by Jean Chapman
Cannon shook his head as the call ended. ‘I’m certain Bliss and Heaven are the same man.’
‘‘Bliss, Heaven, Evan, Evans,’ Liz mused with a sigh.
‘What’s that mean?’ he asked sharply.
‘Nothing, wasn’t thinking really,’ she said, ‘just came into my head.’
‘Nothing just comes into your head,’ he said, ‘something triggers it, something always triggers everything.’
‘You could be right,’ she said. ‘It’s thinking of fathers and sons, Toby and Higham. I suddenly remembered that Evan or Evans was the name of the family I lived near as a child. The mother and father who had a disabled son and a clever son.’
‘Who pushed his swimming cups behind a door instead of taking them home?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said as they gathered up coats, hats, scarves ready to go on deck. ‘That family never got their relationships right.’
Cannon had the sensation of a light flickering on his brain. A tiny, bright, intutive flash, like the lights of those improbable-seeming houses they had glimpsed high on the mountain slopes their first night afloat. It felt like a preposterous solution had fallen into his lap. He sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed and gazed at Liz. Surely, surely, he thought, it could not be?
‘What is it?’ Liz asked. ‘Are you all right?’
He opened his mouth but at that moment the side-thrusters of the Nordsol’s engines announced docking procedure was underway.
‘Come with me,’ he ordered and led the way at a sprint towards the bridge and Anders. ‘I know from the passenger list there is no Heaven or Bliss aboard, but Evan, or Evans.…’
‘Wait a minute,’ Liz said as the idea that had flitted into John’s mind now slipped into hers. She shook her head and began to move again, for the idea had stopped her in her tracks.
Captain Anders handed over the docking procedure to his second-in-command, nodded to Liz, looked questioningly at Cannon and listened.
‘We have no passengers due to disembark at Harstad but Tromsø –’ he shook his head ‘– is always busy and most passengers will want to go ashore.’
‘At Tromsø there will be a well organized police presence,’ Cannon said.
‘Yes,’ Anders agreed, ‘and I’ll have them aboard before anyone is allowed off.’
Cannon nodded agreement.
‘So now we’ll have a look at the passenger list again.’ He turned away to a computer at the side of the bridge complex, woke the screen and in seconds had first an alphabetical list of crew, then passengers.
This gave details of a party consisting of one Owen Evans, Pamela Evans and James Evans, aged ten years, a Michael Evans, and a Michael Evan.
‘Two Michaels,’ Cannon said, ‘concentrate on them.’
The screen now switched to showing a graphic of the outside of the ship with the decks marked in different colours. The cursor moved down to click on number five, and now they saw the layout of that deck with all the cabins numbered.
‘Both on this deck,’ Captain Anders said. ‘Cabin 546 is a mini suite, right next to the lifts. This is a cabin we often use for anyone needing a wheelchair.’ He touched another button. ‘In fact, Mr Michael Evan is a wheelchair user.’ He switched back to the previous graphic. ‘The other cabin is 555, port side further back. Shall we take that first?’
Cannon nodded.
The three of them used the lift to go down two decks, turned left out of the lift, left again and down the corridor until they came to 555. The captain knocked, twice. The second time a voice called, ‘Coming.’
A tall, grey-haired man opened the door; his eyes widened when he saw the captain. ‘Are we sinking?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, you are quite safe,’ Anders assured him and directed his gaze out of the cabin window to the quayside of Harstad where they were moored.
Cannon in the meantime gave Anders a very definite shake of the head. This was not their man.
‘Ah! I was sound asleep.’ The pyjamaed passenger stepped back a little, apologizing, then said, ‘But there must be something wrong.’
‘We are urgently looking for someone by the name of Michael Evans, but you are clearly not our man. I am sorry we disturbed you.’
‘Are you sure?’ He spread his arms, appealing for reassurance. ‘My wife? My daughter? There’s not a message for me from home?’
‘No, sir, we just have the wrong Mr Evans. The man we need is known to this gentleman.’ He indicated Cannon.
