Southtrap

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  I checked again, via the intercom, with Persson. Nothing. When I enquired, he said that Wegger hadn't been near the radio.

  When finally the daylight held, I sent for Frank Gretland, the ship's carpenter. He came, half-asleep. He left, wide awake, after I had shown him what was in the sick-bay. I told him I wanted Holdgate sewn into a length of canvas with a couple of anchor-links at his feet to take him deep. I didn't want the body sucked into the screw once the Quest started on her way again.

  I went to the day cabin. I opened the door quietly. Linn was still asleep.

  I stood by the couch. She looked about sixteen, except that there was a small in-drawn line at the right-hand corner of her mouth and a faint purplish-blue in the delicate flesh of her eyelids. I paused for a moment before rousing her, conscious of how I would look to her when she woke, with the whiteness of sea salt on my overnight beard and on the shoulders of my dark pea-jacket.

  Her fingers plucked convulsively at the edge of the penguin-rug and her eyes came open. They were on me, but unfocused. Then recognition came into them and she reached out a hand to me.

  'Hello, John.'

  I wanted to have her say that a thousand times, to hear her sleep-soaked voice linger over my name.

  'Hello, darling.'

  I put my hands under her armpits and lifted her into a sitting position.

  She looked at me but it was plain that her thoughts were turned inward.

  'I was dreaming,' she said. 'I dreamed I was a penguin and was being chased round and round an ice-floe by a savage bird with a knife for a beak.'

  'You'd better consult Miss Auchinleck about it,' I replied, lightly. 'You're guaranteed protection if you're a penguin.'

  She kept on looking at me. I was to remember that look.

  She went on, as if the dream was enacting itself still, 'You were on another floe nearby. There was a cold green sea between us. I couldn't reach you in time.'

  'That comes of sleeping in a penguin-skin.'

  She smiled. 'It's yours, of course? I didn't even hear you come.' She lifted her lips to mine. 'You taste of salt and salt and salt. I don't suppose you've had a wink of sleep.'

  'I've been thinking.'

  'I feel ashamed of myself. You could have thought out aloud to me, if I'd managed to stay awake.'

  In my mind I said, Not my terrible knife-thoughts, Linn darling. I'd kill anyone with my bare hands who touched her.

  Aloud I said, 'I'm going to have a chat with Captain Jacobsen this morning after I've buried poor Holdgate.'

  'You don't think he did it, of all people?'

  'He might have done it. He might have had the opportunity — or the motive, for all I know, But he certainly didn't have the opportunity to remove the murder weapon.'

  She sat up straight, every trace of sleep gone, and echoed my last words.

  I told her what I had discovered in the sick-bay, and she looked stunned. 'The whole thing grows more and more incredible!'

  'Listen, Linn,' I went on. 'I told you earlier I was lacking a reference-point to start off from. I'm beginning to wonder now whether that reference-point might lie further back than we think.'

  'What do you mean, John?'

  I said slowly, 'I want Captain Jacobsen to tell me exactly what happened during or after his escape with your father and Torgersen from the German raider. Everything. What the three of them did that made your father feel guilty when he realized he was dying. Why he begged me to stay away from Prince Edward — from Dina's Island.'

  She stood up and straightened her jersey so that her breasts and nipples swelled against the wool.

  'In spite of not knowing, you're still pressing on.'

  'I feel rather as if I were being programmed by an invisible computer into taking my actions,' I replied. 'Each step seems so right, so inevitable. I wonder where it's all leading. I can't even send a radio signal to consult authority.'

  'You didn't engineer the radio black-out, John.'

  'No, but it's a vital factor, nevertheless. It could have been anticipated by someone with sufficient opportunism.'

  She came close to me. She smelt dry and sweet, an overtone of slept-in wool. 'You've had a rough night, John,' she said. 'Things can look very distorted after nights like that.'

  I smiled at her concern. 'I've had lots of nights without sleep at sea. One sleepless night doesn't matter much.'

  'May I come and attend the burial this morning?'

  'I had hoped you'd be with me.'

  'Will everyone be there?'

