by Rex Burns
Mack answered that one. “Not unless we need it, Dorothy.”
“I hope you don’t mind, Miss … Julie … but I telephoned Mr. Wood in London and told him you had been trying very hard to get in touch with him and would probably be calling soon. He said he would be available to you.” Her fingers caressed the stack of papers again. “I assumed you still wanted to speak with him.”
“You assumed right, Dorothy. How did you manage to get through to him?”
For the first time her voice showed a quiver of emotion, but Julie wasn’t sure if it was victory or anger or an escape of tension. “Marine Carriers Worldwide hasn’t yet paid his claim. He’s very eager to hear from us.” She added, “I—ah—did not mention the Aurora Victorious. I only told him you wanted to ask a few questions about the Golden Dawn. I allowed him to believe that you were working in our office.”
“That was wise, Dorothy.”
She slid the papers tentatively across the table toward Julie. “I couldn’t remember exactly what I sent you, so much of this is duplication. I want to be certain you have everything I do.”
The only new document was a photocopy of the complete insurance policy. Julie thanked the woman and placed the photocopy in her folder, not because she wanted it, but because it seemed to make Mrs. Fleenor feel better.
The ride down in the elevator with Mack and Mrs. Fleenor was long and silent. When the two detectives, free of the woman and her muted anxiety, were finally on the street and weaving through sidewalks crowded with stiff, anonymous faces, Mack said what Julie felt. “If the company has to pay the full claim, Dorothy’s going to be the sacrificial lamb.”
“And if I can show that Hercules Maritime is at fault, she keeps her job?”
“That’s it.”
“Know anything about her?”
“Just what’s in the security file: lives over in Jersey, clean police record, clean credit record, divorced, two kids, one handicapped in some way. I think the other’s in college now, but I’m not sure. No hint of question about her.” He glanced at Julie. “Why?”
“She indicated earlier that she had some personal problems that might have clouded her judgment about issuing insurance on the Golden Dawn.”
“Problems? What kind?”
“She wasn’t specific. A hint … more of an explanation to herself, it seemed.”
Mack frowned. “She’s been with the company a long time. No hint of dishonesty or ineptitude …”
“Maybe Marine Carriers would be better off firing Ferguson and keeping her.”
“Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry about that, Julie. When he asked to have you come here, I thought it was for something important. I should have known he just wanted to hear himself talk.”
“At least it opened the door for me to go see Wood.”
“See him?”
Julie nodded. “Our clients want me to go to London and make some noise about their son.”
The home office of Hercules Maritime Shipping Co. was a couple of blocks from the Tower Hill Station. Julie came out of the Underground both aware of and saddened by armed police scanning the crowds of passengers. Standing by a kiosk for a few seconds, she got her bearings. A torrent of traffic dotted with glossy red double-decker buses sped just beyond the concrete steps leading down from the Underground entrance. Across Tower Hill Road, parked tour buses nosed one behind the other at the foot of the mottled gray and white walls of the Tower of London. The gothic piers of Tower Bridge and its elevated metal crosswalk rose beyond the Tower’s curved whitestone caps. The smell of fried fish and the flutter of souvenir pennants marked street hawkers. At the head of a queue of tourists snaking beside the Tower’s dry moat of clipped lawn, stood the flash of a Beefeater’s red and gold splendor. Mixed with the familiarity of the scene was a remembered touch of excitement dating from the time of her first visit to England for her junior year abroad at London University, and the stir of those bittersweet memories made her forget the reason for this trip momentarily.
But those memories were of events well past, and her path now led away from the crowds that surged toward the Tower’s tourist centers, pulsing with the beep of the pedestrian lights. More than one man in the passing crowd glanced at her face and figure, and a few leaned toward her in the attempt to snag her eyes with their own. She remembered the sexual aggressiveness, but this time she understood that those male hormones were their problem not hers. She strode briskly down America Square where the sidewalks, at least, were relatively empty. A turn onto Crosswall Street pinched off the traffic noise. Number 17 was an isolated door flanked on one side by an Indian restaurant and on the other by a stationer’s shop. A steep, narrow stairway smelling of wood rot and lit by one dangling bulb led to a small landing with two doors. One was closed and bore no nameplate. The other hung half open to show a none-too-clean toilet and sink crammed into an unlit cubicle. Julie, being a detective, tried the knob of the closed door.
