I remember thinking about the eyes and that I should have done something to help him. His features were so appallingly vivid as I stared through the window at the line of the coast stretching away far below.
And then the wheels touched down and I opened my eyes to find we had landed in Karachi. One of the pilots came aft from the flight deck insisting that nobody moved until I had got off the plane. There was a car waiting for me and some men, including Peter Brown, the Lloyd’s agent. No Customs, no Immigration. We drove straight out through the loose-shirted untidy mob that hung around the airport entrance, out on to the crowded Hyderabad-Karachi road, the questions beginning immediately. Sadeq – I had referred to a man called Sadeq. Who was he? What did he look like? But they knew already. They had had his description from the oil company’s Marine Superintendent in Dubai. They nodded, both of them, checking papers taken from a coloured leather briefcase with a cheap metal clasp. Peter Brown was sitting in front with the driver, neatly dressed as always in a tropical suit, his greying hair and somewhat patrician features giving him an air of distinction. He was a reserved man with an almost judicial manner. It was the other two, sitting on either side of me in the back, who asked the questions. The smaller of them was a Sindhi, his features softer, his dark eyes sparkling with intelligence. The other was a more stolid type with a squarish face heavily pockmarked and horn-rimmed glasses slightly tinted. Police, or perhaps Army – I wasn’t sure. ‘He had another name.’
‘Who?’ I was thinking of Choffel.
‘This Sadeq. A terrorist, you said.’ The small man was riffling through the clipful of papers resting on his briefcase. ‘Here – look now, this telex. It is from Mr Perrin at the GODCO offices in Dubai.’ He waved it at me, holding it in thin dark fingers, his wrist as slender as a girl’s. ‘He said – that’s you, I’m quoting from his telex you see … He said Sadeq was an Iranian terrorist, that he had another name, but that he did not know it, which may be true as it is several years back during the Shah’s regime.’ He looked up. ‘Now you have met him again perhaps you recall his other name.’ He was peering at me sideways, waiting for an answer, and there was something in his eyes – it is difficult for eyes that are dark brown to appear cold, but his were very cold as they stared at me unblinkingly. ‘Think very carefully please.’ The voice so soft, the English so perfect, and in those eyes I read the threat of nameless things that were rumoured of the security section of Martial Law prisons.
‘Qasim,’ I said, and he asked me to spell it, writing it down with a gaudy-coloured pen. Then both of them were asking questions, most of which I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know what offences Qasim had committed against the Shah’s regime before the Khomeini revolution or what he was doing on board the Aurora B under the name Sadeq, why he had hi-jacked the ship, what the plan was. I didn’t know anything about him, only his name and the fact that the dead Shah’s police had said he was a terrorist. But they didn’t accept that and the questioning went on and on. I was being grilled and once when I nodded off the little man slapped my face. I heard Brown protest, but it didn’t make any difference, the questions continuing and becoming more and more searching. And then, suddenly, when we were into the outskirts of Karachi on the double track of the Shahrah-e-Faisal, they stopped. ‘We will take you to the Metropole now so you can sleep. Meanwhile, we will try to discover some more about this man Choffel.’ He leaned over to Peter Brown. ‘Let us know please if you have any information about these ships from London.’
The Lloyd’s agent nodded. ‘Of course. And you will let me know the result of the Omani airforce reconnaissance.’
The little man pursed his lips, a smile that was almost feminine. ‘You’re finding this story difficult to swallow, are you?’ Brown didn’t answer and the man leaned forward. ‘Do you believe him?’ he asked.
Brown turned and looked at me. I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. ‘If he isn’t telling the truth, then he’s lying. And I don’t at the moment see any reason for him to lie.’
‘A man has disappeared.’ The cold dark eyes gave me a sideways glance. He took a newspaper cutting from the clip of papers. ‘This is from the Karachi paper Dawn, a brief news item about a tanker being blown up on the English coast. It is dated ninth January. Karen Rodin. Was that your wife?’
I nodded.