  'Everyone will know. Whether they'll come is another matter. There's something far more awesome about a burial at sea than one on land.'

  'It's a frightening thought that the murderer could be there watching it all.'

  'I've thought of that, too. There might even be a giveaway.'

  'John, what hideous things we're talking about — burial, murder, knives!'

  I drew her against me. 'Why do you think I don't sleep?'

  She said decisively, and I loved her the more for it, 'Do you want me to be at your interview with Captain Jacobsen?'

  'Not at first. Later, perhaps. It depends how it goes.'

  'You'll have to get past Mrs Jacobsen.'

  'I intend to. She may be part of his cover.'

  'You must find out, John.'

  'Again, I intend to.'

  'You'll be careful, won't you, my darling? I could not bear anything to happen…'

  'For your sake, Linn dearest, I won't let it.'

  She kissed me and said, 'I'm off to bath and change now. I want to be ready in time for your announcement over the public address.' She consulted her watch. 'When's it to be?'

  'When I've changed too — in about half an hour.'

  'It all sounds so normal,' she said, 'but it isn't. It's horrible. It's all shadows and horrors and unknown things. Like in my dream. And I'm frightened. Like in my dream too.'

  She went. I took the penguin-skin rug and folded it slowly, feeling the warmth of her body spill out of it.

  Then I, too, left the cabin and made for my quarters.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  '… We therefore commit his body to the deep…'

  I looked up from the service-book and nodded to the seamen at the rail.

  They cast loose the lashings from the canvas thing on the board and started to up-end it over the Quest's starboard quarter.

  '… looking for the resurrection of the body, when the Sea shall give up her dead…'

  One of the men slipped on the thin coating of hail which covered the deck as his shoulder came under the body. In the brief moment of absolute silence before he regained his balance I heard the hail rattle against the canvas. I heard, too the faint whirr of Brunton's camera as he knelt on the deck recording the ceremony.

  The thin rain was icy cold. The body hung in balance on the fulcrum of the rail. The ship's officers — Wegger, McKinley and Petersen — stood in a group facing it, their backs to the wind. I faced it, cap under my arm. Linn was next to me, the big hood of her soft brown-and-white Icelandic jacket half-hiding her face as the wind blew it against her cheeks. They were as white as the white woollen lining of the hood and the wide cuffs of the dolman sleeves. The three weathermen — Smit, T-shirt Jannie and Pete — grouped themselves behind Linn. After their stunned reaction earlier when I had confronted them with the news of Holdgate's death, I had given up the idea of even formally interrogating them.

  For one mad, brief moment while the body hung in suspense I wondered if I shouldn't still call the whole thing off. In less than a second all Holdgate's secrets would be for ever beyond recovery in the black-green water which creamed against the Quest's quarter now that the way was off the ship.

  Who had done it?

  My glance went to the officers. Wegger's face was a mask. He appeared impervious to the bitter cold. McKinley, next senior, was shivering. Petersen looked as if he were about to pass out again. To keep his mind occupied I had ordered him beforehand to take an
exact fix of the burial spot. With the heavy overcast sweeping almost at mast-level, it was an impossible assignment. But he had seemed grateful for the order, and his sextant was on the deck behind him.

  Now the seamen got it right. The board went up, and Holdgate's passage was marked only by a small additional patch of white amidst the white foam under the stern.

  I put on my cap and saluted. The others did the same.

  'Mr Wegger,' I said formally, 'get the ship under way again, will you? I don't like the way her head's falling off in this wind.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  Petersen picked up his sextant. He looked miserably at the sky and then at the sullen sea. McKinley's eyes were on someone in the group by the opposite rail. His hand went up to his head, flicking the water clear of his collar.

  'Gretland,' I called to the carpenter who had headed the burial party, 'get that board back inside will you? Mr Smit here will show you where to stow it.'

  Like Petersen, the met. man appeared grateful to have something to occupy himself with. 'It's okay,' he replied. 'Jannie and Pete and I can manage it. We don't need any help.'