‘That’s correct, Mr Evans, and it is not you. You relax and have a good trip,’ Cannon said, beginning to move away.
‘I’ve come to see the sea eagles,’ the man said as he stepped back into his cabin.
‘It’s a very good outing, Mr Evans,’ the captain replied, murmuring when they were out of earshot that he must invite his disturbed passenger on a courtesy visit to the bridge when things returned to normal.
They moved quickly now to the mini-suite but as they neared the lifts a crew member came to report to the captain that they were ready to lower the freight ramp.
‘They are to wait until I’m in the hold to give the order personally,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there shortly.’ When the crewman had hurried away, he knocked at cabin 546 but there was no reply.
‘Once more, I think,’ the captain decided.
‘Let me,’ Liz said, and taking the initiative, knocked again, leaning close to the door and shouting ‘room service’ loudly.
Still no response. ‘So I think in the circumstances …’ the captain said, taking a master card from his pocket, using it in the key-slot and leading them inside.
The first thing they saw was a wheelchair folded and pushed up by the side of the bed. They paused and both looked towards the shower unit. Anders strode forward and pushed open the door: it was empty.
Liz moved to the far side of the bed, looked down and gasped.
‘What is it?’ Cannon asked.
Liz bent and picked up a dark grey wig and beard. ‘Mr Evan, I presume,’ she said, ‘who does not need a wheelchair to get about … and who I stood behind in the queue for coffee this morning, and who …’
‘Who?’ Cannon questioned the pause quickly, sharply.
‘Who,’ she said, ‘is Bliss, and is now Evan … again.’ She repeated the word the man in the wheelchair had used to thank her: ‘again’.
‘And who is now presumably out and about in some other disguise,’ Anders said grimly, ‘but no passenger is getting off my ship, and he’s going to have to eat and go to bed somewhere. Surely we must have him! He’s trapped on board. Come on, our police officer needs to know all this as soon as he boards.’
They followed him through a door marked ‘Crew Only’ into an unpretentious lift and down to the enormous freight-hold. This had an echoing, metallic feel and the smell of welding seemed still to linger. There were several men standing around, all wearing the black fleeces marked ‘Crew’ in bold yellow letters on the back. One man, with a fistful of papers, detached himself from the group when he saw the captain.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘we have four extra crates coming aboard for Kirkenes, a delayed shipment the previous ferry should have taken.’
‘Right, and I have a police officer coming aboard,’ Anders said, looking around. ‘You’re sure you have no one down here who is not authorized?’
He shook his head, but looked over to Cannon and Liz.
‘No, these two are assisting me and the police; they know the man we are looking for.’
‘The man who …’ the man stopped, ‘our second engineer?’
The captain nodded, then ordered, ‘Carry on.’
The man moved off to give the order for the freight ramp to be lowered. It was quite a strange experience, for it seemed as if an enormous slice of the side of the ship was giving way, falling slowly, letting in the bright reflected light of day and snow. Above the dockside buildings they could see where fences had been built across the hills to prevent the weight of heavy
snowfalls coming down on the town. These hills were sparsely covered with broken snow as yet, but on the higher reaches lay thick blankets of unbroken white.
Cannon moved forward, walked on to the ship end of the ramp, but he was waved away as a forklift truck began to move from inside a building and along the quayside with a long unwieldy crate protruding a metre and a half, or more, either side of the forklift.
A second truck followed with a similar load, both trundling slowly towards the ramp – and behind this walked a man with a small medical-looking case. He was certainly not young. Cannon thought he looked more like an office man than an active police officer, or he might even be the local doctor? He kept a very sensible distance behind the vehicles.
Some of the crew were detailed to steady the ends of the loads as the ascent up the ramp and into the hold began.
As these first two crates reached the interior, the man with the case made his way towards the captain, but Cannon moved around him, wanted to be where he could see all. There was too much activity and too many men moving about for his peace of mind. Nothing like a melee of vehicles, and men, for a suspect to disappear, and this murderer desperately needed to get off the ship.