‘It also says that a French engineer, Henri Choffel, accused of sabotaging the tanker and causing it to run aground, is being hunted by Interpol.’ Again the sly sideways glance. ‘The man who is with you on this dhow – the man you say is shot when you were escaping from the Aurora B – his name also is Choffel … What is his first name, is it Henri?’
‘Yes.’ I was staring at him, fascinated, knowing what he was thinking and feeling myself suddenly on the edge of an abyss.
‘And that is the same man – the man Interpol are looking for?’
I nodded.
‘Alone on that dhow with you, and your wife blown up with the tanker he wrecked.’ He smiled and after that he didn’t say anything more, letting the silence produce its own impact. The abyss had become a void, my mind hovering on the edge of it, appalled at the inference he was drawing. The fact that I hadn’t done it was irrelevant. It was what I had planned to do, the reason I was on the Aurora B. And this little man in Karachi had seen it immediately. If it was such an obvious conclusion … I was thinking how it would be when I was returned to the UK, how I could avoid people leaping to the same conclusion.
The car slowed. We were in Club Road now, drawing into the kerb where broad steps led up to the wide portico of the Metropole. We got out and the heat and the dust and noise of Karachi hit me. Through the stream of traffic, beyond the line of beat-up old taxi cars parked against the iron palings opposite, I glimpsed the tall trees of the shaded gardens of the Sind Club. A bath and a deck chair in the cool of the terrace, a long, ice-cold drink … ‘Come please.’ The big man took hold of my arm, shattering the memories of my Dragonera days as he almost frog-marched me up the steps into the hotel. The little man spoke to the receptionist. The name Ahmad Khan was mentioned and a key produced. ‘You rest now, Mr Rodin.’ He handed the key to his companion and shook my hand. ‘We will talk again when I have more information. Also we have to decide what we do with you.’ He gave me a cold little smile and the Metropole seemed suddenly a great deal more luxurious. ‘Meanwhile Majeed will look after you.’ He nodded in the direction of his companion who was talking now to an unshaven loosely-dressed little man who had been hovering in the background. ‘Can I give you a lift?’ he asked the Lloyd’s agent.
Peter Brown shook his head. ‘I’ll see Rodin settled in first.’
‘As you wish.’ He left then and I watched him go with a sense of relief, his slim silhouette changing to powder blue as the glare of the street spotlighted his pale neat suit. ‘What is he – Intelligence?’ I asked.
Brown shrugged. ‘Calls himself a Government Information Officer.’
‘And the other?’
‘Security, I presume.’
We took the lift to the second floor, tramping endless cement-floored corridors where bearers, sweepers and other hangers-on lounged in over-employed idleness. The Metro-pole occupies a whole block, a great square of buildings constructed round a central courtyard. The first floor is given over to offices, almost every room with a sign over it, the names of countless small businesses and agencies. I glanced at my watch. It was still going, the time 17.36. We stopped at a door and the policeman handed the key to the unshaven little man who had accompanied us. He in turn handed it to the bearer who was now in close attendance. The room was big and airy, with a ceiling fan turning slowly and the windows open and looking out on to the huge courtyard. Kites were coming in to roost on the trees and window ledges, big vulture-like birds, drab in the shadows cast by the setting sun. ‘You will be very comfortable here.’ The policeman waved his hands in a gesture that included the spartan beds and furniture, the big wardrobes and tatty square of carpet, a no
te of envy in his voice. The Metropole to him was probably the height of glamour.
He searched the drawers and the wardrobes, checked the bathroom. Finally he left, indicating the unshaven one and saying, ‘Hussain will keep watch over you. And if there is something more you have to tell us, he knows where to find me.’
‘Is there?’ Brown asked as the door closed behind him.
‘Is there what?’
‘Anything more you have to tell them.’
‘No.’
‘And it’s true, is it – about the Aurora B?’
