck came off and you could lift the shoulders of the flask right out of the leather, leaving a long inner neck down to the booze compartment at the bottom. That was the master touch; who'd think of what is, essentially, a bottle having a false top? Certainly not me; I'd only been suspicious enough to get the thing X-rayed by an industrial unit.

  As there'd been nothing in it and we hadn't caught the bloke anyway, I hadn't suppressed evidence by latching on to it. Now, it was my private savings bank: the teetotal end held £200 in sterling and nearly another hundred quid in Swiss francs. I took out £75 in fivers, smoothed them as much as I could, and shoved them in my wallet. Then reassembled the flask and drove across to Paddington station. No particular, reason except that I wanted to park the suitcase and Paddington's about the one station that doesn't point to the Continent or Scandinavia.

  Then I got on the phone to Willie.

  'You're still with us, are you?' he asked cheerfully.

  'More or less.'

  'Have you heard any more from Bergen?'

  'No – but I'm sort of heading in that direction myself anyway. Could you ring this number-' I read across the one Kari had given me '-and tell her I'm on my way?'

  'Of course, but – why the rush?'

  'I'm sort of on the run. The Ministry decided to pull the chain on me. I don't know what the charges are, and I think it's just general stroppiness about the shooting at Kingscutt, but I don't want to be tied down right now. All right?"

  'Well – are you going to be able to make it?'

  'I think so. I've got an idea or two. I'll try and keep in touch.'

  After that, there didn't seem much more to say.

  Then I rang Dave Tanner's office; I knew he checked in around noon, so I hoped he'd get my message in a few minutes.

  I tried to make it simple but obscure – the man on the other end might be law-abiding or stupid or something. 'Tell Tanner that Jamie rang and it's urgent. Ask him to leave a number and I'll ring back to get it in a quarter of an hour. Okay? '

  He started to argue, then realised he'd understood me, and just said, 'All right, Mr Jamie.'

  I had a coffee and skimmed a couple of Sunday papers and then the buffet opened and I had a beer as well. And then it was time to try Tanner's office again. He'd left a London number for me; I rang it straight away.

  'Morning, Major. What's the hurry?'

  'I need to get abroad, and I don't want to put the passport boys to any bother.'

  After a moment, he asked, 'Are you hot?'

  'Barely warm. I don't suppose it'll even be in the papers.'

  Another thoughtful hush. 'Well, if you're really not in bad trouble… I'll see what we can do. Anywhere special or just out?'

  'Just across the Channel will do me. I'd prefer not France, but I'll risk it if I have to.'

  '0-okay, Major. Where are you now?'

  I instinctively paused, and he felt it, chuckled, and said, 'Doesn't matter. Ring me here at half past three and maybe I'll have something. But these things work better on Fridays and Saturdays.'

  After that I had another beer, found an Indian restaurant a couple of streets away, and loaded up on curried beef and rice. Eating might become rare in the next twenty-four hours. Then I spent a couple of hours in a cinema learning the Real Truth about the Old West. It seems they didn't only spend all their, time shooting each other, but – this was the big news – they bled a lot too. Someday somebody's going to do the Real Truth about the chances of hitting anybody with a -44 or -55 without five minutes' aiming time first.

  Or then again, maybe they won't.

  I got through to Tanner again at the right time.

  'You're travelling, Major. I'll meet you at the office – long as you make sure you come alone. Right?'

  'Right.'

  'Hate to mention it, but how are you for money – real cash?'

  'I can do you fifty as a down payment,' I said carefully.

  'Yes, all right. Seeing as you're an old and trusted client. See you.'

  I got my suitcase out of the left-luggage and strolled across towards the taxi-rank in the middle of the station. Nearly there, I noticed one of those copying machines they stick in railway stations nowadays for no good reason I can think of except they must make a profit. I changed some money into five-pence pieces, got out the log, and copied off the last four pages. The copies went in my pocket, the log back in the case.

  My car could just stay where it was; it was too complicated to start organising anybody to collect it. It was in a quiet street with the steering loc
k on, so… I shrugged to myself and lined up for a taxi.

  Dave's office was in a converted Georgian terrace literally on the fringes of the law north of Gray's Inn and the Theobald's Road police station. All around were the small-time solicitors who could remember the name of the Duke but not where they'd put your file, the income-tax advisers who were careful not to call themselves accountants, the doctors who could get your friend into a good nursing home cheap. Dave's organisation didn't belong with them, but he'd move if they did; he knew his place and it wasn't behind a big glass front in Leaden-hall Street. If you had a problem that was a teensy-weensy bit disgusting or just slightly illegal, he might or might not take your case, but he didn't want a classy décor to put you off telling him about it.

  I was let in by a lad who couldn't have been more than twenty-five – which was probably why he found himself handling the Sunday business – but already had the hard, prove-it eyes of his trade. I said I was Jamie to see Dave and he led me upstairs without a word.

  Dave nodded to him, waited till he'd closed the door, then waved me to a seat. 'Evening, Major. Sorry to hear about all this.'

  I shrugged and sat. His office, and the others in his organisation, had the atmosphere of an oldestablished newspaper: big battered desks, solid filing cabinets, a general air of inexpensive efficiency. In the corner was a big grey safe, a really serious job where Dave told his clients he kept their files and actually did keep a few.

  'Does Dunkirk suit you? – sorry I can't do Belgium direct, but you'll be over the frontier in half an hour or so.'

  'It's fine. When?'

  'You're on the eight-o'clock boat from Dover. Coach trip -five capitals in four days, lucky you. Denniston's Tours, here's your ticket. Have you got any luggage, or want to borrow some?'

  'I'm okay. It wasn't that much of a hurry.'

  He lifted his eyebrows but let it pass. Then he opened a drawer and took out a British passport almost handed it over, then remembered to scrub it clean of fingerprints first. Just in case.

  'Victoria coach station, five o'clock. See the tour guide; give him your ticket and that passport.'