He watched as the crew were forced to both guide and steady the second lot of unwieldy loads. ‘No wonder they were left behind,’ he heard one man grumble. ‘I’d leave the bloody things given half a chance.’
Even so, Cannon thought they managed very well. Then just as he was about to relax, when the trucks were both back on the quayside, the crew all back in the hold, and the ramp being raised, Cannon saw a man in a black fleece with the hood up pressed up against a warehouse wall. The man half-turned to take a fleeting backward look towards the Nordsol before moving rapidly away and revealing the large yellow lie – ‘Crew’ – on his back.
‘Stop!’ Cannon bellowed. Many faces turned his way but nothing, and no one, stopped. The ramp end was well clear of the quay. He saw its angle was rapidly steepening.
‘Bliss is on the quay!’ he shouted as he ran up the increasing slope, scrabbled, scrambled. He heard shouts of alarm at his back. Eat your heart out, James Bond, he thought, as he hurled himself in a sideways leap between the narrowing ‘V’ between ship’s side and the ramp.
Many things crowded the moment and his mind – the sight of Liz’s horrified face, approval from his policeman grandfather, hearty Cockney blaspheming from his father – and as his raised arm scraped metal going the opposite way the horror that he might not make it before the freight door hermetically resealed itself back to the side of the ship.
Chapter 21
Cannon landed in a crashing heap, fighting to suck air into lungs that had lost capacity. He rolled over on to his knees, fighting for the breath of life, strength to get up, at the same time trying to see where Bliss had gone. Then his view was obscured by the truck drivers who came running to him.
‘Police!’ he managed to gasp and, lifting a hand towards the building, ‘Stop … man.’
There was no one to be seen. Cannon stabbed a finger in the direction he must have gone, and the younger of the two set off in a run in that direction, but was back as Cannon at last managed to get to his feet and take something like a normal breath. ‘No one,’ he reported, ‘but the taxi drove off. He could have taken that.’
‘The taxi?’ Cannon repeated, the implication doing much to restore his breathing. ‘You mean there are no more? Have you got a car?’
‘A scooter.’ The young man shook his head, adding as Cannon looked towards the other driver, ‘Ola walks to work. We wouldn’t catch them on my scooter but if I could take you to the taxi office, two brothers run the taxi and car hire business. I think they are always in touch by radio.’
Cannon nodded. ‘I must catch that man.’
‘Come.’ The young driver beckoned and ran around to a small car park, where his scooter stood quite alone. ‘Something bad happened on board?’ he asked as he swung on to his bike and made room for Cannon on the pillion seat. ‘Ola said that there was a police doctor waiting to go aboard. I’m Lars, by the way.’
‘Cannon, John Cannon,’ he replied. ‘And yes … a death, a sudden death.’
Lars shrugged his shoulders as they roared at full throttle, but no great speed, along Harstad’s quiet streets. ‘Police do not chase men for a sudden death,’ he said.
‘No,’ Cannon agreed, ‘but I can’t say more.’
‘I understand,’ he said, ‘so we chase a suspect.’
Cannon did not answer.
There was no sign of the taxi, and not many other cars. Cannon was relieved to see that the office Lars pulled up in front of had a light on, and a man looking out of the window was already on the telephone.
‘I know the brothers well,’ Lars said and preceded Cannon into the office, bringing the taxi owner straight to the urgency of their visit with a mouthed ‘police’, then as the man put down the phone Lars added aloud, ‘It’s the man who’s hired your taxi, Mr Cannon here needs a car to go after him.’
Looking startled, the man said, ‘That was my brother on the telephone. He’s on his way to Tromsø with a passenger who says he needs to go to see a very sick relative quickly.’
‘And you do have a hire car?’ Cannon asked, reaching for his mobile.
‘I do,’ he said a little cautiously.
‘I’d like to hire it, now,’ Cannon said, pressing the first contact on his phone.
‘It is very urgent,’ Lars urged. ‘Very …’
‘Fill in that form, there’ll be a full tank of petrol. How will you pay?’