  'Good,' I said. 'Don't let anything happen to that board — we'll be needing it in just twenty-four hours from now to launch the buoy.'

  T-shirt Jannie said, 'I didn't ever expect to have this sort of curtain-raiser with it. Holdgate was a good type…'

  I didn't want a display of sentiment. To probe Hold-gate's murder I'd have to put aside human sympathy and act like a cold-blooded machine, if the necessity arose.

  I replied tersely, 'Check all your gear, will you? Whoever got in and killed him could have smashed up something. That goes for Holdgate's instruments as well.'

  'We'll check all right, you can be damn sure of that,' answered Smit.

  There was a flurry at the stern. The Quest's screw had started to bite. It felt reassuring, normal and familiar.

  'Coming, Linn?' I asked.

  We headed for the forward superstructure along the windward side of the deck so as to avoid the passengers opposite.

  I nodded towards the south-west quarter. 'There's an old saying for a gale down this way — long foretold, long last. Launching the buoy tomorrow could be tricky if the weather breaks the way I think it will.'

  The high white polo collar of the jersey she wore under her jacket reached right up to her chin. A broad belt of rectangles — a typical Icelandic pattern — was knitted into the fabric down the front. The white colour was a perfect foil for her pale gold hair.

  She said suddenly, 'Are you going to see Captain Jacobsen now, John?'

  'In a few moments.'

  'How did you get past Mrs Jacobsen?'

  I laughed a little ruefully. 'When I knocked at their cabin door I was confronted by a squat square person in a leather coat. I thought for a moment that it was the Captain.'

  'She's pretty formidable, isn't she?' said Linn.

  'I thought she'd throw me with a judo hold, or mule-kick me in the chest. But she just said flatly, "You're not going to see my husband." A lioness guarding her cub had nothing on her. You know, Linn, for one dreadful moment I found myself wondering whether she could have done it herself.'

  Linn paused and eyed me. I wished at that moment I were alone with her in the Quest, in a wide, wide sea, without a thousand problems riding on my back.

  'I think she'd be quite capable of such a thing if his well-being were involved,' she answered quietly. 'But is it?'

  'I mean to find out shortly.' I glanced at my watch. 'He's due in my cabin in ten minutes.'

  'With or without Mrs Jacobsen?'

  'Without.'

  'I don't know how you contrived it, John.'

  'When she refused, I said. "I'm the captain." Captain Jacobsen was in the lounge section of their suite and he must have overheard. My luck was in. He emerged of his own accord. Being a sailor, he knew the significance of a visit from the captain. The rest was easy.'

  It wasn't easy, though, when Captain Jacobsen knocked at my cabin door a little later — not to start with, anyway.

  The first thing I did when I opened the door was to judge whether he tallied with Reilly's description. His hands were certainly big but his frame was more square and stocky than big. He'd gone to seed and his belly pushed his sea-cut jacket tight. If he really had a heart complaint, then he would have been better at sea, I reckoned, keeping himself trim instead of being cosseted by a domestic dragon. I closed the door behind him. I wondered whether a man-to-man approach mightn't pay off.

  'A drink, Captain?'

  It did. He grinned like a schoolboy playing truant. 'My wife won't like it, and the sun's not over the yardarm yet as you British say — schnapps.'

  I poured two small glasses. I had warmed to him even before I felt the warmth of the fiery liquid down my throat.

  'You didn't come to the burial service,' I remarked.

  His eyes were bleached to pale blue from gazing too long at horizonless oceans.

  'I wanted to, but my wife said the strain would be bad for my heart. I've buried quite a few men at sea in my time.'

  'Then you know what it's all about.'

  'Aye. It's worse in a small ship like a catcher when you know everyone personally, even if you are the skipper.'.

  I said, watching closely for his reaction, 'This man was killed. Murdered.'

  He held out his glass for more schnapps. His hand was quite steady. He sat like a judge considering his verdict. It was a ponderous silence.

  Then he said, 'That makes the captain's position very difficult. Your position.'

  'It does.'

  'Why should you want to talk to me about it?'

  I saw the opening I had been looking for. 'Because Captain Prestrud was also murdered.'

