The Depths

by John Creasey

  Palfrey said: “I didn’t want to believe it.” “Come, come! As a medical man, and a man with such an intellect—” Gaston struck a smiling pose, hands raised, fingers spread. “You must believe what your eyes and your mind tell you. Please—” he seemed eager. “You agree with me?”

  “Hypnotic trance or coma, probably self-induced,” Palfrey agreed. Could the ability to withdraw herself from the conscious world explain the girl-woman’s absolute confidence that he could not make her talk? He began to wonder how long she would be in the coma, but he did not have to wonder what he must do.

  “So,” Dr Gaston said. “Do you wish me to arrange for her to go to a hospital?”

  Palfrey’s eyes were drooping. It was a long time before he answered: “Yes. Yes, please. That would be best.”

  “I shall watch her myself whenever I can,” Gaston declared. “The moment she shows any sign of coming out of the coma, I shall send for you.”

  “Good,” Palfrey said. “Here, please.”

  “Of course,” said the doctor.

  He put his stethoscope, his blood-pressure equipment and other instruments away, and stalked to the door. His bony fingers crushed Palfrey’s. “Most interesting,” he declared. “Most interesting. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to see the patient.”

  He went out.

  Palfrey closed the door, bolted it, and went into the bedroom. The girl had not stirred. He found her clothes on a chair near the wardrobe, but made no attempt to put them onto her; instead, he called Duval again. He was so used to finding help at hand, often in times of dire emergency, that when Duval was a long time answering he was puzzled, and soon anxious.

  “Duval.” The Frenchman spoke at last.

  “Two things, very quickly,” Palfrey said. “I want a dark-haired girl who will take risks, and—” he broke off, thinking suddenly of Julia, and had to make himself go on: “Very grave risks. I’ve just had an idea. Have you talked to Julia Shawn today?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Palfrey decided. “Now pay very close attention, will you? First – delay the ambulance that Dr Gaston is to send here for an hour, and have your own men in it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Second – instruct the two men in the hotel here to bring me a big laundry basket, and to be ready to collect it whenever I ask. They are to take it to the Seafarer – to Julia Shawn’s cabin.”

  “Very well.”

  “And make absolutely sure it is safe when there,” Palfrey said.

  “What will be in it?”

  Palfrey said: “A human being.”

  “So! Are we to release the prisoner?”

  “Not until later today,” Palfrey answered. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Very good,” Duval said again.

  Palfrey put the receiver down, but almost at once put in a call to the ship. There was a possibility that the line was tapped, but Duval would have checked that. It was impossible to be absolutely sure that every eventuality was guarded against. He had to take risks, considered risks, such as sending the unknown woman to the ship. Surely that would be the last place that her fellow agents from ‘down below’ would expect him to send her.

  The call was a long time coming through. Before it, he came up, startled, against the realisation that he was completely himself again; his mind worked as he had trained it to. It was easy to reach decisions, and once reached, they seemed obviously the right ones. Duval’s implicit obedience was a great help, but some other factor had caused this rebirth of self-confidence.

  Or had the girl-woman whose name he did not know, taken confidence away while she had been with him?

  The ship’s exchange answered, and in a moment Julia said:

  “Who is that?”

  Palfrey recalled her as she had been when he had last seen her; badly frightened but trying hard not to show it – not really convinced that he was right, and that the immediate danger for her was past. Well, it had been; but now he was about to toss her back into danger, perhaps into a greater peril than she had yet known.

  He said: “This is Sap.”

  “Why, hallo.”

  “Julia,” he said, and hesitated. His right hand was at those strands of hair again. “Julia, I’ve a very tricky, sticky job for you. Much, much worse than looking after Corvell. I’ve been trying to think of someone else I could send, but it has to be someone naturally dark-haired, and someone who is free now. At this moment.”

  “I’m free,” Julia said.

  “If you would prefer not to—”

  Her voice became more brisk. “Don’t be silly, Sap. When I joined you, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to count the risks. Faithful unto death, in fact. What is it you want me to do?”

  That was Julia Shawn’s special kind of courage.

  “I had a visitor at the hotel,” Palfrey told her. “I’ve taken her captive. They”— he paused, to give her time to grasp the significance of that ‘they’– then added— “think she will be in an ambulance on the way to hospital. I want you to be in that ambulance, in her place. With luck, they’ll take you where they would have taken her. With luck, they might want to exchange prisoners.”

  “When do you want me to start?” asked Julia.

  After a pause, Palfrey said: “Come here right away, will you?” His voice was husky, Julia probably had the greater composure in that moment. “You won’t need to pack anything.”

  Julia put down the receiver and stood touching it while looking out of the closed porthole. She was on the starboard side of the ship, alongside one of the quays of the harbour. She could hear cranes and winches grinding and groaning, and just make out the tops of the heads of dockers and others on the docks. She took a quick step or two forward, and studied herself in the tall mirror of her dressing-table. She was much more pale than usual, and her eyes were almost luminously bright.

