‘I’ll do anything I can, you know that.’ She lifted her head as the aurora swelled and flamed to the incandescent climax of its performance, and shivered violently as its unearthly beautiful colourings struck a million sparks of coloured light, red and green and yellow and gold, off the ice spicules in the sky. ‘I don’t know why, that makes me feel colder than ever … But I think I’ve already told you everything I know, everything I can remember, Dr Mason.’
‘I’m sure you have. But you may have missed some things just because you couldn’t see they mattered anyway. Now, as I see it, we have three big questions looking for an answer. How come the crash in the first place? How was the coffee spiked? How was the radio broken? If we can turn up anything that can throw a light on even one of these, we may be a long way towards finding out what we want to know.’
Ten freezing minutes later we were still a long way from finding out anything. I’d taken Margaret Ross step by step from the Customs Hall, where she’d met her passengers, to the plane where she had settled them down, flown with them to Gander, watched them go through the same process again, flown them out of Gander, watched her as she’d served their evening meal, and still I’d learnt nothing, turned up nothing suspicious, off-beat or abnormal that could even begin to account for the crash. Then, slowly, just as she was describing the serving of the meal, her voice trailed away into silence, and she turned and stared at me.
‘What’s the matter, Miss Ross?’
‘Of course,’ she said softly. ‘Of course! What a fool I am! Now I see …’
‘What do you see?’ I demanded.
‘The coffee. How it was tampered with. I’d just served Colonel Harrison – he was in the rear seat, so he was the last to be served – when he wrinkled his nose and asked if I could smell something burning. I couldn’t, but I made some sort of joke about something burning on the galley hotplate and I’d just got back there when I heard the Colonel calling, and when I looked round he had the door of the starboard washroom open and smoke was coming out. Not much, just a little. I called the captain, and he hurried aft to see what it was, but it was nothing serious, just a few papers burning – somebody had been careless with a cigarette, I suppose.’
‘And everybody rose out of their seats and crowded to have a look?’ I asked grimly.
‘Yes. Captain. Johnson ordered them all back to their seats – they were upsetting the trim of the plane.’
‘And you didn’t think this worth mentioning to me,’ I said heavily. ‘No importance at all?’
‘I’m sorry. It – it did seem unimportant, unrelated to anything. That was hours before the crash, so—’
‘It doesn’t matter. Who could have gone into the galley then – anybody in the front seats, I suppose?’
‘Yes. They all seemed to crowd down past the middle—’
‘They? Who were “They”?’
‘I don’t know. What – why do you ask?’
‘Because by knowing who was there, we might find out who wasn’t.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated helplessly. ‘I was a little upset for a moment, then Captain Johnson was in front of me shooing everybody back to their seats and I couldn’t see.’
‘All right.’ I changed my approach. ‘This was the men’s washroom, I take it?’
‘Yes. The powder room is on the port side.’
‘Can you remember who went in there, say, any time up to an hour beforehand?’
‘An hour? But the cigarette end—’
‘Do you believe now that the fire was caused deliberately?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’ She stared at me, wide-eyed.
‘Right. And we’re dealing, obviously, with hardened professional criminals. The whole success of their plan depended on causing this excitement. Do you for a moment believe that they were going to let the whole thing hinge on the mere off-chance of a smouldering butt-end setting some papers alight – especially setting them alight at the correct moment?’
‘But how—’
‘Easy. You can get a little plastic tube with a central composition shield dividing it into two compartments. In one compartment you have a free acid, in the other a different acid enclosed in a glass tube. All you have to do is to crush the tube, break the glass, drop the tube in your chosen spot, walk away and after a predetermined time the acid that was in the glass eats through the shield, meets the other acid and starts a fire. It’s been used hundreds of times, especially in wartime sabotage. If you’re an arsonist looking for a cast-iron alibi and want to be five miles away when the fire starts, it’s the perfect answer.’
‘There was a funny smell—’ she began slowly.
‘You bet there was. Can you remember who went there?’