  The glass fell from his hand and spilled some of its contents on him before reaching the carpet. He made no attempt to recover it. He gaped at me and his face became grey-blue mottled. He began to frisk his pockets.

  I held out a pack of cigarettes.

  'My pills — I should have a pill with news like this,' he replied thickly.

  I retrieved his glass, which had not smashed. 'Another drink will do you more good.'

  I pressed it upon him, together with the smoke. He lit up and inhaled deeply. 'This, too, is verboten. But the hell with that.'

  Then he eyed me steadily. 'Is this true what you say about my old friend, Captain Prestrud?'

  'Yes. He was pistol-whipped to death. The accident story was a blind so as not to upset the passengers.'

  He sank the schnapps. 'His daughter told me…'

  'I know what she told you. Why I asked you to come here now is to find out whether there is any connection between Captain Prestrud's death and Doctor Holdgate's.'

  'Doctor Holdgate — I never heard the name.'

  I believed him. I sketched in Holdgate's background — what I knew of it — quickly.

  'It makes no sense, Captain Shotton,' he replied.

  'It would make less sense to me if Captain Prestrud hadn't confessed something to me shortly before his death.'

  I could have been mistaken but there seemed to be a spurt of fear in his eyes. Of caution, certainly.

  'What did he say?'

  'It is what he left unsaid, Captain Jacobsen. I believe you can fill it in for me.'

  'I don't understand what you are driving at.'

  'Listen. What I want to know is what happened in these waters during the war. The incident took place very close to here. The German raider HK-33, which was also called the Pinguin, captured the entire Norwegian whaling fleet. You were there, Captain.'

  'As you say, I was there.'

  'Captain Prestrud was there also.'

  'Aye, he was there.'

  'A few hours before he died, Captain Prestrud started to tell me about it.'

  'There's very little to tell. It was about the same time of the year — mid-January of 1941. Captain Kruder was the raider captain. He was a very clever man. We catchers were all
grouped about the factory ships. He surprised us in the middle of the night. There was no fighting. Three of us — Prestrud, Torgersen and I — managed to escape. That's all.'

  I poured myself another drink. 'That's laconic enough to be a Royal Navy despatch, Captain Jacobsen.'

  'You think I'm lying.'

  'I didn't say that. Your account is remarkable for its brevity. But it's the bits and pieces that are important to me.'

  'Such as?''

  'You escaped, you three. Fair enough. Where did you go?'

  To Cape Town. It was the nearest friendly port.'

  'You're going much too fast, Captain Jacobsen. You three gave the raider the slip — how?'

  'We bluffed our way past. We didn't stop when Kruder signalled us to stop. We knew he was a humane man and wouldn't fire. He didn't.'

  This checked with Captain Prestrud's account to me.

  Then I fired my first broadside.

  'What about the torpedo?'

  He put down his glass and stared at me. The torpedo?'

  If you can bluff a man at poker, you can bluff him at interrogation. Your hand can be empty. Mine was.

  'You were at great pains, you and Torgersen, to guard Prestrud's flanks in order to. get the torpedo safely away.'

  I didn't care for the throaty way he coughed. Perhaps his wife was right about his heart.

  'It was a trick, a ruse-de-guerre, it was legitimate,' he answered thickly. 'Kruder used a Norwegian radio-operator — a quisling — to bluff us. Fair's fair. War makes things like that legitimate.'

  'I'll come to that quisling in a moment,' I went on. 'Let's stick to that torpedo. What were you doing with a torpedo? None of you were warships. You couldn't have fired it if you'd wanted to.'

  He smiled, and I knew I'd come unstuck somewhere. 'I think I could manage another schnapps,' he said, holding out his glass.

  I poured it and he went on. 'We brought the torpedo with us from Norway. It was a German one. A souvenir, you could call it.'

  'A torpedo — for a souvenir!'

  He smiled again. 'Prestrud and Torgersen and I were all on the factory ship Pelagos in port at Narvik when the Germans attacked. That assault brought Norway to her knees.'

  'Go on. This was all before my time.'