"Who in the hell do you think you are? Half a man who vomits at the first whiff of a barmaid's apron. Do you think I need you to tell me what to do? Help me, you say? You can't even help yourself." He pulled the shotgun from under the seat and held it up. "Let them come, that's all I ask. Just let them come."
It was grotesque, it was ludicrous and there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say. I suppose I could have turned him in. I could have gone straight to Simonsen, but then he couldn't have done very much, not without some convincing proof and I hadn't any. In any case, I just didn't want to be involved--- it could lead to too many complications. I might even have to do some explaining myself and that was the last thing I wanted.
There was a tug as the hook was taken and I hauled in a cod which looked all of three pounds. Instinctively, Arnie clubbed it with the butt of the shotgun.
"At least I've managed to take care of your supper for you," I said. "I wouldn't stay out much longer if I were you. This fog is going to get worse before it gets better."
He didn't reply; just sat there, his face very white under the black sou'wester, clutching the shotgun to his chest, fear in his eyes--- real fear. And I left him there, which on looking back on it was the worst thing of all. Instead of trying again, I climbed into the dinghy, pressed the starter button on the outboard and moved away rapidly through the gathering fog.
.....
By the time I had reached the harbour the fog had wrapped itself around me in a damp grey shroud, but I made the anchorage safely, tied up the dinghy and mounted the steps to the jetty.
Somewhere a foghorn sounded as a trawler moved in cautiously, but otherwise it was completely silent as I went along the jetty. I'd left the Otter at the top of the slipway, but I hadn't refuelled her so I set to work, bringing two jerrycans at a time from the stockpile, emptying them and returning for more. It took me all of twenty minutes and by the time I'd finished I was damp with sweat. At one point I heard footsteps approaching and a seaman loomed out of the fog and disappeared again along the jetty without speaking. I might have been the last person alive in a dead world.
I emptied the last can and started to secure the Otter for the night, lashing her down to the ring bolts. At one point I turned suddenly, staring into the fog behind me. I hadn't heard anything and yet I had the feeling that I was being watched, that somewhere just out of sight a pretence was waiting for me.
Stupid and illogical perhaps, and yet my flesh crawled and I turned quickly to finish my task. I heard nothing and yet there was the feeling of movement behind me like a turbulence in the air. I started to rise, but I was too late. Someone delivered a stunning blow to the base of my neck and I went down hard. For a moment I lay there, my face against the wet concrete. Something enveloped me, wet and clinging, stinking of fish, and then there was only the darkness.
.....
It was like coming up from deep water, drifting through layer after layer of darkness towards the light seen dimly like the dawn through ragged grey clouds. I finally surfaced, my eyes wide and staring. My head ached and for a little while I couldn't even remember who I was or what I was doing here. Strangely enough the link between this world and the old was the last thing I had remembered, the stink of fish, which wasn't surprising as I was lying on a pile of damp nets.
I was in the hold of a ship, probably a trawler from the look of it, although the light was so bad, that I could only detect the vague outline of things. There was a hollow drumming as someone moved along the deck above and I sat up.
There was a mild explosion in my head as I closed my eyes involuntarily, clenching my teeth against the pain. Deep breathing was the thing. I tried it for a while and felt a little better.
I got to my feet and stumbled through the gloom, hands outstretched before me until I came to a hatchway above my head, light gleaming faintly through the cracks where it fitted unevenly. It was at least four feet above my head so I did the obvious thing and started to shout.
Footsteps sounded on the deck again, the hatch was pulled back and someone looked down at me. He was just a seaman with a greasy woollen cap on his head, a face like Spanish leather and the sort of long drooping moustache the gunfighters used to wear out west. I recognised him at once as one of the men who'd been with Da Gama at the Fredericsmut on the night we'd had all the trouble.
Which didn't make any kind of sense unless Da Gama was engaged in some sort of private vendetta. The man looking down at me gave no clue. In fact he replaced the hatch and went away again.
I sat down, my head in my hands, and tried some more deep breathing. It didn't work particularly well because suddenly the darkness and the pain and the stench of rotting fish all seemed to come together and I rolled over and vomited.
I felt a little better after that. According to my watch, which still seemed to be working, it was seven o'clock when the sailor went away. It was a good hour later when the hatch was removed and he reappeared.
This time Da Gama was with him. He squatted on his haunches and peered down at me, a cigar clenched between his teeth, the sort of expression on his face that a cat has with a mouse between its paws.
He turned and said something and a moment later a ladder came down. By that time I was too weak to feel anything, even fear, and I scrambled up and collapsed on the deck, sucking in great lungfuls of damp sea air.
He crouched beside me, a look of concern on his face. "You don't look too good, Mr. Martin. How you feel?"
"Bloody awful," I said weakly.