  She opened a large, brown crocodile leather handbag, put in a few more make-up oddments than she would usually carry, two freshly ironed handkerchiefs and two bars of plain chocolate. She snapped the bag to, and went out. She smiled at the round-faced sergeant-at-arms standing in the passage, and he grinned back happily. Another sergeant-at-arms, tall, huge, was at the foot of the gangway. Julia walked towards him, not knowing what a picture she made in her pencil slim yellow dress with the bolero coat, pale green shoes, pale green cotton gloves. The sergeant-at-arms here towered over her.

  “Morning, miss. They got the devil, then.”

  “What devil?” asked Julia. She had been thinking only of this new assignment, and what it might mean.

  “Why, the swine who shot Mr Green.” Green was the Radio Officer. “He jumped off a precipice up in the Alpes Maritimes.” He pronounced that ‘Alpes Maritymes’. “That’s got rid of a bit of no good.”

  “Yes,” Julia said. “That’s fine.”

  As she passed him, she felt the blood recede even further from her cheeks.

  A car from Duval was waiting outside the Customs shed, where a Customs officer took one look at her handbag and waved her through. She sat back in the small red Renault, thinking of the past more than of the future. Her father had served Z5; so had her lover. Her beloved. When they had both died in the same struggle, she had sworn that she would serve Z5 whatever the cost and whatever the risk. There were two degrees of service in Palfrey’s agents; those who would take every risk, those who took limited ones. Until death do us part, she found herself thinking again.

  Slowly, her thoughts veered towards Palfrey. She had known him for a long time, now. Socially, they were equals. He knew all about her past, the fact that she and Guy had lived together for a long time, because his wife had been ‘sick’; in fact, because she had been mad. She had almost forgotten that she had never been Guy’s wife. Palfrey knew everything about her, then – a
s he seemed to about all the agents. She did not think she had ever known a man who had one tenth of the knowledge that Palfrey had – unless it was the Russian giant, Andromovitch, whom she did not know so well.

  She was not in love with Palfrey, but had a deep affection for and a great faith in him. She might be frightened – she was, now – but if Palfrey thought the risk necessary, then she would take it without hesitation, although she sensed how heavy-hearted he had been when he had asked her to take the job.

  She was to be kidnapped, of course, in mistake for this other woman.

  She wished there were time for her to learn more about the other woman, more about what was happening. When she reached the hotel, going in by an annexe so as not to be noticed by so many people, she was whisked up to the second floor by a service lift. Palfrey welcomed her at his room door. As she stepped inside, he began to tell her what had happened, and what she was to do. In his unhurried voice he contrived to make her feel the sense of urgency. While he talked, she slipped out of her clothes into a dressing gown, ready for the ambulance. Before the ambulance men arrived, Palfrey took her into the bedroom, and they stood looking down together at the ‘sleeping’ woman.

  Julia caught her breath.

  “There isn’t a flaw in her skin,” she almost gasped.

  “Not a flaw anywhere,” Palfrey agreed. “She’s almost too good to be true.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Julia made herself look straight into his eyes.

  “There isn’t much you do know about this affair, Sap, is there?”

  “Far too little,” he admitted. “And most of what we know you’ve told us. I’ve been trying to put myself in their position. If I’ve guessed right, they’ll take you prisoner. They’ll stop the ambulance between here and the docks, and kidnap the patient, thinking it’s her.” He did not look down at the girl-woman. “They may not find out their mistake for a long time. I think when they do, they’ll be anxious to make sure no harm comes to her. I think they’ll want an exchange.”

  Julia could not stop herself from saying: “They didn’t worry about the man who killed the Radio Officer.”

  “I can only hope she is more important to them,” Palfrey said. “Julia, from the moment they take you from that ambulance, keep your eyes and your ears wide open, keep all your senses alert. A word, whisper, a momentary glimpse of a face, a hand, a building, a car – any one of these things might help us to succeed in our investigation. But you know that.”

  “I know it,” Julia said.

  Then the telephone bell rang; the ambulance was waiting.

  Chapter Nine

  AMBULANCE

  Julia felt herself lifted on the stretcher, by two diminutive ambulance men. She kept her eyes closed, but the morning sunlight was bright upon them. She was bandaged about the head so that only her dark hair showed, and about the face, so that it would be difficult for anyone to recognise her at first glance; those who knew her well would recognise her only if they were able to concentrate. She felt herself pushed into position in the ambulance; the hot sunlight was cut off, and that brought relief. The doors closed. One ambulance man was squatting on a bucket seat opposite her; she sensed that he was staring. The engine started. She felt the slight tremor of the vehicle, before it began to move away slowly, then gradually it gathered speed. The springing was remarkable – she felt a slight swaying motion, that was all.

  How soon would it happen?

