I hesitated. But I had to put it to her. “Do you believe your husband murdered your father?” She didn’t answer and I added, “Is that what you believe?” My voice sounded peremptory.
Her grey eyes were wide as saucers as she looked up at me. Then suddenly something inside her snapped and she buried her head in her hands. “I don’t know what to think.” She was sobbing violently. “It’s horrible—horrible.” Her shoulders shook with the sudden pent-up force of her emotions breaking out.
I went over and put my hands on her arms. “Stop crying,” I said. “You’re a member of a committee of enquiry, not a schoolgirl.” I shook her. It was the only thing to do. She was on the verge of hysterics. My violence and lack of sympathy checked her. “Stop blubbering and try to reason it out,” I said, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Either your father committed suicide, or your husband’s a murderer.” She gasped. But I could see her mind was suddenly facing up to the facts that she had been trying to avoid.
There was a knock at the door. It was a message from Eide to say that Larvik was on board. “I’m sorry, Judie,” I said. “Don’t think I don’t realise how rotten this is for you. But we’ve got to find out what was in Larvik’s mind. Will you question him?”
She nodded and reached for her handbag. When she had made up her face again we went down and joined Captain Eide. “Mrs. Bland will put the questions,” I said. I nodded to Kyrre to fetch in Captain Larvik.
At close quarters the whaling skipper looked even broader and even more like a seal. He sat down awkwardly on the edge of a chair. He was nervous. He didn’t look at Eide or myself. His small, immensely blue eyes were fixed on Judie. Was it sympathy, or was there something else in the expression of his eyes? I had an uncanny feeling that those blue eyes were trying to tell her something. “Kaptein Larvik,” she said. “Yesterday, when you were on board the Southern Cross, you spoke with one of the crew—a man named Ulvik.” She spoke carefully in English.
“Ja. That is so,” Larvik replied in the same language. He was a Bergenske and he spoke English with a Germanic guttural accent, relic of the days when the Hanseatic League ruled the Bergen shipping trade.
“We have heard Ulvik’s evidence,” she added, and outlined briefly what he had told us. “Commander Craig here takes the view that that evidence is unreliable. In fact, he thinks you instructed the man to give false evidence.”
“And you, fru Bland—what do you think?”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second and then said, “I think so too.”
Larvik shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, staring at her.
“Why, Kaptein Larvik?” Judie asked him. “Why did you tell him to say that Erik and my father had a row up there on the deck in the fog the night my father—disappeared.”
His big hands waved awkwardly like a pair of flippers. “I do not wish to hurt you more than you have been hurt already,” he said. His voice was kindly, as though he were talking to a child or a dog of which he was fond. “But it is what I believe happens.”
“You are accusing my husband of being a murderer,” she said, and Larvik winced at the bluntness of her tongue. “Of murdering my father,” she added. “Why didn’t you come to us directly or to Captain Eide and make this statement yourself? To present your suspicions in this roundabout way, getting Ulvik to make a statement you and he knew to be false, is horrible. Erik didn’t see my father at all that night—after the evening meal.”
“How do you know?” Larvik’s voice was gruff. Sudden anger showed in his eyes.
“Erik made that statement in evidence before this enquiry.”
“Then he’s lying,” Larvik growled.
Judie stared at him as though she’d been silenced with a blow. I could see she believed this fat, bearded whaler. I thought: Larvik and her father are old friends. This man probably played with her as a child. She accepts him—everything he is and everything he says—in the same way that she would accept her father and anything he said. I saw her lips tremble. Her body seemed to sag. “Oh, God,” she breathed. She was shaking uncontrollably, her eyes quite blank. She wasn’t crying. She was past that.
“How do you know Bland is lying?” I demanded angrily. If the man couldn’t substantiate his statement, then why in God’s name had he made it?
I saw Larvik steady himself. His eyes were full of sudden pity. His hands flapped awkwardly. But beneath the beard his lips clamped into a tight line. “I have nothing more to say,” he growled. And then added, “That is what I believe happened. I wished for the enquiry to know that and act on it.”