‘Card,’ Cannon said.
‘I thought you just took a car if you wanted one,’ Lars said.
‘You watched too many TV crime stories,’ Cannon said, taking the card machine from the businessman and punching in his number, as Liz answered her mobile.
‘Bliss has taken the only taxi and is “speeding to see a sick relative in Tromsø”,’ Cannon told her. ‘I’m following in a hire car.’ He listened for a moment, then said, ‘Road blocks, I would think. There can’t be many alternative routes in this terrain.’
‘I’ll fetch the car round,’ the owner said.
Cannon took his receipt from the card machine; Higham would pick up this tab eventually, he hoped. Then he picked up a business card from the desk, read name and telephone number to Liz. ‘Contact this man when I’ve gone, he’ll give you the numbers of the taxi and the hire car I’m taking.’
‘They’re both black Toyotas,’ Lars supplied.
‘You heard that?’ Cannon asked.
‘Black Toyotas,’ she repeated. ‘OK.’
He sensed the ‘be careful’.
‘I’m all right,’ he said aloud.
‘OK,’ she repeated and rang off.
‘I wonder if there’s a road map here?’ he asked Lars while they waited.
‘Sure.’ Lars referred to a pile of papers on a side table and pulled some stapled sheets out. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘a map and detailed instructions. Four hours, fifteen minutes driving,’ then flipping the pages over, added, ‘and there’s a hiking route – take you forty-six hours, twenty-five minutes to walk.’
‘Right!’ Cannon said drily, as he took the four sheets and the business owner returned holding out keys.
‘I hope I’m doing the right thing,’ he said.
‘You are,’ Cannon reassured him, ‘just radio your brother and tell him to let you know as soon as he’s dropped off his passenger, say you have another fare waiting. When you are sure he’s alone, ask your brother to tell you as much as he can – exactly where he put him down, what time, what his passenger said, if anything, then report all he tells you to this number.’ He had put Liz’s number on the bottom of another business card.
Lars left the office with him and pointed him on his way. ‘It’ll be the main road – the only road in parts.’ Cannon shook his hand as he climbed into the car.
‘The snow chains are fitted, you’ll be glad of thos
e as you get towards Tromsø – they’ve had a good fall of snow already,’ Lars said. ‘Godspeed.’
‘Thanks.’ Cannon felt strangely touched by the unexpected blessing, but then concentrated on the driving. He had already seen that it was the route 83 he wanted out of Harstad and beyond. After that he had the route sheets on the seat beside him and his mobile phone to hand.
The houses gave way to landscapes of brilliant skies, sheets of water reflecting white clouds and snow-capped hillsides. Cannon found himself thinking this was not the country for crime. This was where he and Liz should be holiday-making, instead of which—
His mobile burbled, making him jump.
‘Cannon?’ Betterson’s voice.
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve found the hire van and the walking sticks from Bliss’s shop.’
‘And?’
‘The bludgeon that beat Riley’s brains out, his DNA is splattered all over it.’
‘Where?’ Cannon asked.
‘A tumble-down barn on a salt marsh, near a bus route to Skegness.’
‘Spier?’ Cannon said.
‘Yes, but we haven’t traced him yet. The press are having a field day at our expense,’ he said with an ironic laugh, then he asked, ‘Are you driving?’
‘Bliss has jumped ship,’ he said. ‘Details later. I’m following him on a Norwegian road that’s getting snowier by the minute. Liz is still aboard the Nordsol with Higham, notifying the police what’s happening.’
‘What is happening?’
‘Bliss got himself in a cleft stick on board the ferry.’ Cannon told him of the latest murder.
‘The Norwegian police?’ Betterson demanded urgently.
‘At the other end of this road, waiting, I hope,’ Cannon said, gritting his teeth as a large lorry came at speed towards him, hooter blaring. Cannon on the precipice side of the road fixed his eyes on his share of the road and gripped the steering wheel. ‘I need to concentrate,’ he said, his mouth dry.