If the rule of thumb for staffing the headquarters of a tramp company was “one ship at sea, one man in the office,” then Julie figured Hercules Maritime had about ten vessels. The large room wasn’t designed for walk-in traffic; two rows of desks took up almost all the floor space, and the muffled chatter of telephones, telexes, and fax machines made an unceasing noise like distant surf. A large world map sheeted over with acetate half filled one wall and bore smears of partially erased grease pencil. Rosters of ship’s names and ports were stuck on bulletin boards that filled space between large windows looking across a narrow gray emptiness at other office windows. Dots of colored pins signaled meaning to those who could read their code. Shirtsleeved men moved between the computers at their desks and the maps and charts on the walls, adjusting pins, erasing or noting comments, pulling worn reference texts from a long bookshelf and thumbing rapidly through the pages. The idea of the display boards, Julie figured, was that anyone could see at a glance the current location and status of every ship owned by Hercules Maritime, as well as the offers of freight from the brokers dealing with the world’s commerce. The intent young man at the desk nearest the door finally looked up from the pattern of colors on his computer screen. “Something you want here, miss?”
“I have an appointment with Mr. Wood.”
His neatly trimmed head bobbed with surprise. “There.” A shirtsleeved arm jabbed toward one of three doors at the back of the busy room and darted back to his keyboard.
Julie read the thumbtacked business card and knocked. A voice said, “Come.”
Mr. Wood did not look up from rattling the keys of his computer. On a stand in the corner of the tiny room, a printer buzzed through a tray of paper. Finally, the man raised his head, surprise lifting his heavy eyebrows. “Yes?”
Julie introduced herself. The man’s dark eyes blinked once and he wagged a finger at the single chair beside the desk before finishing his typing. He pushed ENTER and the printer again started buzzing. “Mrs. Fleenor said you would be telephoning.” He leaned back to gaze coldly at Julie. “From the States.”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood. And you’ve been difficult to reach.”
“I am a very busy man, miss. Especially at this time of day.” He nodded at the in-tray full of papers. “Ship’s status reports, brokerage offers, chandlers’ bids, fuel quotes, all of which came in last night from around the globe. All to be attended to before the quotations change. I understand you have questions about the Golden Dawn? I have one for you: it has been almost a year, why hasn’t Marine Carriers honored our claim?”
She did not correct his assumption that Marine Carriers employed her. “Such things take time, Mr. Wood.” Julie guessed that Wood was in his late thirties, but the man’s dark hair and olive skin didn’t show age. And his taut expression didn’t give away much, either.
“I trust that means there will be no problem with the claim. It is part of my collateral for obtaining a replacement
vessel.”
“No real problems, I’m sure. But a few questions do need to be cleared up before the issue is closed.”
“Oh? Well, Miss—ah—the issue seems quite defined to me. Your company insured the vessel, the vessel was lost at sea, and now the indemnity is due. What questions might there be about that?”
Julie opened her leather folder and thumbed through an impressively thick sheaf of papers, most of which were blank. “Let’s start with the type of coverage you chose for the Golden Dawn—insurance against future cargo, single-voyage hull insurance, no deductible. That latter seems a bit out of the ordinary for a routine voyage, doesn’t it?”
“Really? I always understood that the purpose of insurance was indemnity against the extraordinary. That proved to be the case, didn’t it? And remember, please, that your own agent drafted the policy and that we paid what you asked in that additional—and expensive—no-deductible coverage.”
“Have you had any further information about the vessel?”
“You would have been promptly notified if we had.”
“Of course.” Julie shuffled a few more pages. “A second point concerns the weather recorded in the Golden Dawn’s area on the day she disappeared. Satellite pictures for the entire twenty-four hours show no cloud cover at those coordinates, and no log entries from ships in the vicinity reported bad weather.” Julie stared down at the blank sheet. “Yet the cargo was said to have shifted because of heavy seas.”