He nodded soberly and then took his cigar from between his teeth and quite deliberately touched the glowing end to my cheek. I yelled like a stuck pig, rolled away from him and scrambled to my feet.
The sailor took a knife from his belt and moved towards me and Da Gama laughed harshly. "Feel better now, Mr. Martin? That's good, eh? That sharpens you up a little?"
I looked around me wildly and the sailor prodded me in the back, the tip of the knife slicing through my clothes and drawing blood. Da Gama tossed off an order in Portuguese, turned and moved along the deck and the sailor pushed me after him.
We went down the schooner's stern companionway. and Da Gama opened the door of the cabin at the bottom and stood to one side. He nodded to the sailor, obviously dismissing him, grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me inside so that I lost my balance and went sprawling.
I lay there for a moment, the darkness moving in on me again and then a familiar voice said, "I say, old chap, you are in a mess, aren't you?"
Ralph Stratton pulled me up from the floor and dumped me in a chair. When I managed to focus I found Vogel sitting on the other side of the table.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My cheek was on fire where Da Gama had burned me, but the pain in my head had eased into a kind of dull throbbing. My hands were shaking slightly, but that was reaction, I suppose, and I made a conscious effort to steady them. At least my brain was starting to function and I don't think I'd ever felt so frightened in my life before. If Desforge had been playing the part the scriptwriters would have given him something witty to say, or perhaps he'd have reached for the bottle of cognac and one of the glasses that stood on the table, helping himself with the sort of offhand bravado with which tough heroes always faced that kind of situation.
But this was me, Joe Martin, weak as a kitten and sick to my stomach because I had a strong suspicion that whatever happened now, I was going over the side somewhere out to sea with a weight around my feet. I might come up again, or what was left of me, when the ice thawed next spring, but it was more than likely that no one would ever hear of me again.
Or perhaps I was just being melodramatic? I wiped sweat from my face with the back of one hand and said in a cracked voice, "I wish someone would tell me what this is about."
"Don't be stupid," Vogel said crisply. "You're well aware why you're here."
There was a sudden unexpected diversion on deck, a shout of anger, a flurry of blows and drunken voices arguing fiercely. Da Gama w
ent out without a word and I said to Vogel, "Where does he fit in?"
"A blunt instrument. If the price is right and I asked him to, he would dispose of you without the slightest hesitation. You would do well to remember that."
The silence hung between us and he left it there for a while, probably for effect. "When we reached the Heron yesterday I expected to find something which belonged to me--- something which had been carefully concealed. It was missing. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
I shook my head. "I haven't the slightest idea."
"Then why did you keep quiet about your discovery that a ski plane had landed recently in the area?"
I tried to think of a suitable reply to that one and failed miserably. "Did I?"
Stratton sighed. "You're really being very stupid, old chap."
I noticed that he was still wearing those black leather gloves of his which didn't make me feel any better, especially when he moved around behind me.
Vogel said: "There is only one ski plane operating on the coast at the moment, you told me that yourself."
There was no point in denying it and I didn't try. "That's right."
"Which would seem to indicate that Fassberg lied to us when he returned from his reconnaissance flight and announced that a landing was out of the question. Why would he do that?"
"Why not ask him?"
"I have done, but he wasn't in the mood for conversation. When I have your contribution to this mystery, we'll try again." He poured himself a brandy and leaned back in the chair. "I'll ask you for the second time. Why did you conceal the fact that Fassberg had landed in the vicinity of the crash?"
I decided to try a little improvisation. "All right, I'll tell you. He's a friend of mine. I didn't know what his game was. On the other hand I didn't want to be the one to land him in any trouble so I decided to keep my mouth shut till I'd seen him."
"And have you?"
"I haven't had the chance yet. I've been flying all day."
Vogel sipped a little of his brandy, held up the glass to the light and shook his head. "No, Martin, it won't do. It won't do at all." He put down his glass very deliberately and leaned forward. "You're lying--- you're holding something back. Shall I tell you how I know? Because I've looked into your eyes, because I've watched your reactions, listened to what you have said and none of it makes sense--- none of it!"
His last few words were shouted into my face and Stratton struck me across the back of the skull with his knuckles so that I cried out in pain. He yanked me back by the hair and clamped an arm across my throat.
"Let's try again," Vogel said. "Fassberg landed in his ski plane, went to the Heron and removed what I came to Greenland to recover. Wouldn't you say that was a reasonable assumption?"
"Only if he knew what he was looking for," I said.
The thought must have occurred to him before, because it just couldn't be avoided and he sat there staring at me. This time you could have sliced the silence with a knife and Stratton said slowly, "I'd say he's got a point there."
"Of course he has, you fool." Vogel leaned forward. "Who Martin? Who could have told him?"
"That's something you'll have to work out for yourself, but it would need someone who knew in the first place, wouldn't it? Someone close to you." I looked up at Stratton. "What about our friend here? How long has he been around?"
