The Snow Tiger / Night of Error

  I gave him a head start and then left for the court hearing. The encounter had been good for me, giving me something else to think about and making a vital connection in my story for Campbell. I had no time to tell Geordie about it, however, but savoured telling him afterwards.

  The inquest was simple and straightforward. A doctor gave evidence of death, then I went on the stand, followed immediately by Geordie. We stuck to straight facts and didn’t elaborate but I noticed that Geordie kept his bandaged finger prominently in view of the coroner. My neighbour spoke and then the police had their turn.

  As Geordie was giving evidence I glanced round the courtroom and saw Campbell sitting at the back. He nodded to me, then turned his attention to the proceedings.

  The Inspector made an appearance and confirmed that he had found a gun, a Beretta automatic pistol, hanging from the right-hand coat pocket of the deceased. The foresight was caught in the torn lining. I felt a lot better after this because it had been one of the points I had made myself. I looked the coroner straight in the eye and he didn’t avoid my glance – a good sign. The lack of identity of the dead man was briefly discussed.

  There was a surprise witness, at least to me – old Jarvis appeared to give expert testimony. He told the coroner what manganese nodules were and even produced one to show what the things looked like. The coroner prodded him a bit about their value and Jarvis responded in his downright, damn-your-eyes way. But that was just for the record.

  Then suddenly it was over. The coroner took little time to decide that death was due to justifiable manslaughter. He wound everything up with a pontifical speech to the effect that while an Englishman’s home may be his castle, no man had the right to take the law into his own hands and that if a little more care had been taken, in his opinion, a death could have been averted. However what was done was done, and Mr Michael Trevelyan was free to leave the court without a stain on his character.

  We all stood up when he swept out and there was a general drift to the doors. An official elbowed his way up to me and gave me a note. It was brief and to the point. ‘See you at the Dorchester. Campbell.’

  I passed it to Geordie as he reached me to slap me heavily on the back. ‘I hope this means what I think it means,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a lot to tell you.’

  We drifted out with the crowd and were eventually deposited on the pavement. A lot of people I didn’t know congratulated me on killing a man and getting away with it, some reporters had a lot of questions to ask, and at last I caught sight of the man I was looking for. I ran to catch up with him, Geordie behind me. It was Professor Jarvis.

  He saw me coming, waved his stick and waited for me to join him.

  ‘Well, that went off all right, my boy,’ he said.

  ‘You did your bit – thank you.’

  ‘Damned fools,’ he grumbled. ‘Everyone knows that those nodules are basically worthless – not an economic proposition at all.’

  ‘I wondered if you had a moment to talk to me – here, rather than at the Institute,’ I asked him. There seemed to be no difficulty and we sat down on the low stone wall outside the courthouse, enjoying the thin watery sunshine.

  ‘I have nothing to tell you, young man,’ the Professor said. ‘I made a few enquiries about that chap, Norgaard, but there’s nothing doing. The feller seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.’

  ‘When was the last you heard of him?’

  ‘About six, seven months ago – when he was with your brother. They were fossicking about in the islands round Tahiti.’

  ‘When did Norgaard start working with Mark?’ I asked.

  ‘Now let me see. It must have been nearly two years ago, after Mark left that Canadian firm he was working for. Yes, that was it – after he had to leave the IGY project he went to Canada and was with that chap Campbell for over two years, then he left to join up with Norgaard. What they were doing I don’t know; they didn’t publish anything.’

  His grasp of events was remarkable, I thought, and then seized on something he had said. ‘What do you mean – had to leave the IGY?’

  Jarvis actually looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have said that,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I’d like to know. It can’t hurt Mark now.’

  ‘It’s bad form. De mortuis – and all that, don’t you know.’

  ‘Out with it,’ I said. ‘After all, it’s all in the family.’

  Jarvis regarded the tip of his highly polished shoe. ‘Well, I never did get to the bottom of it – it was hushed up, you know – but apparently Mark fudged some of his results.’

  ‘Faked his figures?’

