Blame The Dead

by Gavin Lyall

  Kari, Willie, and David were already sitting at the table sipping coffee; Nygaard still down and out. I unwound myself, stood up, stretched, and took the cup Kari poured for me. Nobody said anything, though for a moment David looked as if he were about to.

  The room had two small, dirty windows, and the day beyond them was thick and cloudy, the mountainside opposite fading into cloud a couple of hundred feet higher.

  Kari said, 'It may snow, I think.'

  Well, that would probably be warmer than a clear sky.

  David asked brightly, 'D'you think we'll be snowed in up here, then?'

  Willie looked at him sourly and lit a cigarette.

  Kari said, 'They will clear the road right through up to Sinnes in a day or two. For the Easter skiers. Would you like some eggs?'

  Willie said, 'Of course he'd like some eggs. What's a little frying to an atmosphere like this?'

  'Stub out that mentholated bird-shit special and say that again. No, thank you, but I'll take a bit of bread and cheese.'

  David's quiet dark eyes flicked from one to the other of us, an oddly wondering expression on his face.

  Kari said sharply, 'You men must behave, please. Now: what happens?'

  I said, 'Willie runs you down to pick up the boat and give it back. That's what you said, wasn't it?'

  She nodded. 'Ja. The boat must be back for midday.'

  Willie sighed and stood up. 'Well, I suppose it'll be a change of air, anyway. Are you coming, David?'

  David looked at me. I said, 'There's nothing happening here. You may as well take the ride.'

  Kari was looking down at Nygaard. He wriggled restlessly in the sleeping bag. 'Shall I – should I wake him, now?'

  'Go ahead,' I said. 'I'll walk Willie down to his carriage.'

  Willie looked at me suspiciously, but he put on his coat and led the way out. And itwas a change of air. Even the damp dull day smelled as fresh as tomorrow's daisies after that cabin.

  When we reached the car, he turned and said, 'Well?'

  'I'm glad I'm not married to you at this time in the morning.'

  He glared, then grinned. 'Sorry, old boy. Getting soft, I suppose. Used to be able to get a dreamless eight hours under an armoured car in the rain, but now… What was it you wanted?'

  'A short comprehensive lecture on marine diesel engines.'

  Kari came down to the car a quarter of an hour later, glancing nervously over her shoulder. And not at David, who was just behind.

  'He asked for a drink,' she said anxiously.

  'It'll pass,' I soothed her. Which might even be true, for an hour or two.

  'You won't let him have one? '

  'I promise.' And that was certainly true.

  I watched them off down the road, now turning sludgy as the temperature crawled above^freezing, then turned back slowly -almost reluctantly – for the cabin.

  Nygaard was huddled at the table, a blanket slung around his shoulders, both hands locked on a mug of coffee that still trembled and slopped whenever he moved it. He watched me with eyes like small bullet wounds as I made myself a fresh cup, then sat down opposite him.

  I said, 'My name's James Card.'

  'I remember.' Probably that was true, though you hate to admit anybody could forget you anyway. But I just nodded, sipped, and waited.

  We stayed there, quiet as two London clubmen, for a good fifteen minutes. Then he put down his mug, almost empty. I said, 'More?' and poured him some. We went on waiting. His hands actually were steadying up a bit.

  Then I said, 'You did a good job on that diesel last night.'

  He looked up vacantly, but nodded, pretending he remembered.

  I said, 'What're the best diesels you've handled?'

  'Almost only the Burmeister and Wain. Most ships in Norway have them.'

  'Two-stroke?'

  'Ja, now. No more four-stroke, not much.'

  'Single- or double-acting?'

  'For me, the single only.'

  'You mean in the Skadi?'

  'Ja, there. Two Burmeister and Wains.' The ship's name had gone past without a tremor.

  'Good ones?'

  'Very old, you understand? The engineer before, he had ground the – the valves, so much…" he shrugged.

  'You had a lot of trouble?'

  'With everything,¡a. With always the injector valves – and the cooling pumps, and the fuel filter also.'

  I nodded sympathetically. 'What happened the last time? Cooling pump? Injectors?'

  He got a look of cunning suspicion on his flabby face. 'Why you ask?'