Stratton's hand rose and fell, catching me across the side of the head and I almost lost my senses. I slumped forward, head in hands, fighting the pain, and Vogel said, "Bring him round, you fool. I haven't finished with him yet."
There was the chink of the decanter, then Stratton wrenched back my head and poured half a glass of brandy into my mouth. As the nausea hit me there was the usual body-wrenching spasm and I vomited all over his neat grey suit. He gave a cry of disgust, sent me away from him with a tremendous heave and the chair went over. I rolled to the wall and got up as Stratton started to unbutton his jacket. When he had it half off, I sucked in some air, grabbed for the door handle and plunged outside.
He almost had me on the companionway, but I kicked out and caught him full in the face. And then I had the door open and was out on the deck. Da Gama was standing no more than three or four feet away talking to a couple of his crew. As he swung round, I kept on going and vaulted the rail. The shock of the icy water was so terrible that for a moment, I thought the heart had stopped beating inside me, but then I surfaced and struck out wildly into the fog.
.....
I knew they'd expect me to get out of that freezing water at the earliest possible moment, which meant they'd be strung out along the jetty waiting for me. I took a chance and headed through the fog to the other side of the harbour.
It took me no more than ten minutes, but towards the end I didn't think I was going to make it and then my knee banged against a submerged rock. A few moments later I crawled out of the water and fell face down on a shingle beach.
I was numb with cold, but I forced myself to my feet and stumbled across the beach to a broken line of massive concrete blocks which I recognised as being part of the defensive system laid down at the northern end of the airstrip against winter storms.
I checked my watch. It was almost nine, about three hours since my meeting with Arnie on the other side of the fjord. He would have returned by now, probably not long after me in view of the deterioration in the weather.
I ran across the airstrip, flapping my arms vigorously to try and get some feeling back into them. There was no one about as far as I could see and the hangars were deserted, so I borrowed an old jeep that was kept for general use about the place. Whatever happened now I had to make Arnie realise the kind of people he was dealing with and I drove towards town as fast as the fog would let me.
I parked the jeep at the end of the narrow street and walked toward the house. As I reached the steps leading up to the veranda, the side gate banged and someone ran out of the fog wildly. I had a momentary glimpse of Gudrid Rasmussen's face, eyes wide and staring, and then she was gone.
I hammered on the front door. There was no reply, but the curtain was drawn and a chink of light showed through. I tried again, calling his name with no better success and went round the side of the house and tried the kitchen door.
I think I knew what I was going to find the moment I stepped inside. For one thing there was a special quality to the silence. It was as if the whole world had stopped breathing and the harsh distinctive odour of gunpowder hung on the air.
The living room was a shambles. The telephone had been ripped from the wall, drawers turned out, cushions torn apart, books scattered across the floor and blood--- fresh blood--- splashed across the wall in a crimson curtain.
Arnie lay on his back on the other side of the couch, most of his face missing, his own shotgun lying across his body where the murderer had dropped it. Strange, but at times, the face of Death can be so appalling that it freezes the soul, cutting out all emotional response, preventing any normal reaction. I stood staring down at him, trapped in a kind of limbo where nothing was real any more and all that had happened seemed part of some crazy nightmare.
Somewhere a shutter banged, blown by the wind, bringing me back to reality like a slap in the face and I turned and ran as if all the devils in hell were at my heels.
.....
I parked the jeep in the courtyard at the rear of the hotel and went up the back stairs to my room. When I opened the door Ilana was sitting by the window reading a book. It seemed as if I was still back there in the fog as her face jumped out to meet me, the smile of welcome fading into a look of astonishment and concern.
I'm not quite sure what happened after that. I only know that I was on my knees and her arms were tight around me. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see anyone in my life before.
.....
I had a hot shower and changed and told her everything. When I'd finished, we did the obvious thing and went along to Gudrid's room. The door was locked, but I knocked several times
and called her name and after a while it opened and she gazed out at us fearfully. Her eyes were swollen from weeping and she was shaking as if she had a fever.
She looked at me and then at Ilana and pushed back a tendril of hair that had fallen across her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mr. Martin, I don't feel very well. I'm going to take the rest of the night off."
I shoved her back into the room and Ilana followed me. "I saw you leaving, Gudrid," I said.
She looked genuinely bewildered. "Leaving? I don't understand."
"Outside Arnie Fassberg's place. You ran straight past me. I was on my way in."
Her face crumpled and she turned and flung herself on the bed, her body racked by great sobs. I sat down and patted her on the shoulder. "There's no time for that, Gudrid. Have you told the police?"
She turned her tear-stained face to look up at me. "I didn't kill him, you must believe that. He was dead when I arrived."
Jack Higgins - East Of Desolation Page 14
