Night Of Error

by Desmond Bagley

  In the saloon I helped Taffy to lay Campbell on a settee and said in a low voice, 'You're sure Danny was killed?'

  'I'm sure,' Taffy said tightly. 'He was stabbed in the chest. God, the blood!'

  I looked at Campbell. His eyes were open but unfocussed. I said, forcing my voice to a normal conversational pitch, The old boy's had a nasty knock. You'll find some water in the liquor cabinet, Ian.'

  I looked around for Clare and found her coming to my side. Hadley had let her go and she was very pale but fully composed. Our hands found each others for an instance and then she was looking at the blood on her fingertips. 'Mike, you're hurt!'

  That can wait. It's nothing. You'd better see to your father first.'

  She went to him and began to sponge his head with a cloth dipped in the jug of water Ian held for her, her face clouded with fear and worry.

  Paula was thrust into the saloon. She stumbled and nearly fell as her guard gave her a brutal shove before he took up a position near the door, his rifle pointing at us. I took her arm to steady her. 'Paula – are you all right?'

  'I guess so,' she gasped. 'I've still got a whole skin.' She looked round and then said to me in a lower voice, 'I saw them putting two of our men in the cable hold, Mike – and they've hauled in the motor launch too.'

  'Christ!' said Geordie. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and looked without surprise at the blood. He did a quick calculation on his fingers and then said, 'The two on board must have been Shorty and Davie Blake – the rest of us are here or -'

  Paula took him up. 'Nick Dugan end young Martin were in the launch. I saw them both. I don't know about the other.'

  They were the only two who had been in the launch, and it wasn't surprising that Ramirez had spotted them and fetched them back. But there were still Jim and Rex Larkin in the dinghy, and Bill Hunter. I had a faint surge of hope – had Ramirez missed them? And if so, could they stay hidden in that misty, turbulent sea? Geordie and I exchanged a glance and then looked quickly away.

  I crossed over to Taffy, who was helping Clare, and made to assist him. 'Looks as though this is an officer's party, Taffy. You'd better stay pretty quiet unless you want to join the rest of the boys – they're in the cable hold.'

  He nodded. 'I'll be all right,' he said, and rubbed the back of his neck in a curious gesture as if he had been hurt there.

  One of the men with rifles said in Spanish, 'No speaking! Be silent, all of you.' I pretended not to understand and started to speak, but this time the gesture that went with the repeated instruction was clear, and I subsided. I had time to assess the situation now.

  Neither Ramirez nor Hadley had actually entered the saloon with us – there were only the two armed guards. We were seven, and in the cable hold there were possibly four men. Danny lay dead on the deck – I could barely make myself think about that – and three were, with any luck, still at large.

  I decided to try a gamble.

  'It will be all right to let us speak,' I said in the best Spanish I could muster. 'Mr Ramirez will permit it.'

  They glanced at one another, and one of them shrugged. I had guessed correctly – they were so accustomed to being given orders that they would accept this one even from me, spoken as it had been with an air of authority. I turned to Geordie and told him what I had said in Spanish, with a wary eye to the rifles, but to my relief the guards gave no further sign of stopping us.

  Geordie said, 'What happens now?'

  'That's not up to us. Ramirez has the next move, and I don't like to think what that will be. We can't do much while they're around.' I jerked my head very slightly in the direction of the guards.

  'Seven here, four below,' Geordie murmured. He had done the same arithmetic that I had. 'And three – somewhere.'

  I looked at Campbell who seemed to be recovering. 'They're a murderous lot of bastards, aren't they?'

  'I wish I'd given Jim his head when he wanted to blow a hole in Sirena,' said Geordie viciously.

  'Wishful thinking won't help us now. What bothers me most is that I think that's what they may be going to do to us.'

  He shook his head irritably and we all lapsed into silence. Clare came over to me, unbuttoned my shirt, and proceeded to patch up what luckily proved to be no more than a skin graze, though it hurt me more than the slight wound warranted. I thanked God that we kept small first aid kits all over the ship. As she worked I felt her hands shaking just a little, and I grasped them to try and reassure her, but it was a wretched attempt.

