High Water

by Douglas Reeman

  He stopped his racing mind, angrily, but he had to find the plates, there was no time for doubt.

  He turned slowly, examining the gardens. The housekeeper was evidently out, enjoying her night off, and he would be able to work undisturbed.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned his attention back to the doors. Through the panes, he could see the catch. It should be fairly easy. Moistening his lips, he slipped off his jacket, and held it across the middle pane, then with a quick jab of his fist, he sent the glass tinkling inwards on to the carpet. It had sounded like a shop window falling out, in the stillness of the garden, but as he waited, his head craned on one side, he knew that no one would have heard.

  He buttoned his jacket, and with a suddenly calm deliberation, opened the door, and stepped into the room. Once having made sure that the door was properly shut again, and the thick curtains were drawn, Vivian groped his way blindly across the room towards the door. He gasped with pain, as his shins collided with some unyielding object in his path, and then, as his hands felt the wall in front of him, he touched the light switches.

  For some moments he stood blinking in the sudden, dazzling light, and rubbing his shins to ease the pain. He noted that the cause of his injury was a small coffee table. The room was much as he remembered it, with its bowls of flowers, and rich, shining furniture. As his glance fell on the heavy, oak desk by the window, he saw that most of its drawers had been left open, and various oddments of paper were scattered across the unused blotting pad. He examined them briefly, feeling a strange pang of guilt, but as there seemed to be nothing of any help to his present task, he decided to go further into the house, and find Jensen's workshop, which Lang had mentioned.

  As he crossed the soft carpet, and stepped into the darkened hallway, he cursed himself for not bringing his torch, for at any moment he felt that he was about to crash into some other piece of furniture, or ornament, and accordingly, he found himself walking in the stance of a sleepwalker.

  As he rounded the corner of a narrow passage, which led off the main entrance hall, his uncertain footsteps sounded loud and heavy, while the sleeve of his reefer jacket scraped eerily against the panelled wall. Then he stiffened, and stood stock still, his eyes fixed unbelievingly on a thin thread of light, which seemed to hang horizontally across his path. As he watched, his heart thumping painfully against his ribs, he realized that he was looking at a light from under a closed door.

  He peered round in the darkness, listening for a sound, but there was nothing but the steady tick of the grand father clock behind him in the hallway.

  He reached out, his fingers running lightly round the edges of the door, which appeared to be heavily studded with iron bolts, and the handle, when he eventually found it, was the old ring pattern, like a huge doorknocker.

  Very gently, and not daring to breathe, he started to turn the heavy handle, the metal cold to the touch, and as the mechanism clicked, he felt the door start to open in his grasp, the hinges moving with silent, well-oiled precision.

  Squinting his eyes, he allowed the door to open very slowly, taking in every section of the small, cellar-like room before him. The walls were rough stone, and apart from a covering of what looked like whitewash, were completely bare. It must have been the original part of the building, he thought, as his eyes travelled across the smooth, stoneflagged floor, also uncovered, but for a few odd scraps of carpet.

  A long, wooden rack had been erected at one side of the room, and from it hung several full-length travel posters, recently completed, and looking strange, and out of place. A laughing girl in a flowered dress waved to him from a steamer on the Rhine, and beside her, on a partly finished poster, loomed the grey bulk of Edinburgh Castle.

  So this was the workshop. He took one last glance behind him at the dark passage, and then pushed the door wide, revealing the rest of the room. A compact mass of equipment met his startled gaze, drawing boards, piles of paper, printing frames, all scattered in orderly confusion.

  The door thudded behind him, and he stood, hands on hips, wondering where to start his search.

  Funny about him going off and leaving the lights on, and the door unlocked. Perhaps he would be coming back soon. His eyes fell on some old tin boxes at the back of the drawing tables, they looked as if they would be a good place to start.