‘It’s no good.’ She shook her head. ‘I was in the galley most of the time, getting the meal ready’
‘Who were in the front two seats – those nearest the galley?’
‘Miss LeGarde and Mr Corazzini. And I’m afraid that’s not much help. We know Marie LeGarde can’t have had anything to do with it. And Mr Corazzini is the one person I’m sure didn’t leave his seat before dinner. He had a gin soon after take-off, then switched off his reading light, draped a newspaper over his head and went to sleep.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. I always peek through the cabin door from time to time, and he was always there.’
‘That seems to cut him out,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘And reduce the number of suspects – though, I suppose, he could still have got an accomplice to plant the acid tube.’ Then, suddenly, I had what was, for me, an inspiration. ‘Tell me, Miss Ross, did anyone ask you earlier in the evening when dinner would be?’
She looked at me for a long moment before answering, and even in the fading light of the aurora I could see the understanding coming into her eyes.
‘Mrs Dansby-Gregg did, I’m sure.’
‘She would. Anyone else.’
‘Yes. I remember now.’ Her voice was suddenly very quiet. ‘Colonel Harrison – but he doesn’t count any more – and Mr Zagero.’
‘Zagero?’ In my excitement I bent forward until my face was almost touching hers. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. I remember when he asked me, I said, “Are you feeling peckish, sir?” and he grinned and said, “My dear air hostess, I always feel peckish.’”
‘Well, well. This is most interesting.’
‘Do you think Mr Zagero—’
‘I’m at the stage where I’m afraid to think anything. I’ve been wrong too often. But it’s a straw in the wind all right – a straw about the size of a haystack … Was he anywhere near you when the radio fell? Behind you, for instance, when you rose and brushed against the radio table?’
‘No, he was by the hatch, I’m sure of that. Could he—’
‘He couldn’t. Joss and I worked it out. Somebody had pushed one of the table hinges right home and the other until it was at the critical point of balance. Then as you stood up he pushed the other in. From a distance. There was a long-handled brush lying there – but it had no significance for us at the time … When you heard the crash you whirled round, didn’t you?’ She nodded without speaking.
‘And what did you see?’
‘Mr Corazzini—’
‘We know he dived for it,’ I said impatiently. ‘But in the background, against the wall?’
‘There was someone.’ Her voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘But no – no, it couldn’t have been. He’d been sitting dozing on the floor, and he got the fright of his life when—’
‘For heaven’s sake!’ I cut in harshly. ‘Who was it?’
‘Solly Levin.’
The brief twilight of noon came and went, the cold steadily deepened and by late in the evening it seemed that we had been on board that lurching, roaring tractor all our lives.
Twice only we stopped in the course of that interminable day, for refuelling at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. I chose these times because I had arranged with Joss th
at I would try to contact him every fourth hour. But though we set up the apparatus outside while Jackstraw was refuelling and Corazzini sat astride the bicycle seat and cranked the generator handle while I tapped out our call sign for almost ten unbroken minutes, no shadow of an answer came through. I had expected none. Even if by some miracle Joss had managed to fix the set, the ionosphere turbulence that had caused the aurora would have almost certainly killed any chance of making contact. But I’d promised Joss, and I had to keep faith.
By the time I made the second try, everyone, even Jackstraw and myself, was shaking and shivering in the bitter cold. Normally, we wouldn’t have felt it much – in very cold weather we wore two complete sets of furs, the inner one with the fur inside, the outer with the fur outside. But we’d given our extra pairs away to Corazzini and Zagero – furs were essential in that ice-box of a tractor cabin – and suffered just as much as the others.
Occasionally, someone would jump down from the tractor and run alongside to try to get warm, but so exhausted were most from sleeplessness, hunger, cold and eternally bracing themselves against the lurching of the tractor, that they were staggering from exhaustion within minutes and had to come aboard again. And when they did come aboard, the sweat from their exertions in such heavy clothes turned ice-cold on their bodies, putting them in worse case than ever, until finally I had to stop it.