  ‘That’s right. It was found out by sheer chance. Of course he had to leave. But we – the IGY agreed not to make any more of it, so he was able to get the job in Canada, after he resigned.’

  ‘So that’s why he left before it was over. I wondered about that. What was he working on at the time?’

  Jarvis shrugged. ‘I don’t recall, but it certainly had to do with the underwater surveys. Manganese nodules, perhaps?’ Not too shrewd a guess, all things considered; but I didn’t like it. He went on, ‘I never did like your brother. I never trusted him and the fact that he cooked his books didn’t surprise me a bit.’

  I said, ‘That’s all right – lots of people didn’t like Mark. I wasn’t too keen on him myself. And it wasn’t the first time he rigged his results. He did the same at school.’ And at university. Not to mention his personal life.

  Jarvis nodded. ‘I’m not surprised at that either. Still, my boy, I don’t mistrust the whole Trevelyan family. You’re worth ten of your brother, Mike.’

  ‘Thanks, Prof.,’ I said warmly.

  ‘Forget all this and enjoy your leave now. The South Atlantic is waiting for you when you return.’

  He turned and strode away, jauntily waving his stick. I looked after him with affection; I thought he would be genuinely sorry to lose me if the deal with Campbell came off and I went to the South Pacific instead of the South Atlantic. He would once more angrily bewail the economic facts of life which drew researchers into industry and he would write a few acid letters to the journals.

  I turned to Geordie. ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘Norgaard vanished just about the same time that Mark kicked the bucket. I wonder if …’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Geordie. Is Norgaard still alive? I do hope to God Campbell comes through – I want to do some field work in the islands.’

  ‘You had something to tell me,’ he reminded me. But I had decided to save it up.

  ‘I’ll tell you and Campbell together. Come with me to see him.’

  V

  Campbell was less crusty than at our first meeting. ‘Well,’ he said, as we entered his suite, ‘I see you’re not entirely a hardened criminal, Trevelyan.’

  ‘Not a stain on my character. The coroner said so.’ I introduced Geordie and the two big men sized one another up with interest. ‘Mr Wilkins is willing to contribute a ship – and skipper her, too.’

  Campbell said, ‘I see someone has faith in your crazy story. I suppose that getting hurt added to your conviction.’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked.

  He ignored this and asked what we would drink. ‘We must celebrate a successful evasion of the penalty of the law,’ he said, almost jovially. He ordered and we got down to business. I decided to keep the Kane episode to be revealed at the proper moment and first hear what Campbell had to say.

  ‘I knew my hunch about your South Americans would work out,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a pretty good intelligence system – you have to in my line of work – and I find that Suarez-Navarro are fitting out a research ship in Darwin right at this moment. It’s new business and new territory for them, so my guess is that they are heading your way.’

  I looked at him blankly. That didn’t mean a thing to me.

  I think he enjoyed my lack of comprehension because he left me dangling for a while before elucidating. �
�Suarez-Navarro is a South American mining house, active in several countries,’ he said. ‘I’ve tangled with them before – they’re a crowd of unscrupulous bastards. Now, why would a mining house be fitting out an oceanographical research ship?’

  ‘Nodules,’ said Geordie succinctly.

  ‘How unscrupulous are they?’ I asked. ‘Would they stoop to burglary?’ I didn’t mention murder.

  Campbell folded his hands together. ‘I’ll tell you the story and let you judge for yourself. Once I had a pretty good set-up in South America, never mind just where. The mines were producing well and I ploughed a lot back in the interests of good labour relations. I had a couple of schools, a hospital and all the civilized trimmings. Those Indian miners never had it so good, and they responded well.

  ‘Suarez-Navarro cast an eye on the operation and liked the look of it. They went about things in their own smelly way, though. They had a trouble-shooter, a guy called Ernesto Ramirez, whom they used for that type of operation. He pitched up, got at the government, greased a few palms, supported the Army, and then suddenly there was a new government – which promptly expropriated the mines in the interests of the national economy – or that’s what they said. Anyway, I never got a cent out of it. They just took the lot and Ramirez vanished back into the hole they dug him out of.