  He stepped lightly across to a tray of paints, their surfaces shining in the light. `Hello,' he murmured, `someone's upset a whole tin here.' He rounded the end of the tables, and as he glanced casually along the floor, his heart leapt, and he felt a wave of sickening horror break over him. He was looking into the frozen eyes of Nils Jensen. For a moment, he was quite unable to move, it was like opening a door, expecting to meet an old friend, and suddenly finding a frenzied maniac. The twisted body was sprawled between the legs of the tables, one arm flung out like a dancer's, and the other curled unnaturally beneath him.

  Vivian forced himself to look at the face, which seemed to have shrunk to the very shape of a skull, while the thick, grey hair added to the macabre and ghastly appearance.

  Gently, Vivian felt the claw-like hand, and shuddered at its cold chill, and although he had seen many dead men in his life, it was all he could do to force down the sour taste of vomit, as he turned the old man on to his side. The back of his head gaped open, like some obscene, scarlet flower.

  His eye followed the dark smear along the floor, a sob rising in his throat. He had thought it was paint. And then rested on the pencil, still clutched in the thin, twisted fingers.

  Vivian stood up, his brain surprisingly clear, a feeling of scalding anger making him tremble. With narrowed' eyes, he tried to reset the scene. Jensen must have been sitting at the farthest table, the stool now lay where it had been thrown, and after his assailant had struck him from behind, he had crawled along the floor, to die amongst the pictures he had loved.

  'Mason!' Vivian spoke the name aloud. 'I'll get you for this, if it's the last thing I ever do!'

  He knelt again at the old man's side, staring unafraid at the piercing eyes, which shone in the lamplight like two pieces of cut glass, then, as if in a final salute, he reached out, and brushed the lock of hair from the wrinkled forehead. Poor, foolish, gentle, old man, he thought, his eyes moist. I hope you're with your family now.

  As he stepped back gently, his elbow brushed against the end table, and for an instant his eye fell on to the loose drawing paper, with its jumbled lines, and the well-formed shadowing of several quick sketches. He must have been doing these, he thought, thinking of the pencil in the small, dead hand, he was probably quite happy. He froze, his glance fixed on one small sketch, casually drawn in one corner. For a while he was unable to grasp its significance, or the sense of familiarity it gave him. He frowned, puckering his brows. There were some planks, like a deck. A deck! That was it! He was suddenly excited, and he realized he was looking at a quickly drawn picture of Seafox's engineroom. There was an engine, and by the flywheel there was a gap in the deck boards, as if to show where they had hidden the money. He bit his lip, pondering, wondering what was wrong with the picture. Then it dawned on him, it was the wrong engine. The port engine, or part of it, showed vaguely as a background. The more he looked at it, the more he was convinced that he was looking at a message. Jensen must have done it while his assailant was talking to him, and planning to kill him. A crude arrow, which before Vivian had regarded as another rough doodle on the paper, pointed away from the, engines, but all that Vivian could see was a small cartoon of a cat strutting breathlessly along an invisible road, and a pile of dinner plates.

  `Plates!' His hoarse voice echoed round the room. Of course, that was what Jensen was trying to tell him. He had hidden the plates under the other engine! He must have done it when I was getting the ballast, he thought wildly.

  A cold sweat broke on his back, when he pictured Jensen quietly sketching, knowing that any second was to be his last, and yet still able to compile a message, which only he would understand. He gro
aned miserably. If only he and Karen had driven straight here, instead of going out in the dinghy, Jensen would be alive, and she would be at his side.

  He found that he was suddenly shaking, his whole being quivering with an unnatural, clammy chill, and a muscle at the corner of his mouth jumped convulsively, causing him to grit his teeth, and press his hands flat on the table, until the wave of shock had passed. It was all so horrible, so unreal. He shook his head violently, it just couldn't be happening to him. He tried desperately to form a plan of action, turning his back on the terrible eyes, and using every ounce of his will-power to clear away the mist of terror which was threatening to engulf him.

  Call the police, tell them there had been a murder. He rejected the plan at once. He could almost hear the voice on the telephone, quiet, yet full of questions. A murder, sir? Where are you speaking from? Who is that speaking? And the black cars streaking through the night towards him. They would not be interested in his story of Karen. Karen, who had to be protected at all costs. Mason's words came back to him, like a blast of Arctic wind, `Don't call the police, or I promise you will not recognize her again!'