It grieved me to do what had to be done, what I saw must be done, but there was no help for it. The weariness, the cold and the sleeplessness could be borne no longer. When I finally gave the order to stop it was ten minutes after midnight, and we had been driving continuously, except for brief fuel and radio halts, for twenty-seven hours.
EIGHT
Wednesday 4 a.m–8 p.m.
Despite our exhaustion, despite our almost overwhelming need for sleep, I don’t think anyone slept that night, even for a moment, for to have slept would have been to freeze to death.
I had never known such cold. Even with twelve of us jam-packed inside a tiny wooden box built to hold five sleeping people at the most, even with the oil fire roaring up the chimney all night long and warmed by a couple of cups of piping hot coffee apiece, we all of us suffered agonies during these dark hours. The chattering of teeth, the St Vitus’ dance of tremor-ridden limbs knocking against the thin uninsulated wooden walls, the constant rubbing as someone sought to restore life to a frozen face or arm or foot. These were the sounds that never ceased. How the elderly Marie LeGarde or the sick Mahler survived that night was indeed a matter for wonder.
But survive they did, for when I looked at my luminous watch, saw that it was almost four o’clock and decided that enough was enough, both of them were wide awake when I switched on the little overhead light. Weak enough normally, that light was now no more than a feeble yellow glow – an ominous sign, it meant that even the tractor batteries were beginning to freeze up – but enough to see the crowded circle of faces, white and blue and yellowing with frostbite, the smoke-like exhalations that clouded in the air before them with every breath they took, the film of slick ice that already covered the walls and all of the roof except for a few inches round the stove pipe exit. As a spectacle of suffering, of sheer unrelieved misery, I don’t think I have ever seen its equal.
‘Insomnia, eh, Doc?’ It was Corazzini speaking, his teeth chattering between the words. ‘Or just forgotten to plug in your electric blanket?’
‘Just an early riser, Mr Corazzini.’ I glanced round the haggard and pain-filled faces. ‘Anybody here slept at all?’
I was answered by mute headshakes from everybody.
‘Anybody likely to sleep?’
Again the headshakes.
‘That settles it.’ I struggled to my feet. ‘It’s only 4 a.m., but if we’re going to freeze to death we might as well freeze on the move. Not only that, but another few hours in this temperature, and that tractor engine will never start again. What do you think, Jackstraw?’
‘I’ll get the blow-torches,’ he said by way of answer, and pushed his way out through the canvas screen. Almost at once I heard him begin to cough violently in the deadly cold of the air outside, and, in the intervals between the coughing, we could clearly hear the dry rustling crackling of his breath as the moisture condensed, froze and drifted away in the all but imperceptible breeze.
Corazzini and I followed, choking and gasping in turn as that glacial cold seared through throat and lungs, adjusting masks and goggles until not a millimetre of flesh was left exposed. Abreast the driving cabin I drew out my torch and glanced at the alcohol thermometer – ordinary mercury froze solid at −38° – then looked again in disbelief. The red spirit inside the glass had sunk down to within an inch of the bulb and stood on the line of −68° – exactly one hundred degrees of frost. Still well below Wegener’s −85°, further short still of the incredible −125° that the Russians had recorded at the Vostok in Antarctica, but nevertheless the lowest, by almost fifteen degrees, that I had ever experienced. And that it should happen now -now, two hundred miles from the nearest human habitation, with Jackstraw and myself stuck with two murderers, a possibly dying man, seven other passengers rapidly weakening from exposure, exhaustion and lack of food, and a superannuated tractor that was due to pack up at any moment at all.
Over an hour later I had cause to revise the last part of that estimate – it seemed that the tractor had already packed up. I had had my first intimation of trouble to come when I had switched on the ignition and pressed the horn – the faint mournful beep could hardly have been heard twenty yards away. The batteries were so gummed up by the cold that they couldn’t even have turned over a hot engine, far less one in which the crankcase, transmission and differential were all but locked solid in lubricating oil that had lost all power to lubricate anything and had been turned into a super viscous liquid with the consistency and intractability of some heavy animal glue. Even with two of us bringing all our weight to bear on the starting handle it was impossible to turn even one cylinder over the top.