I nodded, wondering how I could get rid of him, wanting nothing except to get my head down now and sleep while I had the chance. It was more important to me even than food. He moved to the phone, which was on a table between the two beds. ‘Mind if I ring the office?’ He gave the switchboard a number and I went into the bathroom, where the plumbing was uncertain and the dark cement floor wet with water from a leaking pipe. When I had finished I found the unshaven Hussain established on a chair in the little entrance hall and Brown was standing by the window. ‘I think I should warn you, a lot of people are going to find this story of yours a pretty tall one. You realize we’ve no record of a tanker ever having been hi-jacked. Certainly no VLCC has been hi-jacked before. That’s straight, old-fashioned piracy. And you’re saying it’s not one, but two – two tankers boarded and taken without even a peep of any sort on the radio. It’s almost inconceivable.’
‘So you don’t believe me?’
He shook his head, pacing up and down the tattered piece of carpeting. ‘I didn’t say that. I just think it’s something people will find difficult to accept. One, perhaps, but two—’
‘The first one went wrong.’
‘So you said. And you think a bomb was thrown into the radio room, a grenade, something like that?’
‘I don’t know what happened,’ I said, sitting on the bed, wishing he would go away as I pulled off my shoes. ‘I’ve told you what I saw, the radio shack blackened by fire and a hole ripped in the wall. I presume they met with resistance on the bridge, discovered the radio operator was going to send a Mayday and dealt with the situation the only way they knew.’
‘And this happened, not in the Indian Ocean, but when the Aurora B was still in the Gulf?’
‘Yes. When she was in the Straits probably.’
‘So the radio contact with the owners, made when the ship was supposed to be somewhere off the coast of Kutch, was entirely spurious. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? – that it never happened, or rather it was made from a quite different locality and was not the captain reporting to the owners, but the hi-jackers conning them.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Ingenious, and it’s been done before. But usually with non-existent ships or cargoes, and not on this scale, not with oil involved and big tankers. Fraudulent insurance claims, we know a lot about those now, I’ve had instances myself. But always general cargo ships. Small ones, usually old and in poor condition. Four at least I can remember, all single-vessel owners, two of them had only just changed hands. They were all cargo frauds based on forged documents.’ He began describing the intricacies of the frauds, bills of lading, packing lists, manufacturers’ certificates in two cases, even EEC certificate of origin in one case, all forged.
‘I’m tired,’ I said irritably.
He didn’t seem to hear me, going on to tell me a complicated story of trans-shipment of car engines from a small freighter at the height of the port’s congestion when there were as many as 80 ships anchored off Karachi awaiting quay space. But then he stopped quite suddenly. ‘Of course, yes, I was forgetting – you’re tired.’ He said it a little huffily. ‘I was simply trying to show you that what you’ve been telling us is really very difficult to believe. These are not small ships and GODCO is certainly not a single-vessel owner. They are, both of them, VLCCs, well-maintained and part of a very efficiently operated fleet.’ He was gazing out of the window at the darkening shadows. ‘Maybe they picked on them for that reason.’ He was talking to himself, not me. ‘Being GODCO vessels, maybe they thought their disappearance would be accepted – something similar to the disappearance of those two big Scandinavians. They were in ballast and cleaning tanks with welders on board or something. An explosive situation. That’s what I heard, anyway.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with it,’ I said. ‘This is quite different.’
‘Yes, indeed. Quite different. And it doesn’t sound like fraud.’ He had turned from the window and was staring at me. ‘What do you reckon the purpose is?’
‘How the hell do I know? I was only on board the ship a few hours.’
‘And the cost of it,’ he muttered. ‘They’d need to have very substantial backers, particularly to escalate the operation to a second tanker at short notice.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You want to rest and it’s time I was getting back to the office. There’ll be people at Lloyd’s who’ll be greatly cheered to know the Aurora B at any rate is still afloat. I’ll telex them right away.’
‘You’ll be contacting Forthright’s, will you?’