  Jensen could not be helped now. He was safe from everything. That had to be the way to look at it. If only he could call on someone to help him. Felix! He felt a pulse quicken in his throat, he might be able to assist him.

  He found himself half running down the darkened corridor, his shadow dancing in fantastic shapes in the gleam of light from the workshop. Once in the study, he glanced round dazedly, until his worried eyes found the telephone. He fumbled with the instrument, his taut nerves making every task an agony.

  He forced himself to sit on the edge of the desk, the telephone pressed against his ear. Nothing happened. Feverishly he rattled the telephone rest, but there was no answering click in his ear. He put it down, slowly, and with great care, as if in a final effort to stop his mind from bursting

  So it was still dead. At a sudden thought, he sprang across the room, following the flex to the wall bracket. As if to mock him, the bare ends of the torn wires glinted from the carpet, where they had been torn out of the wall. He swayed slightly, and put out his hand to steady himself. The murderer had been thorough indeed.

  Somewhere, far away, where life was still civilized and normal, a car back-fired noisily, and Vivian jerked his thoughts back into focus. The housekeeper, he thought, she might be coming back at any moment. He mustn't be found like this. He turned to a typewriter, which he had noticed earlier, and slipped in a piece of the headed notepaper, which lay neatly stacked on the desk. Pausing only to assemble the wild scheme which was forming in his mind, he began, clumsily, to type a letter for the housekeeper. He stated, briefly, that Jensen had been called unexpectedly to London, and would not be back for a couple of days. She was to have the telephone repaired in his absence, and she was not to worry. His lips were set in a thin line, as he typed the initials N.J. at the end, and propped the letter up on the desk, where it would be immediately visible.

  Carefully he picked up the fragments from the shattered window, and slipped them into the bottom drawer of the desk, covering them with the loose papers. It was not likely that the housekeeper would be too suspicious about that, he decided. In any case, it couldn't be helped.

  After several attempts, he found Jensen's bedroom, and hurriedly stuffed some clothes into a small overnight case, being careful to tidy the wardrobe when he had finished. He was about to leave the room, when a shaft of light from the bedside lamp fell on a silver mounted photograph on the dressing-table.

  He almost dropped the case, and his eyes smarted. Karen's smiling face looked up at him, beautiful and happy. He picked it up, his hands unsteady. Forgive me for what I have to do, my darling, it is only for your safety, and for your happiness, that I am doing this. He returned the photograph to the table, and with a hollow sigh, snapped off the light, and forced himself back to the workshop.

  The case would be all right there, and he pushed it under a pile of old art magazines. Next, he pocketed the tiny caricature, Jensen's final artistic creation, and with a quick glance at the door, to make sure that the heavy, oldfashioned key was still protruding from the outside of the keyhole, he turned off the lights, and shut and clicked the door behind him. As he pulled the front door of the house, until he heard the Yale lock snap shut, a chill breeze made him shiver, and realize just how much he had been sweating, with shock and fear.

  The old car started reluctantly, and without a further glance behind him, he drove grimly down the drive, and out on to the deserted road. As he turned once more over Kingston Bridge, his tortured thoughts recalled the words of his first commanding officer, during the war. He had been trying to explain the dangers, in action, of over-confidence. `These things don't happen to other people, Vivian, they happen toyou!' He hadn't liked the man much, but how true his words had been then, and were now, at this very second!

  Like a lonely outpost, he suddenly saw the telephone booth from where he had tried to telephone Jensen. It seemed like a century ago.

  Burr-burr. `I am trying to connect you.' It was a man's voice this time.

  'Hallo? Felix Lang speaking.' The voice was thick, and heavy with sleep.

  'Felix, this is Philip!' In the confined booth, his own voice was harsh and unnatural.

  `Philip, for Christ's sake! What are you up to, getting a fella out of bed on a night like this?'

