by Peter Tonkin
‘This looks untouched to me,’ she said, her voice quietly conversational, just powerful enough to rise above the steady pulse of the engines. ‘But I don’t know who closed the box on Erebus and opened it again here.’
Richard looked down over her shoulder into the coffin. Jolene’s hands were resting on the body bag he had seen zipped round the frozen corpse a week ago. The clear, slightly clouded, heavy-duty plastic showed the body in its silver suit clearly.
‘Is the helmet still in the box?’ he asked.
‘In back, at his feet.’
They hesitated. Neither of them saw any real need to check further for signs of whether anything might have been put in with the corpse in transit. Their focus was firmly on the body and the suit in which it had died. But then neither of them knew the uses to which Hoyle, among others, had already put the major’s coffin.
‘Right. What’s next?’
Richard’s question was answered by a long whispering susurration as Jolene unzipped the body bag. The sound brought a flash of memory to Richard’s mind, for it echoed uncannily the sound of a snowboard sliding down the back of a moraine. The reaching arm, which T-Shirt had mistaken for a gesture of welcome, had been gently forced down by the men at Armstrong, its rigid length lowered inch by inch to the major’s side, until it fitted into the bag. Richard looked over. Yes, the arm seemed exactly as they had left it. A combination of rigor mortis and freezing temperatures had preserved the body like a marble statue. There seemed to be no sign of decomposition. Except that the eyelids had shrunk back a little, opening the brown eyes wide again, staring, hypnotic. And the major needed a shave.
‘May I ask what you are doing here?’ purred Varnek’s voice, surprisingly close at hand. Richard certainly had not heard him enter.
‘Examining the body. Special Agent Jones asked me to check on one or two things as a matter of urgency.’ Jolene had her answer pat and calm.
‘At this hour? A little macabre eccentricity?’
‘I had people to see. Questions to ask. I did the questioning first so they could get to bed. It’s going to be a busy day for everyone aboard when they wake up. Except the major here.’
Richard suspected Varnek knew about the questioning well enough. Even through the usual evening rush of getting the twins fed, amused, washed and tucked down, he himself had been aware of Jolene quietly pulling aside Colin and Kate, Billy Hoyle, the newly-awakened Killigan and the others, one after another, for a few more questions. Robin had escaped, the only one to do so apart from T-Shirt in his drugged slumber and Washington in his. ‘Would you come down and check him out with me?’ had been the last question she had levelled at him. Clearly, her talk with Agent Jones had fired and focused her investigation once again — the talk, he suspected acutely, plus a certain amount of guilt that she had been out with T-Shirt at the Razor instead of hard at work this afternoon.
Richard met Varnek’s suspicious gaze equably. ‘I’m just the hired help,’ he said. ‘Consider me as Dr Watson.’
The Russian’s eyes narrowed. His mind was obviously racing. Perhaps he had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.
Jolene had dismissed the first officer from her mind already. ‘Nothing obviously wrong at the front,’ she said. ‘Richard, can you lift him up for me and lie him on his side? I want to see the back of the suit.’
‘Of course.’ Richard turned away from Varnek. Jolene handed him a pair of surgical gloves which he had a bit of trouble pulling on. Varnek vanished. No doubt to alert the captain, thought Richard. Or Dr Fuckov.
But if he did, nothing came of it. With the gloves at last in place, Richard took the corpse’s shoulder and rolled the stiff body onto its side, holding it there while Jolene examined the back of the suit. The cold of the frozen flesh struck into his fingers. A slightly bitter, faintly acrid smell wafted past sensitive nostrils. Other bodily functions, apart from hair and nail growth, had continued after death. Things would get pretty messy once the suit came off, thought Richard grimly. But there was another vaguely familiar odour there as well; something not bodily at all …
‘Richard?’ said Jolene, her voice inflecting into mild surprise.
‘Yes?’ He pushed consideration of the strange smell to the back of his mind.
‘Are you sure the body didn’t look disturbed at all?’