  ‘The next thing that happened was that the government wanted somebody to run the mines, so Suarez-Navarro offered to take on the job out of the kindness of their hearts and a hefty percentage of the profits. I had been paying 38 per cent tax but Suarez-Navarro got away tax free since they claimed it was really government property anyway. They had a sweet set-up.

  ‘They closed the schools and the hospital – those things don’t produce, you see. Pretty soon they had a strike on their hands. If you treat a man like a man he kind of resents going back to being treated like a pig – so there was a strike. That brought Ramirez out of his hole fast. He called in the Army, there was quite a bit of shooting, and then there was suddenly no strike – just fifty dead Indians and quite a few widows.’

  He smiled grimly. ‘Does that answer your question about the scruples of Suarez-Navarro?’

  I nodded. It was a nasty story.

  Campbell seemed to go off at a tangent. ‘I’m attending a conference here in London, a conference on mineral resources.’

  ‘That’s how I found you,’ I murmured, but he took no notice.

  ‘It’s a Commonwealth deal really but various other interested parties have been invited to send observers. Suarez-Navarro have two – you can’t keep them out of anything – but another one arrived last week. His name is Ernesto Ramirez.’ Campbell’s voice was hard. ‘Ramirez isn’t a conference man, he’s not a negotiator. He’s Suarez-Navarro’s muscle man. Do I make my point?’

  We both nodded, intently.

  ‘Well, I’m going to hammer it home really hard. I’ve found Kane for you.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ I said.

  ‘You were going about it the hard way. I put someone on to watch Ramirez and was told that a man called Kane had a two-hour talk with him yesterday. We had Kane followed to where he’s in digs and I have the address.’

  I reeled it off.

  It was effective. Campbell said, ‘What?’ disbelievingly, and Geordie gaped at me. I enjoyed my moment.

  ‘Kane came to visit me this morning,’ I said, and told them both what had happened. ‘I suggest you get him down to the docks and have a serious talk with him,’ I said to Geordie.

  Campbell frowned and then his great smile broke on his face. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask him a damn thing. Don’t you see what’s happening?’

  Geordie and I shrugged helplessly. We weren’t quick enough for Campbell in matters like this.

  ‘Ever heard of industrial espionage? Of course you have. Every big outfit runs a spy system. I do it myself – don’t much like it, but I’ve got to keep up with the hard-nosed bastards in the business.’ He actually looked as if he enjoyed it very much. ‘Now let’s reconstruct what’s been happening. You got hold of something you shouldn’t have – from the point of view of Suarez-Navarro. Ramirez hotfoots it to England – he arrived the day before Kane came to see you, so it’s a cinch they came together. Kane comes to you to find out if Mark’s stuff has arrived yet, and he knows it has because you tell him so yourself. He spins you a yarn as cover – it doesn’t really matter what it is. Then Ramirez tells his boys to snatch the stuff but you surprise them in the middle.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Does that make sense so far?’

  Geordie said, ‘It makes sense to me.’

  I said nothing. I was a little more doubtful, but if this served to keep up Campbell’s interest I was all for it.

  He continued, ‘But something goes wrong – they leave the diary and one nodule. Ramirez doesn’t know this, but he does know you’ve contacted me and that all sorts of enquiries are out – including questions in court about nodules. Oh yes, I bet he was there – or someone for him. He must have had a shock when you came to see me. You see, he’d keep a tail on you as a matter of routine just to see if you did anything out of the ordinary – and you did. So what does Ramirez do now?’

  ‘I’ll buy it,’ I said. ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He lays Kane alongside you again,’ said Campbell. ‘You gave him the perfect opportunity – you practically invited Kane to come back. It’s Kane’s job to find out what, if anything, is in the wind. But what Ramirez doesn’t know is that you were suspicious of Kane right from the start, and this gives us a perfect opportunity. We string Kane along – employ him, feed him any information we want him to know and keep from him anything we don’t want him to know. We also keep him underfoot and don’t lose him again. That’s why you mustn’t ask him any awkward questions – not right now, anyway.’