  There was a lot of movement on deck and a great deal of shouting. Ian looked up at the deckhead speculatively. 'I'm thinking they're having trouble, skipper. There's a hell of a tangle at the masthead.'

  That was all to the good. The longer they took to separate the two ships the more time we would have to think of a way out of this mess. I looked at the guards and felt very depressed. They looked as though they'd murder their grandmothers for two pesetas, and they'd certainly have no qualms about shooting us if we tried anything.

  It was nearly an hour before anything happened. We used the time to some little advantage; all of us achieved better control over ourselves and Clare brought her father to a degree of coherence. He had a pretty bad concussion – his speech was affected, although his thinking seemed clear enough.

  'Goddam sonsa-biches,' he said indistinctly. 'Why d'you quit, Mike?'

  'Hadley had Clare,' I said briefly.

  'Haaaah,' he sighed, and sagged back on the settee. 'I shoulda lef her behind,' he muttered. 'Never lissen to a woman, Mike.' He closed his eyes and turned his head away, and Clare and I exchanged worried looks across his head.

  'It's my fault,' Geordie burst out. 'I should have kept the lads up to scratch. We should have kept watch. We shouldn't have been surprised like that.'

  'Shut up, Geordie,' I said. 'That won't get us anywhere. There's no blame – not on us. We weren't looking for trouble.'

  'Aye,' said Ian softly. 'Yon Ramirez has a lot to answer for.'

  Presently there was a rattle at the door and one of the guards opened it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Taffy slide into a corner, half-hidden behind the settee, and then Ramirez came in, as elegant as ever. 'I trust you are comfortable,' he said solicitously.

  'Let's not have any blarney,' I said bluntly. 'What's the next move, Ramirez?'

  He smiled, and seemed to be enjoying a huge joke.

  'Why, I have to introduce you to someone,' he said.

  He leaned out of the door and beckoned to someone in the passage. He turned back to me and said, 'I told you once that you shouldn't make libellous statements that you couldn't substantiate.'

  The man who came into the saloon was about my size, dark and heavily bearded. He carried my laboratory notebook in one hand.

  Ramirez said, 'An old friend for you. I think you all know Mr Mark Trevelyan.'* 2*

  As I looked into Mark's eyes I think my heart seemed to miss three full beats and I felt the hairs bristle on the nape of my neck. It isn't often that one is confronted by a dead man -especially a dead brother.

  There was a sound as of a long-pent breath being released throughout the saloon and then the silence was total. Ian was the first to stir. 'That's the mannie I found…'

  His voice tailed off as Mark switched his eyes to him. 'Ah, Ian Lewis. So it was you who clobbered me, was it?' he said pleasantly, and then his voice hardened. 'You'd have done better to stay in your Highland hovel, you Scots peasant.'

  The whole pattern of events of the last few months had suddenly been shuffled like the pieces in a kaleidoscope, to present an entirely new picture. It was no wonder that Ian hadn't recognised the bearded man he found on our raid on Sirena; he had last seen Mark as a boy. I might have recognised him, but I hadn't taken the trouble to look. We weren't looking for a dead man that night in Nuku'alofa.

  I looked round at the others. Their expressions were a mixture of amazement and slowly dawning comprehension. Clare gave Mark one long, measured look, t
hen made a small contemptuous sound and turned back to her father. Campbell took her by the wrist protectively, never taking his eyes off Mark. He said nothing.

  Ian was furious and showed it, while Geordie merely stared speculatively at Mark under lowered brows. Paula had made a sudden move as if to go to him, but she shrank back and hid in the shadows at Geordie's back. Taffy didn't show himself at all.

  Of them all, Mark was watching me. 'Hello, Mike,' he said soberly.

  I said, 'Mark, for God's sake – I'

  He was urbane where I was dumbfounded. He lifted the notebook and some papers in his hand. 'I've been rooting about in your laboratory. So kind of you to have done the preliminary survey for me. I couldn't have done it better myself.'

  He dropped the papers on the table.

  Ian looked at him with black anger in his eyes. 'I wish that I'd hit you a bit harder,' he said harshly.

  Mark smiled at him but said nothing. He picked up my notebook again and flicked the pages with one hand. 'We seem to have struck it rich, Mike. There may be billions in all this, don't you agree? A pity you wasted your time but never mind, you saved me a bit of work.'