‘The zipper may have been pulled down to expose the face a couple of times, but other than that he looks untouched to me. He’s set like rock. Anyone could roll him around and you wouldn’t notice afterwards, but no one could have taken the body out of the bag and moved it much I’d have said. We’re the first people to have moved him like this since we zipped him in the bag, I’d guess.’
‘Sounds logical.’
‘It’s the best I can do. Why is it so important?’
‘Because there’s a section missing back here. The suit looks fine at first glance but it’s not. The most important section of all has gone. If he went out without it, then that’s what killed him.’
‘That’s it, then. Case solved. He should have taken this bit with him but he forgot. He tried to tell them what was going on when he realised but he couldn’t get through. Accidental death.’
‘No. You don’t understand. He couldn’t have gone out without it. It’s just not possible. Unless someone set him up. Sent him out on purpose. We’re talking about the Power Strip, the most important part of a top secret, experimental space suit. It’s worth the annual budget of a small country. If it’s not where it should be then where the hell is it?’
‘OK,’ said Richard. ‘Case not solved after all. Case complicated. Two motives in prospect: either someone murdered the major, cold-bloodedly and with malice aforethought, and removing this special bit is how they did it —’
‘Or someone stole the Power Strip earlier and the major was unlucky enough to go out in the wrong suit at the wrong time and got caught up as collateral damage.’
‘Yes, except you said it couldn’t be quite as simple as that,’ said Richard, rolling the stiff corpse back into place. ‘By your own account nobody could have been so incompetent as to fail to notice the thing was missing, unless they skipped or fudged their tests for some reason. The more likely explanation is that they were involved with the theft of this Power Strip and let him go out without it knowingly!’
‘Billy Hoyle,’ she said. ‘Billy helped dress him. I know they skipped routines and fudged procedures then made up their case notes afterwards. And I’ve got all the records backed onto the six floppies in my cabin. I was going through them when the power surge on Erebus burned out my laptop.’
‘Really? I didn’t realise.’
‘And Billy knew I was. I’d already said … Richard, could he have been behind the power surge himself? Bribed or blackmailed that poor man to pull all those switches? The one everyone thought had cabin fever?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought Billy would have known who to bribe or blackmail, not being part of Erebus’s crew. But I wouldn’t put it past his bosom buddy Ernie Marshall.’
‘Is there any way we can check?’
‘We can ask Hugo Knowles. He’ll be on watch aboard Erebus. They’re keeping watches up even though they’ve made it to Faraday now.’
‘If Varnek will let us make the call.’
‘Why shouldn’t he?’ said Richard decisively, pulling off his surgical gloves. ‘We can only ask.’
Varnek was happy to oblige. He would have woken the radio officer for them, but since Erebus’s call sign and wavelength were in the radio’s digital memory, Richard could handle things himself. He raised not Hugo but Andrew Pitcairn.
‘Oh, hello, Richard. Yes, doing the midnight stint myself. Letting old Hugo catch up on some sleep. He’s still a bit below par, you know. What can I do for you?’
Richard explained.
‘Well, oddly enough,’ answered Andrew at once, ‘I was going to call Irene about Marshall in the morning. Yes. Baines, our fevered engineer, has coughed, as they say. He did
it all for love of a dark lady in a magazine at the prompting of Marshall and the request of one of the Americans. Chap called Hoyle, I understand. Both need a close eye, I think.’
‘I think we can arrange that,’ said Richard grimly. ‘A very close eye indeed.’
But for once he was wrong. As he spoke, it was just turning 1 a.m. Billy Hoyle was in hiding, terrified, and Ernie Marshall had been dead for more than ninety minutes.
*
The evening had begun so promisingly. Dr Glazov had completed her last ward round at half past nine and the two would-be wiseguys had crept out of bed unobserved and made their way to Mrs Agran’s cabin, laden with their trade goods and evil intentions. Less observant than Richard, though with much more reason to keep a careful lookout, they had no idea that their approach was closely monitored.