He nodded. ‘They’ll have a full account of it waiting for them in their office tomorrow morning. Mr Saltley can then take what action he thinks fit.’ He lifted his head, looking at me down his long nose. ‘If they locate this ship, the one you say is the Aurora B, then there’ll be all sorts of problems. Maritime law isn’t exactly designed to cope with this sort of thing. And you’ll be in the thick of it, so much depending on your statement.’ And he added, ‘On the other hand, if she’s sailed and the subsequent search fails to locate her …’ He paused, watching me curiously. ‘That’s why I stayed on, to warn you. What happens if they don’t believe you? If they think you’re lying, then they’ll want to know the reason and that may lead them to jump to conclusions.’ He smiled, ‘Could be awkward, that. But let’s take things as they come, eh?’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Have a good rest. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Sleep came in a flash and I woke sweating to a surge of sound, red lights flickering and a wild voice. My body, naked under the coarse sheets, felt battered and painful, my limbs aching. I had no idea where I was, staring wide-eyed at the big fan blades above my bed, revolving slowly to reflect a kaleidoscope of colours and that voice. I sat up. A woman was singing, a high Muslim chanting, and the surging sound was an Eastern band, the shriek of pipes and tam-tams beating.
I pulled back the sheet and stumbled to the window, conscious of the stiffness of my muscles, the ache of a deep bruise in the pelvis, staring down into the courtyard, which was a blaze of light, girls in richly coloured saris, tables piled with food and drink. A wedding? So much tinsel decoration, balloons and lanterns, and the men loutish and ill-at-ease in their bright suits. The singing stopped. The music changed to Western jazz played fast and the crowd mingling, men and women clinging uncertainly, dancing double time. A bird swirled up like a great bat, the lights red, yellow and green and somebody pointing so that I drew back quickly, conscious that I was standing there stark naked. But it was the bird they were pointing at.
A shadow moved beside me. ‘You all right, sahib?’ It was my watchdog.
I couldn’t sleep for a long time after that, listening to the band and the high chatter of voices, the lights flickering on my closed eyes, and thinking about what was going to happen when they found the ship. Would they arrest her on the high seas? Who would do it – the British, the Americans, who? And what about me? Nobody was going to thank me for handing them such a problem. I wondered what Sadeq would do when the Navy came on board, what explanation he would give. Would he still be flying the hammer and sickle? And Baldwick – I suddenly remembered Baldwick. Baldwick wouldn’t be able to leave without the dhow. He’d still be on board. What would his explanation be, or would Sadeq dispose of him before he had a chance to talk? I could see Sadeq, as I had glimpsed him when I was crouched below the poop, the gun at his waist, the bearded face fixed in what was almost a grin as he sprayed bullets with col
d professional accuracy and Baldwick thrown backwards, his big barrel of a stomach opened up and flayed red. Choffel – my mind was confused. It was Choffel whose stomach had been hit. And I was in Pakistan with information nobody was happy to hear … except Pamela and those two sailing men, her father and Saltley. If I was in England now, not lying here in Karachi with a wedding thumping out jazz and Eastern music …
I suppose I was in that limbo of half-coma that is the result of shock and exhaustion, my mind in confusion, a kaleidoscope of thoughts and imaginings all as strange as the lights and the music. Darkness came eventually, and sleep – a sleep so dead that when I finally opened my eyes the sun was high above the hotel roof and Hussain was shaking me. He was even more unshaven now and he kept repeating, ‘Tiffin, tiffin, sahib.’ It was almost ten o’clock and there was a tray on the small central table with boiled eggs, sliced white bread, butter, marmalade and a big pot of coffee.
My clothes had gone, but the notes and traveller’s cheques that had been in my hip pocket were on the table beside me. Kites wheeled in a cloudless sky. I had a quick shower and breakfasted with a towel wrapped round my middle. A copy of Dawn lay on the table. Founded by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali jinnah, it said – Karachi, 21 Safar, 1400. The lead story was about Iran, the conflict between the IRP and the left-wing Mujaheddin. I could find no mention of a dhow being wrecked off Gwadar or of anybody being washed ashore there. The bearer came with my clothes, laundered, ironed and reasonably dry. As soon as I was dressed I rang the office of Lloyd’s agents down near the Customs House, but Peter Brown was out and the only other person I knew there, a Parsi, had no information to give me. I sat by the window then, reading the paper from cover to cover and watching the kites. Hussain refused absolutely to allow me out of the room and though I had a telephone call from Brown’s office it was only to say he would contact me as soon as he had any information. I could have done with a drink, but the hotel was under strict Islamic laws and drier than the sands of Baluchistan.
The Black Tide Page 25