  I thought about it for a long time. ‘Does this mean you’re coming in with us? Putting up the finance?’

  ‘You’re damn right it does,’ snapped Campbell. ‘If Suarez-Navarro are going to all this trouble they must be on to something big, and I’d like to stab them in the back just for old times’ sake. I’ll put up half a million dollars – or whatever it takes – and I ask only one thing. That we get there, and do it, before they can.’

  Geordie said gently, ‘It was a good idea of mine, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Campbell.

  ‘Geordie’s recruiting a private army,’ I explained. ‘As he gets older he gets more bloodthirsty.’

  A look passed between them for the second time that made me feel like the outsider. Without saying a word they were in full accord on many levels, and for a moment I felt very inexperienced indeed.

  Campbell said, ‘There’s another thing. My doctor is troubled about my health, the goddam quack. He’s been pestering me to take a sea voyage, and I’m suddenly minded to accept his advice. I’m coming along for the ride.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ I said. I wasn’t surprised.

  He turned to Geordie. ‘Now, what kind of a ship have you, Captain?’

  ‘A brigantine,’ said Geordie. ‘About two hundred tons.’

  Campbell’s jaw dropped. ‘But that’s a little sailing ship! This is supposed to be a serious project.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ I said, grinning at Geordie who was already bristling at any slight to Esmerelda. ‘A lot of research vessels are sailing ships; there happen to be a number of sound reasons.’

  ‘All right. Let’s hear them.’

  ‘Some of the reasons are purely technical,’ I said. ‘For instance, it’s easier to make a sailing ship non-magnetic than a powered ship. Magnetism plays hell with all sorts of important readings. But the reasons you’ll appreciate are purely economic.’

  ‘If you’re talking economics you’re talking my language,’ he growled.

  ‘A research ship never knows exactly where it’s going. We might find ourselves dredging a thousand miles away from the nearest land. Station keeping and dredging
take power and fuel, and an engine powered ship would need a hell of a lot of fuel to make the round trip.

  ‘But a sailing ship can make the journey and arrive on station with close on full tanks, given careful management. She can keep on station longer and no one need worry about whether there’ll be enough fuel to get back. You could use a powered ship to do the job but it would cost you – oh, a million pounds plus. Geordie’s boat will be fine.’

  ‘The day’s not been wasted,’ Campbell said. ‘I’ve learned something new. I reckon you know your job, Trevelyan. What will you need in the way of equipment?’

  So we got down to it. The biggest item was the winch, which was to be installed amidships, and storage space for 30,000 feet of cable below it. There was also to be a laboratory for on-the-spot analysis and all the necessary equipment would take a lot of money, and a lot of refitting.

  ‘We’ll need a bloody big generator for this lot,’ said Geordie. ‘It looks as though it’ll take a diesel bigger than the main engine. Lucky, isn’t it, that charter tourists take up so much space with luxuries.’

  Presently Campbell suggested lunch, so we went down to the dining room to do some more planning over grilled steaks. It was arranged that I should concentrate on collecting equipment while Geordie prepared Esmerelda and got his crew together. Very little was said concerning the location, or the availability, of the strange treasure we were after, and I knew that I alone could come up with anything of use there. I had some heavy studying ahead of me as well as all the rest.

  ‘If you take on Kane it’ll mean we’ve got him in our sights,’ said Campbell, harping back to his favourite subject. ‘Not that it makes any difference. Ramirez is sure to have other scouts out. I’ll be watching him too.’

  I’d been thinking about Kane.

  ‘Your review of the situation was very well in its way, but it was wrong on one point.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Campbell.

  ‘You said that Kane spun me a yarn as cover, and that it didn’t matter what it was. That’s not entirely so, you know – we have independent evidence. The death certificate states the cause of death as appendicitis. Kane and Schouten both told the same lie and I’d like to know why.’