We made to light the paraffin blow-torches but they, too, were frozen solid: paraffin freezes at just over −50°, and even at −40° it still flows like heavy gear-case oil. We had to thaw them out with a petrol blow-torch, then place all five of them on wooden boxes and behind canvas aprons to retain the heat, two to thaw out the crankcase, two for the gear-box and transmission and the last for the differential. After an hour or so, when the engine had begun to turn fairly easily and we had brought out the heavy battery which had been thawing out by the stove, we tried again. But it gave no sign of life at all.
None of us, not even Corazzini whose Global tractors were all diesel-powered, was an expert in engine maintenance, and this was when we came very close to despair. But despair was the one emotion we couldn’t afford, and we knew it. We kept the blow-torches burning, returned the battery to the stove, removed and cleaned the plugs, eased the frozen brushes in the generator, stripped and removed the petrol lines, thawed them and sucked out the frozen condensation by mouth, scraped away the ice from the carburettor intake and returned everything in place. We had to remove our gloves for most of this delicate work, the flesh stuck to metal and pulled off like the skin of an orange when we removed our hands, even the backs of our fingers became burnt and blistered from casual knocks on metal, blood oozed out from under our fingernails only to coagulate in the freezing air, and our lips, where they had touched the copper petrol feeds, were swollen and puffed and blistered. It was brutal, killing work, and in addition to the work our arms and legs and faces were almost constantly frozen, despite frequent visits to the stove to thaw ourselves out. It was murderous – but it was worth it. At six-fifteen, two and a quarter hours after we had begun, the big engine coughed and spluttered into life, missed, coughed again, caught and settled down into a steady even roar. I felt my split lips cracking into a painful grin under my mask, thumped Jackstraw and Corazzini for the moment quite forgetting that the latter might be one of the killers – on the back, turne
d and went in for breakfast.
Or what passed for breakfast. It was little enough, heaven knew – coffee, crackers and the contents of a couple of corned beef tins shared among the twelve of us, the lion’s share going to Theodore Mahler. That left us with only four more tins of beef, four cans of vegetables, about ten pounds of dried fruit, a little frozen fish, a small tin of biscuits, three packets of cereal and – it was the only thing apart from coffee of which we had an adequate supply – over twenty tins of Nestlé’s unsweetened milk. We had, of course, seal meat for the dogs – Jackstraw thawed some out for them over the stove while we had breakfast – and the fried meat of young seal is palatable to a degree. But the dogs had first claim on that. It was more important to preserve their strength than our own: should the engine of the Citroën break down completely, our last hope lay with the dogs.
Breakfast over and the dogs fed, we started off just before moonset, Corazzini driving, with the long trailing plume of our exhaust vapour, milk-white but thick as smoke in that bitter air, stretching out far behind us, bar-straight, almost as far as the eye could see in the waning light of the moon. I had arranged that the drivers should change over every fifteen minutes – as long a period as any person could stand in that unheated and largely unprotected cabin. I had heard of a case in the Antarctic where a driver had sat so long in an exposed tractor that his numbed and frozen fingers had locked so immovably that the steering-wheel had had to be unbolted and brought inside still clutched in the driver’s grasp before the hands could be thawed sufficiently to release the wheel: I didn’t want anything of that kind happening to us.
As soon as we were under way I had a look at Mahler, and his appearance certainly did nothing to inspire any great confidence in his chances. Even although he was fully dressed, lying in an eiderdown sleeping-bag that was zipped all the way to his chin, and covered in blankets, his pinched face was a mottled blue-white and he was shaking continuously with the cold, a handkerchief between his teeth to prevent their chattering. I reached for his wrist. The pulse was very fast, though it seemed strong enough: but I couldn’t be sure, so much skin had been sloughed or burnt off in the past two or three hours that I’d lost all sensitivity in my fingertips. I gave him what I hoped was an encouraging smile.
Night Without End Page 15