“But what makes you so sure that Erik Bland saw Nordahl later that night?” I demanded. “You say Bland is lying?”
“Ja”
“How do you know?”
“That is what I believe,” he answered stubbornly.
“But good God, man!” I shouted at him. “You must have some reason for your suspicions?”
But all he replied was, “Ask Bland.”
I looked at Eide. I could see that he thought the same as I did—that we should get no further with Larvik. It was no good asking Judie if she had any further questions to ask. She was staring at Larvik, dry-eyed, with a sort of dawning horror mirrored on her white face. “All right,” I said to Larvik. “We’ve no further questions to put to you. I would only like to add that I consider your conduct in this matter disgraceful. You have made a very dangerous accusation which you are not prepared to substantiate. I trust your attitude will be more helpful and less underhand when the police interview you.” I glanced at Eide, who nodded in support of my remarks.
But I could see that they had had no effect on Larvik. His eyes were fixed on Judie. They were full of pain. He was sharing the hell that she was going through. “Please return to your ship, Captain Larvik,” I said.
He got up then, standing awkwardly in front of the table, still looking at Judie. Once he cleared his throat as though about to say something. Then he turned abruptly on his heel and left the room.
I looked at Eide. “I think we should have Bland back again,” I whispered. He agreed. I turned to Judie. She hadn’t moved. I put my hand on hers. “Are you prepared to face your husband now,” I said, “or shall we adjourn for a bit?”
She swallowed quickly. “Please—now,” she said. She wanted to get it over.
“All right,” I said, and phoned the radio officer on duty to put out a call on the public address system for Erik Bland to attend the enquiry again. I did it that way to scare him. We waited in silence. Faintly we heard the amplifiers sounding Bland’s name through the ship. The silence in the room seemed to cry out.
When Bland came in he was breathing heavily as though he’d been hurrying. And it was a different Bland to the disarmingly helpful young man who had faced us earlier in the day—or so it seemed to me. His face looked puffy. His eyes darted about the room, crossing, but not meeting, our gaze. I motioned him to a chair. He sat down quickly. The tension of the room was enveloping him. I let it work on him. “Well?” he asked, unable to bear the silence any longer. “What do you want to ask me now?” The abruptness of his tone was startlingly different to his previous ease of manner.
“We have just heard the evidence of one of the men,” I said. I let that sink in for a mcfment. If I handled it right, whatever it was he was scared of would come out. “Do you still persist in your statement that you didn’t see Nordahl after the evening meal on the night he disappeared?”
His eyes flicked up at me and back to the floor. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.” Then his hands caught hold of the arms of the chair. “You’ve had Larvik on board. You’ve interviewed him, haven’t you?” So that was what had got him worried. “He’s trying to fix it on me.” His voice was uncontrolled. Something was gnawing at his mind. Something he was scared of. “It isn’t one of the men who’s been talking to you. It’s Larvik. He’s always hated me. He’s a friend of Nordahl’s. He’s using Nordahl’s death to get at me. He’
s lying. He’s lying, I tell you.”
“He says you’re lying,” I said.
“It’s my word against his.” Bland’s voice was wild. “He’s guessing. That’s all he’s doing.”
I said, “Wait a minute, Bland. We’re not dealing with Larvik’s evidence. We’re dealing with the evidence of one of the men. He says that at about midnight Nordahl was standing by one of the boats.” I knew the man’s statement was false. I had no right to use it to force Bland’s hand. But I had to find out the truth. I justified myself on the grounds that if Bland were hiding anything it would force him into the open. “Nordahl was smoking a cigar,” I went on. “As the man passed him on his way for’ard again he met you. He says you were going towards where Nordahl was standing.” Bland’s face was ashen. He seemed to be holding his breath. “Well?” I said. “Did you go towards Nordahl as he stood there by one of the boats, smoking a cigar?” I emphasised the details. I emphasised every point of the picture.