  I spoke through a dry throat. 'You're a bastard, Mark.'

  'Oh, come on, Mike. Aren't you maligning mother?'

  He looked around. 'And who else have we? Yes, Wilkins, isn't it? What's it like on Tyneside these days, Geordie?'

  Geordie showed his disgust. 'A bit cleaner than this saloon.'

  'We will have our little jokes,' said Mark lightly. 'And my dear old boss, Mr Campbell, the fallen warrior – and Clare. I'm sorry you had to be here, Clare.'

  She refused to look at him and said nothing. It irked Mark and he shrugged petulantly, turned away and peered behind Geordie. 'And who's the young lady sitting in the shadow?' he asked. 'I didn't know you were such a one for the ladies, Mike.'

  He moved round the table and stopped suddenly. His face went very pale. 'Paula!' he whispered. He turned his head quickly to Ramirez. 'You didn't tell me she was aboard.'

  Ramirez shrugged. 'Just another woman,' he said casually. For an instant they glared at one another and I had an insight into their relationship.

  Paula stood up. 'Mark – oh Mark! I thought you were dead. Why didn't you come to me, Mark? Why didn't you trust me?'

  Ramirez laughed softly.

  Mark actually looked troubled. 'I'm truly sorry,' he said. 'Sorry you had to be on this ship.' He made a curious gesture as though wiping her away, and a prickle ran up my spine. In that one sudden movement he had rejected us all – wiped us out of his world.

  Paula took a step forward. 'But Mark, I…'

  Ramirez snapped out a curt phrase in Spanish and one of the guards lifted his rifle. The meaning was unmistakable.

  Paula stopped dead and looked at Mark with the comprehension of horror. His eyes flickered and he looked away from her and she slowly fell back into a chair and buried her face in her hands. I heard the racking sobs that shook her, and saw Clare move to put her arms round her shoulders.

  I had to force myself to speak calmly. 'We all thought you were dead. Why did you do it?'

  ' I had to die,' he said. He perked up – the change of subject took his mind off Paula. 'The police were after me and getting a little too close, so I conveniently killed myself.'

  I suddenly knew another black truth. 'You did kill Sven Norgaard, didn't you.'

  He turned on me. 'What else could I do?' he said defensively. 'The bloody fool wanted to publish. Him and his bloody scientific integrity – he wanted to give it all away, billions of dollars that belonged to me – to me, do you hear that? I made the discovery, didn't I?' His voice tailed off, and then he added softly, 'I had to kill him.'

  The silence was murderous and we all stared at the ego-maniacal horror that was my brother. He straightened up and said, 'And then I killed myself. The police would never look for a dead murderer. Wasn't that pretty clever of me, Mike?'

  'It was stupid,' I said flatly. 'But then you always were a stupid man.'

  His hand crashed on the table and we all jerked at the sudden violence. Only Ramirez watched him unmoved and dispassionate. 'It wasn't stupid!' he yelled. 'It was a damn good idea! But I'm surrounded by bungling idiots.'

  'Like Kane and Hadley,' I said.

  That's right, them,' he agreed, suddenly calm again. 'Those damn fools gave me appendicitis, of all things. I could have killed that madman, Hadley – there was no need to invent extra details.'

  'I'm sure you could,' I said. 'But it was you who bungled it. You should have told them precisely what to say.'

  He betrayed for the first time his lack of authority. 'It had nothing to do with me,' he said sullenly. 'Ernesto fixed it.'

  I shot a sidelong glance at Ramirez. 'So he's a bungler too?'

  Ramirez smiled sardonically and Mark said nothing. I went on, 'You bungled again when Hadley let your papers and the nodules go. You should have taken them with you – that was bad planning.'

  'They got them back though.'

  'Not quite, Mark. I had a nodule still – and I had your diary.'

  He reacted to that with white-faced fury, then subsided and nodded thoughtfully. 'You were lucky. You read it?'

  'Oh yes,' I said casually. 'A simple code, really.' And watched him swallow his ire yet again as item by item I did my best to undermine his self-confidence. Then he suddenly laughed.

  That lunatic, Hadley. But you all thought I was dead anyway. And poor old Ernesto here was getting all the blame. That was really funny.'