Vivien Agran’s cabin was the most lavish of all aboard except for the largest staterooms. She had fitted it out according to her own taste in a restful over-abundance of chairs and chintz, frills and prints. It was a room whose every velvet hanging, every silken whisper, every lingering scent of incense promised much. Even the office-cum-reception area boasted a statue in glazed terracotta of naked youths and maidens disporting themselves with a great bull in the Minoan style. The desk was massive, with ornate brass feet cast in the shape of dragons’ claws clutching big brass balls in their knotty grasp. A charcoal print hung above and behind the desk, in which Adam and Eve were involved in a lingeringly intricate discussion on the nature of good and evil with a suspiciously Freudian serpent. On the wall between the print and the bedroom doorway stood an unusually large porthole, clamped shut, and above it in watercolour a long Diana soaked herself languidly in a classical Greek river under the voyeuristic gaze of a hidden Actaeon. At the bedroom doorway itself, heavy draperies in red velvet were held invitingly open by a naked ebony youth on the right and a naked ebony maiden on the left. Behind the draperies the door stood open but the light remained off, velvety darkness concealing who knew what further pleasures.
None of this had much impact on Billy or Ernie because on either side of Mrs Agran sat two Bunny Girls, real, live, actual, with the trademark velvet throat bands, the ears, the tight, well-filled, black satin costumes. The little white cotton tails too, in all probability, but they were sitting demurely upon those.
‘Welcome to my quarters, gentlemen,’ said Mrs Agran, rising as her visitors entered. ‘Please just sit over there for a moment while I complete a little business.’ She sat again, fingers busy and sure upon her keyboard as she spoke. ‘Right, Gretchen, Anoushka. That was a good rehearsal. Well done. You will be on at about ten tomorrow night. You know which cakes to come out of later and what to do after that. Good enough.’
The two men watched, fixated, as the two white cottontails wavered out into the corridor.
‘Now, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’ asked Mrs Agran smoothly, looking up over the top of the only obviously modern thing there — her computer. Her fingers were still busy on the keyboard.
Ernie did the talking, at his most open and ingratiating. The effect was only marginally undermined by the fact that he kept looking directly at her perfectly presented cleavage. ‘We got a range of stuff which might be of interest to the, ah, well, the captive market you got on board here, Mrs A., and we hear that you’re the gel to ask.’
‘Stuff?’
‘Magazines, videos, adult CDs, pills. All good gear, as you can see. We brought a selection up with us.’ Actually they had brought everything, still in Ernie’s duffel bag, exactly as they had snatched it out of the major’s coffin where Hoyle had managed to conceal it. ‘The magazines obviously cater for all tastes. The straight stuff is probably of less interest to the passengers. They can get the real thing obviously. But the other stuff should go well. And there’s always the crew. The videos and CDs are pretty much the same. Wide range of —’
‘What sort of pills?’
‘Happy pills. A variety of types. Nothing too heavy. Recreational rather than mainline.’
‘Let me see.’
Ernie pulled a selection of merchandise out of his kitbag and dumped it on the desk. Mrs Agran leafed through the magazines, sorted the videos, ran a finger through the little pile of bright pills, her face set, expression closed. Then she popped a CD into her computer and called up the contents.
Unable to remain seated, Ernie was up and standing at her shoulder. From this favoured position he was able to divide his attention between the screen and the fragrant depths of her decolletage. ‘Ah, you chose a good one,’ he purred. ‘Nude Raider. Based on the kids’ game. But with a difference. In you go … There. Now you see the delightful Tara Loft has even less clothing than her counterpart, though equally large assets. Not quite so well animated, perhaps, but then … Of course the main objective of the original game is for the central character to keep out of trouble and kick ass. Here it’s rather the opposite. There. You see. If you just fail to miss those creepers … Well! Whoever would have thought a plant could do that, eh? And things get a good deal hairier further in. Poor Tara. She really has a very rough ride, especially at the higher levels. There are lots of other CDs, of course; live action ones. Much less sophisticated. More basic and immediate, if you follow my drift.’
‘I believe I do, Mr Marshall. Now, what exactly had you in mind for all these goods?’
‘Well, either to sell it to you direct if you want to add it to your own stock, or to sell it to your market ourselves, giving you a cut, of course. All fair and above board.’