“No,” he cried. “No.”
“The man said he then stopped by one of the ventilators,” I went on. “He heard the beginnings of an altercation. There was a cry. And then silence.”
“No. It isn’t true.”
“He said that a moment later you passed him, going for’ard. Your face was very white. You didn’t see him because of the fog and the fact that he was hidden behind the ventilator cowl. He then went back to the spot where he had seen Nordahl.” I hesitated. Bland was staring at me, fascinated. “Nordahl wasn’t there any more.”
Bland opened his mouth. But nothing came out. He seemed to be gasping for breath. Then he suddenly said, “All right. I was up there. I did see Nordahl. We did have a row. But that was all. That was all, I tell you.”
“What was the row about?” I asked.
“What was the row—about?” He seemed dazed for the moment. His eyes shifted quickly round the room as though searching for some way of escape from the three of us sitting there behind the plain deal table. He moistened his lips with his tongue and then said, “He accused my father of ruining him.”
“On what grounds?” I asked.
He looked at me then. And his eyes held my gaze as though he wanted to batter the information he had to give me into my brain. “Nordahl wanted control of the company,” he said. “He wanted to run it his own way. He wanted all the men to be from Tönsberg. He liked to think of himself as an important figure in Tönsberg.”
“That’s not true,” Judie said. The denial seemed to be torn out of her, it was so violent.
Bland ignored her. “He didn’t want me on the ship. He did everything he could to make it difficult for me. He even altered figures in the catchers’ books so that the Tönsberg men should be able to bring complaints. He was afraid my father when he died would make me chairman over his head.”
“Come to the point,” I said, as he paused. “Why did he accuse your father of ruining him?”
“He needed money,” Bland answered. “He was making a desperate bid to get control of the company. He badgered my father until he let him in on a deal he was planning in South African mines. He put everything he’d got into it. The crash came two weeks after we left Capetown.”
“What was the name of the company he invested in?” I asked. “Was it Wyks Odensdaal Rust Development?”
“Yes,” he said, and his voice sounded surprised.
The plan foreman in his evidence had suggested that it was from Erik Bland, not his father, that Nordahl had obtained financial advice. I hesitated. But there was no point in raising the matter. “In your opinion Nordahl was broke then?”
“Yes. He’d mortgaged everything—all his holdings in the South Antarctic Company—in a desperate effort to cash in.”
“Then he was going to buy out the other people interested in the company?”
“Yes. That was his idea.”
“When he’d done that, would he have thrown your father out?”
Again Bland hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What you were really afraid of,” I said, “was that he’d throw you out. Isn’t that it?”
He ignored the point. “The case didn’t arise,” he said. “My father was too smart to be caught like that. I tell you, Nordahl was broke—finished. And he knew it. He cursed me there on the deck.”
“Why did he cry out?” I asked quickly.
Again that momentary hesitation. “He didn’t cry out,” he answered. “I think perhaps it was I who cried out. I don’t know. All I know is that he hit me. I left him then. I didn’t want to hit back at an older man, especially as he was wrought up over his losses.”
“Do you remember an altercation you had with Nordahl in his cabin?” I asked. “One of the crew overheard it. Nordahl demanded your resignation. You refused it. You said—‘See what my father does when he arrives.’” I looked down at my notes. “Nordahl then said—‘Your father can do what he likes. I’m not going to be saddled with a rat like you and I’ll see that the company isn’t, either.’” I looked across at Bland’s white face. “You didn’t baulk at striking an older man then,” I said. “Are you sure it was Nordahl who struck you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Nordahl struck me and I left him then.”
“The man whose evidence has produced all this,” I said slowly, “went straight back to the spot where Nordahl had been standing. Nordahl wasn’t there.”
“I tell you, he knew he was ruined.” Bland’s face was tense. He was fighting to make us see it his way. “He was finished. He could never face Tönsberg again. He took the only way out.”