  'Sorry.' I sipped my coffee and didn't look at him.

  More time went past.

  Then he said, 'We had much trouble, then.'

  'Like what?'

  'The engine stop.'

  'Why?'

  He put his coffee mug down, though he still kept his hands on it. 'For beginning, we think perhaps an exhaust valve, it is with a broken spring/"

  'Would that stop an engine?'

  'At very slow, ja. Or very fast, it jam all the engine, crack-bang.'

  'But it wasn't an exhaust valve?'

  'No, we find no. So we think the fuel filter.'

  'De Laval type? – centrifugal?'

  ']a, ja.'He looked a little worried.

  'Was it that?'

  'No. So maybe we think the… the injector pump.'

  'And was it?'

  'Ja, but very difficult. You understand? – the pump gives the fuel to each injector, just so much, like the… the…" He made a move like a hypodermic in his arm. I nodded. He went on, 'To each cylinder in turn. But it must be just so much fuel, just right, like the-' The hypodermic syringe gesture again.

  Now he was really talking, and I sat back and listened. Some I didn't understand, some I got just because of what Willie had told me, but broadly I got a picture of a high-pressure pump that was a lot of hypodermic syringes squirted in succession by a camshaft, putting exactly the right amount of juice into each cylinder at exactly the right time… And the camshaft bearings had gone wonky so the pressure on the syringes varied so the cylinders got variable and unequal amounts of juice…

  I asked, 'Was this repairable?'

  He looked blank for a moment. Then, 'Oh, ja, ja. We were working on it.'

  'How far had you got at the time of the collision?'

  Now he looked cautious. 'Perhaps almost finished…'

  'You'd had nearly forty-eight hours.'

  'Ja, but…'

  'Like some more coffee?' I tried to defuse him.

  'Thank you, no.' He licked his lips, then rubbed them with the great stiff scar that was the back of his hand. 'It is time for another drink-?'

  How such a face could look so plaintively hopeful.

  I pretended surprise, looking at my watch. 'Not just yet, surely?'

  'Ja, ja, sorry.' He acquiesced immediately. Ofcourse he didn't want a drink, he'd only been suggesting it because he thought maybe I wanted one and had been too shy to suggest it…

  You bastard, Card.

  'How did you get rescued from the Skadi?' I asked casually.

  'Why do you want to know?'

  'Sorry.' I poured myself the last of the coffee and didn't look at him as I drank it.

  He said, 'On the… the Carley float. Raft.' He'd know the name from the war days, of course.

  'Who cut it loose. You?'

  'No, the other sailors I think. I… my hands…" He held up his crumpled claws. 'I just jump in the sea and swim and on to raft.'

  'Alone on it?'

  'Oh, ja.'

  'Did you paddle it?'

  'No. My hands.'

  'Sorry. So what happened?'

  He heaved his shoulders. 'I am picked up.'

  'And that's all you remember?'

  ']a.'

  'Why is that all you remember?'

  He shivered his flabby face. 'I don't know…'

  'Drunk at the time, were you?'

  'No,' he said. 'No. no. No!' Then he
threw the coffee-pot at me.

  'It wasn't so bright of me to let him get into that state,' I told Willie, 'though you can't really measure what any addict's feeling.'

  'I thought getting him into a state was part of what you were up to,' he said coolly.

  They'd got back about half past one. Now Kari and David were working up some lunch while Willie and I strolled the road and threw stones into the galloping black-and-white river beyond the road. For the moment, it was fairly warm; the road itself was turning slushy and some patches of spongy grass were appearing among the snowdrifts.

  'Have you concluded anything yet?' Willie went on.

  'Maybe. His description of the engine breakdown was pretty detailed, but he doesn't really remember anything of the rescue at all. Now, according to the log-'

  'Which we don't have any more,' he reminded me, just missing the river with a grenade-sized stone.

  'Thank you. But according to it and the clever work you did with the atlas and so forth, that engine must have been out of action untilnearly the collision even if it actually was working again when they hit – right? '

  'Er, yes. That's right.'