‘I see. Add it to my stock.’ Vivien Agran rose, crossed to the wall beneath the charcoal sketch of Adam and Eve. There was a wide cupboard here which neither visitor had noticed. Vivien opened one side of it. ‘Take a look at my stock,’ she invited.
As soon as she moved, Billy Hoyle, sensing danger, tried to catch Ernie’s eye, but Ernie was focused on the manner in which Mrs Agran’s bottom, out of the chair now, filled the seat of her black satin skirt. And before Billy could take his arm or break his rapt concentration, Ernie was doing his hostess’s bidding. In the cupboard in the wall stood rank after rank of videos. The tapes left littered around the TV two decks below were mostly adult and explicit. The channel to which the TV itself was tuned routinely showed endless variations on the basic adult theme. These tapes, however, were designed to cater for those with more specialised, more expensive, tastes. They went far beyond anything Ernie had ever seen or imagined. Even the unfortunate Tara, currently doing some very unusual gardening indeed, paled into comic insignificance in the face of what Mrs Agran had to offer. The other cupboard door opened. Books, magazines, CDs. Again, merchandise at a level undreamed of by the two visitors.
Ernie had never met a woman he couldn’t charm, bamboozle or, if push came to shove, bully, so he pressed on gaily, laying on the Cockney charm with a trowel. ‘Now this is what I call gear. The biz. You got management? Protection for this lot? I bet I could do you a lot of good, dahlin’, if we could get to a mutually satisfactory compromise. What d’you say, gel?’
‘I say you’re well out of your league, Mr Marshall. You really do not know what you are dealing with. I would pack up my tent and move along if I were you.’
Ernie crowded up towards her, caught between lechery and threat. His arm pressed into one of her pneumatic breasts, unbalancing the perfection of her cleavage. Then their eyes met and he stepped back. On the second step he turned ugly. ‘Now you listen here, Viagra, or whatever they call you. You might be big stuff aboard this little tub surrounded by powder puffs, nancy boys and bunny girls, but I trained as a marine and I —’
‘Look,’ she said placatingly. ‘You haven’t seen everything yet. What about these? They are really something special. Virtual reality pornography.’ From the back of the cupboard she pulled two headsets which looked like thick pairs of wrap-around glasses and offered them to the men. ‘Sit down and take a look at what we’ve really got to offer,’ she tempted.
The pair of th
em sat and looked up at her, as gullible as Adam and Eve. They sat in the chairs beside her desk. They fitted the headsets over their eyes and, as they did so, she switched them on. Choking gasps came from tiny speakers in the arms of each one, sounds which could have been masculine or feminine; denoting pleasure or pain. Both men leaned forward, reaching out as though blind, their minds engaged instantly and disorientatingly in the drama that was being played out for their enjoyment.
As soon as she knew they were wholly absorbed, Vivien Agran rose and crossed silently to the door. She swung it open and there stood Vasily Varnek, summoned by the message from her computer to his. She glanced across the room to her unwelcome guests and raised her eyebrows. They were not the first who had tried to grab a piece of her action. They wouldn’t be the last. She and Varnek had an understanding and made a good team. He gestured silently with the blunt spade of his chin and she left. He entered silently, swinging the door shut soundlessly behind him. As he crossed the room, he pulled out of his pocket an old-fashioned cosh — a large egg of lead sitting on a heavy steel spring twenty centimetres long, wrapped in strongly stitched black leather. Without even pausing in his stride he brought the cosh down on the top of Ernie Marshall’s head, and swung round to do the same for Billy Hoyle. The stroke was meant to incapacitate, not kill. Varnek wanted the men dazed, helpless, open to reason — he planned to have a little talk with them. But it didn’t quite work like that. Ernie exploded upwards, his skull unexpectedly strong. The headset went spinning and he hurled himself straight at his assailant. Varnek turned, his blow smashing down onto Billy Hoyle’s shoulder, cracking his collarbone. Then Varnek rammed his elbow back, into Ernie’s face. The Englishman reared up and Varnek back-handed him across the forehead with the cosh.