“My father never took an easy way out in his life.” Judie’s voice was clear-cut and distinct. It was like a douche of cold water on the heat of Erik Bland’s argument.
“Well, he took it this time.” There was something almost truculent in the way he said it.
I looked at Eide. “Any more questions?” I asked. He shook his head. I turned to Judie. Her lips were compressed. She was staring at Erik Bland with a sort of horror in her eyes. “All right, Bland,” I said. “That’s all.”
He got up slowly as though he didn’t want to be released like that. He started to say something, but then his eyes met Judie’s and he turned quickly and went out. I realised then that whatever he had once meant to her it was finished now. And I was suddenly, unaccountably glad about that.
As the door closed behind him, I said, “Well, do we need to call anybody else?” I was thinking: It’s a matter for the police now. Either Bland killed him, or Nordahl committed suicide. Those were the only two possible alternatives. Judie said he would never commit suicide. She ought to know if anyone did. She was his daughter. But who could possibly tell how a man would react when all he’s lived for and worked for is shattered in the wreckage of a wild gamble? He’d played his hand and lost. He’d tried his hand at Bland’s game—finance—and failed. How could she know what he would do in those circumstances?
It was Judie who interrupted my thoughts. “I would like to call Doctor Howe,” she said in a small, bleak voice. It was drained of all emotion—empty, toneless.
I looked at her in surprise. “Doctor Howe? Why?” I asked. “He wasn’t even on the Southern Cross. He was in Capetown, waiting for us.”
“I think he might be able to tell us something,” was all she said.
“All right,” I agreed and nodded to Kyrre.
Howe was pale and nervous when he came in. It was as though he’d been nerving himself for this moment. Judie said, “Walter, we want some information about father’s affairs.” His Adam’s apple gave a leap, but his hands were steady and his gaze was direct as he looked at Judie. “Was he involved in Wyks Odensdaal Rust Development?” she asked him.
Howe nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“And he’d mortgaged everything he had—all his holdings in the South Antarctic Company—for this gamble?”
“Yes.”
“I see,” she said quietly. “And he acted on Colonel Bland’s advice?”
>
“I don’t know whose advice he was acting on.”
She nodded. “Thank you. That perhaps explains it.” Her voice was barely audible.
I nodded for Howe to go. He hesitated, looking at Judie’s bent head. He wanted to help her. I saw it in his eyes. His face didn’t look ugly in that moment. Then he was gone and I heard myself saying in a matter-of-fact voice, “Why is it that Howe knows so much about your father’s affairs?”
“Bernt and Walter were very close,” she answered quietly.
“You’re satisfied your father was gambling in South African mines?” I asked.
She nodded.
“You can call Colonel Bland himself if you like,” I said.
“It’s not necessary. Walter wouldn’t lie to me.”
I glanced at Eide. “You satisfied, too, Captain?” I asked him.
“Ja. I am satisfied.”
“Very well then,” I said. “It only remains to agree on our findings.” I glanced at Judie. Her thoughts were far away. “Judie,” I said. “Can I have your views?”
“I will agree to whatever you think,” she said. Her voice was vague. She sounded as though she were far away.
The telephone rang and I picked it up. It was Bland. He wanted to know whether we were through. “In about five minutes,” I said. “We’re just deciding on our findings.”
“Good. As soon as you’re through I want you and Eide to come up to the saloon. The gunners are all here.”
When I put the receiver back Judie had risen. “You must wait until we have agreed on our findings,” I said gently.
“I don’t want to wait,” she answered. “I don’t wish to talk about it any more. Please—I will agree with your verdict.” She went out then and I looked at Eide. He was massaging the side of his beard. “Bland wants us both up in the saloon,” I said. “Can I have your views?”
“Ja. I think it is a matter for the police. As far as we can discover it is Erik Bland who sees him last. It is either—murder, or suicide.”
The White South Page 11