  'For the moment it doesn't matter if they ever got it fixed or not. The point is the thing was out of action for aboutforty hours, while he mucks about thinking first it's the exhaust valve and then the fuel filter and finally the injector pump camshaft. We saw him in action last night; what took him so long aboard the Skadi with an engine he knew far better?'

  He heaved a rock and got a weird brownish splash; maybe the river was full of gold dust. 'What do you suggest?' he asked.

  'Look at who survived. Nobody else from the engine-room, nobody who was on the bridge. Just three sailors who were off watch and probably asleep in cabins – and Nygaard.'

  'So you think…?'

  'I think all the stuff he gave me about the breakdown comes from some other time; he doesn't remember the last one of all any more than he remembers the rescue. He was blind paralytic drunk the entire time, stretched out on his bunk. That's why it was taking them so long to fix the engine. And why they died and he survived. And what does a boozed-up chief engineer do to a Lloyd's insurance policy?'

  'Nothing, I'm afraid,' he said sadly, and threw another stone.

  'Nothing?'

  'Afraid not, old boy. I mean, it wouldn't matter if thecaptain was smashed out of his mind. I dare say it would make a difference to who was held to blame and all that, but it wouldn't invalidate the insurance. You've got to remember that one of the biggest things an owner's insuring against is the damn stupidity of the crew – you know? "Negligence of Master Officers, Crew, or Pilots", that's how the Lloyd's policy puts it. Suppose it goes back to the days when you recruited your crew out of the dockside pubs half an hour before sailing. But as long as they're on board, they don't have to be sober or even awake.'

  Then he added politely, 'You seem to have had a lot of trouble for nothing, what? '

  'Damn it.' I slung a stone across the river and it crunched into a deep, crusted snowbank. 'Damn it, there's got to besomething.'

  'I thought Kari said Nygaard hadn't really started drinking untilafter the accident. Rather because of it, you know?'

  'She didn't know him before. And you don't get to his stage in months; he's been boozing at top speed for years. Maybe since his wife died,' I said, thinking of it suddenly.

  For a while we threw stones silently. Then Willie asked, 'I say -1 suppose Paul really didn't know it was Ellie Smith-Bang behind it all?'

  'No. He wouldn't tell me which way was up if I was under water, but he'd have toldyou. He was just scared it was the Sahara Line doing the blackmailing. After all, if the Sahara's other directors had started it, they wouldn't have told Mockby anyway. Conflict of interests. Mockby just wanted to get hold of the log to find out where he really stood – if he was likely to find himself charged with blackmail and accessory to murder as a Sahara director.'

  'Ah. So Martin didn't tell him about anything that was in the log? Or not in it?'

  'No. Mockby was lying to us that night -1 told you. But just because a man tells you lies you shouldn't assume he knows the truth. Basic rule of interrogation.'

  'Ah, yes. Are you going to… go on interrogating?'

  'Yes. I want you to take the girl out shopping this afternoon. Just down to the crossroads to buy a tin of beans or something, but out. He's going to get worse.'

  He frowned thoughtfully. 'It's not going to bring Martin back to life… and Nygaard's a… a person, as well.'

  'Dammit, I know. But he knowssomething about the collision. Something he told Steen or Steen guessed from him and that log.'

  'But I'm not sure it matters, does it, old boy? As Paul said, it's only forty thousand against us, a small piece of the year's business. He was telling the truth there.'

  I stared at him. 'Hell's teeth, Willie, we've come so far-'

  'Speaking as Light Cavalry, that always struck me as a jolly good reason to turn back.'

  Forty-three

  It was a quiet lunch, and without Nygaard; he'd wrapped himself in the sleeping bag and retired to a bedroom. Not hungry. The rest of us ate tinned fish soup and scrambled eggs and biscuits and cheese, and I hurt Willie's feelings by taking a shot of his whisky. He was getting pretty tired of his job as a teetotal chauffeur.

  'I mean, justone whisky,' he grumbled. 'In Britain that wouldn't make the slightest difference, I could drive all over the country, through any traffic. And that road out there isn't exactly liable to be swarming with police, is it?'

  Then he caught the horrified expression on Kari's face. 'Do you really feel youmust have a drink? '

  His turn to look horrified. 'Good God, no. It's just that, about lunchtime, well, it's my habit to have one, you know?'