  `Listen. I'm in a jam,' he began.

  `I heard about it. Jensen told me about the spot of bother you had, but I'm jolly glad it all went off as well as it-'

  `For God's sake, listen!' He was shouting. `I've just left the old man.' Must be careful not to mention any names, a warning signal flashed in his brain. `He's dead!' There was a gasp in the earpiece. `They've taken the niece, they want the plates in exchange!' He stopped, struggling with his message. `Do you understand?'

  `Now, just a minute, old boy,' Lang sounded fully alert, his tone steady, and somehow giving Vivian confidence. `I think I understand. Have you got the plates now?'

  `Apparently. He left a message for me. Felix, for God's sake, what shall I do?'

  There was silence for a while, and Vivian could hear Lang's deep breathing over the line.

  `Look, Philip, where are you?' When Vivian had answered, his voice continued, full of strength, as if he was trying to instil a fresh confidence over the long wire between them. `Well, drive back to your boat, and get rid of the car. Then sit tight, and wait for me. I'll come down as soon as I've squared up the business you've just left.'

  `I've done that, Felix,' he said tightly.

  `Phew, you have eh? Sure it's all right?'

  `Yes, it'll do, I think.'

  `Right, get going. I'm on my way now!'

  Ramsgate was a different town when the car's headlights slashed the darkened houses and shopfronts, and even the lonely, patrolling policeman made Vivian look back with a new, fearful apprehension, until he was sure that the man was only looking at him with a professional disinterest.

  He drove the car into the yard at the back of the hire firm and left a scribbled note under the windscreen wiper. Then, with his shoulders hunched, and his hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, he started to walk to the harbour, his footsteps ringing out crisply on the still, salt-laden air.

  It was low water, and he had to climb down the full length of the slimy ladder to the deck of Seafox.

  He remembered bitterly, and with real grief, how he and Karen had climbed up the very same steps, to buy the shoes. They had laughed then, and the future had been filled with fresh hope and promise.

  Seafox, too, was different, and the very noises of her loose gear, as it rattled and squeaked, seemed unfamiliar and distant.

  There were no notes or messages thrust under the wheelhouse door, as he had hoped, or feared, and after a rapid glance around the boat, he lowered himself into the small engine room, squatting between the silent engines. He lifted the boards by the starboard flywheel, throwing them f
uriously to one side, in his haste. He reached right down into the bowels of the hull, his cheek scratching against the engine's unyielding metal, and his fingers groping between the stout timbers, until he felt the rough touch of canvas, and breathing heavily, he pulled the weighty parcel into the glare of his inspection lamp. He untied the strong cord which held the canvas wrapper around the contents, and as he peeled it away, the sharp, metallic glint of the neat stack of oblong plates faced him from the deck.

  He picked up the top one, turning it over in his hands, and noting the intricate lines and patterns on its surface. So these were the plates which Jensen had made so carefully, and with such patient skill. For these he had died, and for these his killers would do anything. He swallowed hard. Anything! It was fantastic, and yet so coldly logical.

  He sat back on his haunches, staring at the plates. When he handed them over to Mason what guarantee could he have that Karen would be safe? Surely Mason and Cooper would not hesitate to act again.

  He had to be able to bargain, even in a small way. He had to gain time. Time to get to Karen's side, to show her that he was not beaten, and that Jensen's message had not been in vain.

  He looked at the plates again. One for the front of each type of bank-note, and one for the back. If he left some of them behind in the boat, and took the others to Mason, perhaps he would be able to bargain, when the time arose. It seemed a feeble hope, but it was better than doing nothing. Carefully, he selected half the plates, and then stowed the others back loosely in their hiding place, and pushed the boards back into position. Mason was no fool, but it was unlikely he would know exactly what to expect, and without a careful examination, he might accept them on their face value. Then, he would be able to see what would happen next.

  He re-wrapped the package, and when he was satisfied, he climbed back into the wheelhouse, and stowed the parcel in a small locker, and turned the key.