“Squalls and high seas of a very local nature are not uncommon anywhere at sea, miss. As any man with any seafaring experience knows. And in that part of the Indian Ocean, the currents and configurations of the sea bottom tend to make the waves eccentric, as do occasional earthquakes. Remember the tsunami in Indonesia? No cloud cover that day, either. Now, it is remotely possible that the bauxite was initially loaded in such a way that even a mildly rough sea could shift the cargo. But our policy clearly covers against loss caused by negligence of master, officers, or crew, as well as perils of the sea. So the vessel was covered under either contingency.”
But willful misconduct by the crew was not. As both of them knew and as Julie’s silence stated.
“I would also remind you, miss: all hands went down with the ship, as the two bodies that were found almost a month later clearly indicate.”
And, as Mack said, that ended the investigation into willful misconduct by the crew. “You’ve had a recent death aboard another of your ships, haven’t you? The Aurora Victorious?”
The man’s eyebrows pinched together in a dark frown. “We lose several crewmen a year to accidents usually caused by their own carelessness. Seafaring is one of the world’s most dangerous occupations.”
“Can you tell me anything about Third Mate Rossi’s death? Exactly how and when it happened?”
“Is that in the slightest way pertinent to our Golden Dawn claim?”
“Not directly, no. But it may be pertinent to Marine Carriers’s evaluation of its other policies with Hercules Maritime.”
Wood pushed back in his chair. Its spring twanged shrilly. “That sounds as if it’s a threat.”
“Only a request for information, Mr. Wood. The information itself may or may not turn out to be threatening.”
Without taking his angry eyes from Julie’s, Wood pressed a switch on his intercom. “Mr. Goff—please bring in any information we have on a recent death aboard the Aurora Victorious. I believe it was a third mate.” He folded his hands on the desk, eyes still on the young woman who had entered his office to coolly imply that he was lying. “My concern is with the management of our vessels. I am not concerned with their crews.”
“Is Mr. Goff the person the Aurora Victorious reports to?”
“For all routine matters, yes.”
A tap and the door opened. A young balding man with a full beard glanced at Julie. “Excuse me, miss.” He leaned across her to place a manila folder on the desk. “We have only these telexes in the file, Mr. Wood.”
“Thank you, Robert.”
As the clerk left, Wood glanced over the two pages and then handed them to Julie. The first read, “Third Mate (Nav.) Harold Rossi died following fall down ladder way.” The final line gave the time and date of transmission, and Julie noted them: 17 May, 17:33 hours (GMT). The second message requested computation of Rossi’s pay and allowances less deductions, asked that the replacement be flown out to the ship when it neared Cape Town, and noted that Rossi was buried at sea 14:00 hours (local time) 18 May. Julie noted that, too; it was something she could give to Rossi’s parents. “No medical diagnosis?”
“Only the Japanese routinely have doctors aboard their tankers. However, according to the traditions of the sea, every first mate on all our vessels—including the Aurora Victorious—is trained in emergency medical techniques to render first aid. Additionally, company policy is for the shipmaster to locate the nearest vessel with a doctor aboard and, if necessary, to rendezvous with it for medical assistance. Air evacuation by helicopter is another option if the vessel is within flight range of a major airport and if the injury is of sufficient seriousness. This humane policy could lead to considerable expense, miss, since a tanker the size of the Aurora Victorious costs more than two hundred thousand of your dollars a day at sea. But it is our policy, nonetheless.” The shoulders of the man’s pinstriped suit rose and fell. “However, if a hand dies, there is little any doctor can do.”
And much time and money saved. “Can you give me the ship’s location when Rossi was buried?”
Wood made it obvious that he was mastering his impatience as he pressed the intercom button again. “Mr. Goff, please give me the coordinates of the Aurora Victorious on”—he glanced at the date line on the telex—“May 18, 14:00 hours local time.”
“Directly, sir.”