  She told herself suddenly that it might never happen, that Palfrey might be wrong. Should she pray that he was right or wrong? She felt an almost overwhelming temptation to open her eyes, but resisted it. The ambulance turned a corner. As it did so, she felt the ambulance attendant touch her bare arm. She opened her eyes now, saw him leaning forward, saw the glittering of a hypodermic syringe in his hand.

  “It is Dr Palfrey’s order,” he said.

  He plunged the needle into her flesh.

  She thought, near panic: Sap, Sap, why didn’t you warn me? She tried to sit up, but then dropped back on her pillows again.

  “It will make you sleep,” the ambulance man said soothingly.

  It would make her sleep, so that she would not know what was happening to her; and she might never know life again. Sap, Sap, Sap, why did you do it? She knew why he had, of course; knew that if she had known that she was to be unconscious when she was “captured” it would have been far worse for her to make the decision to go peacefully – it would have been intolerable. Palfrey must have hated the deception even more than telling her what he wanted of her – Sap, she thought, why didn’t you do it yourself? Why didn’t you come with me?

  She felt a darkness descend upon her, and sank into the void beyond.

  The ambulance took the back streets which led to the hospital. The driver was one of Duval’s men, and so was the attendant inside; each of them knew what to expect. The driver turned a corner towards Juan les Pins, into a short, straight road, and saw an antiquated black Renault parked on one side, a small, smart red Fiat almost straight in front of the ambulance; there was no room to pass. As the ambulance slowed down, a man stepped towards the driver briskly, smiled up – and showed the automatic pistol in his right hand.

  “You will come down,” he ordered.

  The driver said: “Come down? What are you thinking about? I’ve a patient in here, she’s got to be rushed to hospital.”

  “You will come down …” the man insisted.

  In the room at the hotel, Palfrey was taking reports which had come in from Merritt already. So far there was none of anyone like the ‘girl-woman’, but it was much too early for those. There were some which might well have a great significance. Between moments of wondering what was happening to Julia Shawn, Palfrey forced himself to study these. It was an almost shattering revelation in one way – if in fact it was a revelation and not coincidence. He had learned to accept coincidences as normal, but this one – or rather, these six – was unbelievable.

  There had been the seven exceptional waves, some apparently tidal, with restricted effects, in various parts of the world:

  The Pacific, near Hawaii

  The Pacific, near Cairns, Queensland, Australia

  The Indian Ocean – near the Seychelles

  The Red Sea, near Aden

  The Atlantic, off the Outer Hebrides

  The North Sea, off the Irish Coast

  The Mediterranean – near here.

  The reports of the effects of the waves were the same in every case – no seismograph indication, no natural cause as far as it was known, no recorded earth shock of any kind – all had been due, as far as anyone could tell, to some kind of local undersea eruption, or possibly to a hurricane which had blown itself out quickly. Palfrey, who had seen the reports before and asked in each case for further information, had not seen them together in this way. Nor had he seen the connection with the disappearances of men such as Corvell. He saw it now.

  At or close to the nearest coastal area affected by each wave, a research physicist, a chemist or a mathematical genius had been staying; and from those coastal areas, the men had disappeared.

  Palfrey had found himself pondering about the waves before, but freak waves were not unusual, and there had been no reason to connect the disappearances with the waves. Now that he studied the disappearances together, and knew what had happened with The Seafarer, the coincidence was almost beyond belief. Seven prominent scientists had vanished, and there was almost certainly some connection between their disappearances and the waves.

  Palfrey studied a small chart, prepared in simple outline, showing the Mercator projection of the world, and the places from which the men had disappeared and the areas of the waves – and he did not doubt that these were connected.

  He began to put in names, opposite the places wh
ere the coastal areas had been affected, and also to make a list of everything noted on the red spots on the chart. The list read:

  1. Dr Fumagi Kyma, American marine bacteriologist, specialist in bacterial and virus diseases known to or believed to originate from oceans, known to be near a break-through in cancer research – had been tunny fishing near Hawaii while on vacation. His ship had foundered and the body of his skipper had been found. He had been presumed dead.

  2. Professor Herbert Rackley, Australian research physicist, believed to have made discoveries of radio-active properties off parts of the Great Barrier Reef, surf-riding on West Australian beaches – reported drowned and pulled under by sharks.

  3. Dr Sigismund Dahl, Swedish specialist in heart diseases, the man most famous for the artificial or plastic heart which it was believed would soon be commonly used in certain cases of heart disease and might extend life by many years when heart disease and/or weakness was the cause of ill-health – lost on an exploration cruise near the Seychelles.

  4. Dr John Smith, English specialist in electronic devices, believed to be nearer to making a computer which could think than anyone else alive – staying at the British base near Aden while making atmospheric and heat tests of a small computer for measuring pressures at various depths of water – believed lost with his companions when on a small yacht.

  5. Mr Otto Schumacher, marine engineer, one of the leading specialists on submarine travel, known to have been experimenting on single-person submarines which would enable individuals to go under water for several thousand miles without surfacing. He had been caught in a storm off the Outer Hebrides, and been presumed lost with all on board the ship in which he had been working.