  'The habit is how it begins.' And she gave me a brisk, cool look.

  I shrugged. 'I just hope I live long enough to die of drink.'

  She started clearing away with a fair amount of unnecessary clatter.

  I went outside to see them off; David had decided to stay with me. As he climbed into the car, Willie looked back at the cabin and asked, 'D'you think anybody'11 be looking for us?'

  I looked back for myself. I suppose if you knew, for sure, we were in one cabin, you could pick out which: there was a slight bare patch in the snow around the chimney-pipe, and an occasional whisp of smoke from the top. But not much more; the ground was too rough, the snow too old and trampled already for our footprints to show any patterns.

  I said, "I hope they'll think it's hopeless. We could be anywhere in Stavanger – or anywhere out of it – by now. And we didn't tell the hotel where we'd be."

  'We didn't book out, either,' Willie reminded me.

  'No.' We'd need the rooms again – and anyway, we had to have somewhere to leave most of our luggage. The Volkswagen couldn't have taken all that and the sleeping bags and all.

  'Well,' Willie said firmly, 'we'll be finished by this evening. We'll go down the hill then.' He caught my eye and stared unblinking. And that was that.

  I shrugged. Well, I'd got a few hours left. The Volkswagen crawled on to the road and buzzed off down it.

  I'd just turned back to the cabin when David burst out of it. 'Mr Card! Mr Card!'

  I ran. He pointed inside, white-faced, and I jumped the steps and crashed through the door.

  Nygaard was standing at the table, holding the paraffin lamp in one shaking hand and a mug in the other…

  I ripped the lamp away and the mug scattered the fuel across the room. 'For Christ's sake! You can't drink that stuff!'

  Couldn't he, though. The little eyes were hot coals of hatred. The mug fell from one twisted claw and then he rammed both hands on the table to try to stop the shaking that was rattling his whole body like a bumpy road.

  'I want a drink,' he pleaded.

  'Let's get back in there.' I could feel David behind us, guess at his sick, horrified expression. I took Nygaard's arm and led him through into t
he tiny bedroom. He slumped on the edge of the folding metal bed.

  'I want to go home to Gulbrandsen's,' he moaned.

  'Not Rasmussen's?'

  'Who is Rasmussen?' His body suddenly clenched with a shuddering spasm.

  'Do you know where you are? '

  'By Bergen, of course.'

  And Mrs Smith-Bang was going into court withhis memory to help prove that log-book?

  Gradually the spasm passed; his shoulders sagged wearily and he panted heavily. Watching him carefully, I opened the door again and called to David, 'Can you make us some coffee or something?'

  He could. I came back and leaned against the wall by the window. 'Where was the engine-room in the Sfeocii? Right aft? -or amidships?'

  'Amidships.' Between shivering teeth.

  'How did you get in and out? Stairs or a ladder?'

  "There is both. The stairs to inside – where the cabins are. The ladder to the hatch on the deck.'

  'Which did you usually use?'

  'The stairs. But in summer, the good weather, we open the hatch also.'

  'Where was the hatch? Ahead of the bridge or aft of it?'

  'In front.'

  I didn't need to ask how the other engineers had died. Fire flooding – just that – in from the bows, sweeping the deck, cracking the hatch, sucked down inside into the lungs of the ship by that hungry-breathing diesel. Or diesels.

  I didn'thave, to ask how they died, down there. But I asked anyway.

  He looked up quickly, shook his head, gave another brief shudder.

  'What happened?' I said again.

  'Just – the fire.' He flapped his crumpled hands in a downwards motion.

  'When did your hands get burned?'

  He stared at the floor. 'On the ladder… I reach up… ah!'

  'On theladder?'

  'No, I mean the stair. I open the door at the top…'

  'You'd better remember which when it comes to court.'

  ' But I already knewhe'd been in his cabin at the time, anyway.

  Then David knocked and came in carrying two mugs of coffee. He looked pale and tense.

  'Thanks.' I took both, put one on the floor beside Nygaard's feet.

  David said, 'I think, sir… I think I'd like to go for a walk.'

  I didn't blame him. 'Okay. But keep off the road and if you hear a car, any car, get under cover. All right?'