A minute or two later the intercom gave a timid peep. “Sir, at that date and time, the Aurora Victorious was approximately fifty-one degrees east, eighteen degrees south. That would be some three hundred miles due east of Madagascar and approximately one hundred miles west of the Mauritius and Rodrigues Islands.” A pause. “Seems a bit off course for the usual Gulf to Cape Town route, doesn’t it, sir?”
“Thank you, Mr. Goff.” Wood took a deep breath. “Anything else before you go, Miss ah—?”
He did not stand to see her out. “Please tell your employers that I consider your line of questioning to have verged on insult, that their delay in settling our legitimate claim is both arbitrary and unwarranted, and that I will reassess my future needs for underwriting in light of their performance in this affair closely. If their delay should cause Hercules Maritime any material loss whatsoever, a legal suit will be forthcoming. Good day.”
Julie smiled. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Wood.”
VIII
By late afternoon, lading would cease and the Aurora Victorious would hose down and stow in order to get under way. Pressler summoned the chief steward to the bridge. Short, Taiwanese, and in a white jacket, he never seemed to tire of smiling. “Johnny, this mountain of flesh here is our new electronics bloke while Mr. Pierce is on leave. Name’s Mr. Raiford—a supernumerary. He don’t know a goddamned thing about ships and even less about shipboard manners. You show him around. Get his head screwed on right.”
“Yessah—please this way, Mr. Raifah.”
Because of lading, Raiford’s tour was limited to the aft of the vessel. Johnny, smiling, warned him that no smoking was allowed anywhere aboard while they were at a terminal. “Okay at sea to smoke in own cabin or in wardroom only.”
“Don’t smoke at all—bad for the health.”
“Ha, yes. Very bad: go boom! Ha ha ha.”
They began with the navigation bridge, an open deck capped by the mast and, at the top of that, the radar scanner. Five enclosed bridge decks rose to form the island some forty feet above the main deck. Below the main d
eck, in the bowels of the hull, were at least five more levels.
The deck just below the navigation bridge, where the first mate prowled, was the captain’s bridge. Raiford had already glimpsed Captain Boggs’s roomy quarters on the starboard side. Johnny told him that Chief Engineer Bowman had a similar suite on the port side. Between, and taking up the remaining space of that entire span, was an owner’s suite that was seldom used. “Owner never comes aboard. Good thing—big cabin to clean.” Outside and across a walkway aft from those suites was the swimming pool tucked at the base of the towering smokestack. “Too hot to use now. Too hot to look at, too. Better when we get under way.”
Next came the upper bridge deck. It held the senior officers’ quarters. The four or five doors were spaced along a wide corridor that had the strip of temporary runner to protect the forest green carpet from oily plimsoles. The middle bridge deck held the junior officers’ cabins, including Raiford’s and Third Officer Suk Wan Li’s, along with those of four petty officers. “Steward for this deck is Wang Wei—English call ‘Woody.’ Anything for your cabin, you ask him.” An even wider, gold-sparked smile. “My cabin right here—petty officers’ cabins. Wang Wei is very good steward or he has much trouble with me.” The lower bridge deck, just above the main deck, was one of the ship’s principal social centers. It contained the movie theater, library, and infirmary, as well as the officers’ games room and dining saloon with its adjoining wardroom. “You spend plenty time here, Mr. Raifah.” Johnny glanced around the carefully ordered wardroom with the eye of a professional caretaker. The dominant colors were a restful dark green and cream. Thick drapes flanked the large windows that looked forward to the bow. “Drapes must be shut every night. Hard for lookout on bridge to see if light comes out at night.”
Leatherette sofas, deeply cushioned armchairs, and a scattering of coffee tables were placed at one side of the clublike space. The other side held a wet bar with half a dozen stools and a long shelf full of bottles in a variety of languages. Mounted around the room were a television set, a stereo, shelves holding rows of worn paperback books, a shortwave radio with an attached radiotelephone console and mounted instructions for its cost, times of operation, and use. There were no company flags or emblems on display in this room. “Whiskey price is very good. Very cheap.”