  Ramirez, who had been leaning negligently against the bulkhead, suddenly straightened, his face cold. This is a pointless conversation,' he said shortly.

  Mark said, 'Let me have my fun, old boy. It isn't often a corpse can hold an inquest on himself. I'm getting a kick out of it.'

  Ramirez looked at him contemptuously. 'All right. It won't make any difference,' he said dismissively. I knew that he was only waiting for word that his crew had separated the two ships before he did what he was going to do – and I had a good idea what that was.

  I rubbed my ear – there seemed to be something getting in the way of my hearing, and Ramirez's voice had seemed to vibrate in a curious way. The ship creaked and rocked uneasily, and I wondered what was really happening outside. But it was also important to me to hear what my brother had to say, and I pushed the thoughts that were bothering me to the background.

  'My inquest,' Mark said again. 'Let's develop this interesting theme.'

  'Yes, let's do that,' said Campbell suddenly.

  I turned to find him sitting up on the settee, waving away Clare and Ian. 'Let's do that,' he repeated, and I noticed that his voice was stronger and his speech clearer. 'Let's consider the burning of a hospital and the murder of a doctor and fourteen of his patients.'

  Mark flinched. 'I didn't do that. It was Hadley again.'

  'Hadley again,' I said caustically. 'You sound as pure as Hadley's pal Kane.'

  'You condoned it,' said Campbell relentlessly.

  'It was nothing to do with me. I didn't even know about it until afterwards. That man's beyond controlling.'

  Ramirez had picked up my injudicious reference to Kane and was looking at me enquiringly. He was very acute.

  'You have spoken to Kane again, Mr Trevelyan? He was supposed to come to me in Nuku'alofa, but I didn't see him there.'

  I tried to make the best of my slip. 'Yes, we've spoken to him. He's told us a great deal too – enough to condemn the lot of you, so think carefully about what you're planning, Ramirez.'

  'Might one ask where he is?'

  'Where you won't find him, and all ready to sing like a bird.'

  He looked thoughtful and did not speak again for a mo ment, and Campbell, sensing a faint opening, was quick to take advantage.

  'What were you planning to do with us? It won't work now, you know.'

  'You speak stupidly,' Ramirez said. Mark watched us fascinated, all his boasting silenced. He'd shocked us but he'd
failed to impress us, and now things were taking a turn that he didn't like. It was slowly becoming obvious to me that in spite of Mark's almost insane posturing, it was Ramirez who was the more powerful of the two, and possibly the more dangerous.

  Campbell said, 'You've decided that you can't leave us alive, haven't you? That would be too much to expect. You've already killed some seventeen people – another dozen or so won't make any difference. But you won't get away with it. We have covered our tracks, Ramirez, and for another thing your own crew will talk about all this, sooner or later.'

  It was a bold try and I had never admired Campbell more.

  Ramirez threw back his head and laughed. 'My crew -those morons?' He gestured to the stolid guards. 'Those oafs? They do what I tell them and nothing else. They have no mind of their own – I am the only brain they have. And who would believe them if they talked? They have never understood what it is all about, not one of them. Besides, that can be taken care of too.'

  'A series of unfortunate accidents?' asked Campbell sardonically.

  'Regrettable, isn't it?'

  I listened to this ghastly conversation with a feeling of unreality. Ramirez was prepared to kill us without compunction. What was more, he was equally prepared to kill his own crew as well. I could just imagine how it would be arranged. The men would be well paid, split up and dispersed and then there would be, as Campbell foresaw, a series of accidents. A man found dead in a harbour here, a fatal car smash there, until the whole crew was disposed of.

  'All right,' Campbell was saying. 'You still won't get away with it. Quite apart from Kane's evidence, you don't suppose I haven't made my own arrangements, do you? My agents have sealed letters which will be handed to the police if I don't turn up somewhere soon. There's going to be one hell of an investigation if I go missing.'

  'You're an old fool,' said Ramirez brutally, the gloves off at last. 'The barometer has dropped three points in the last hour, there's a storm coming up and that thing out there is going crazy. You're going to be lost at sea – the lot of you. We will not be anywhere near here. There will be no proof- no proof of any thing.'