Алистер Маклин - Circus

She said dully: ‘Either way you’re a dead man.’

Halfway to his stateroom Bruno found a phone and called Dr Harper. Harper was eventually located in the dining saloon. Bruno said: ‘My ankle’s acting up again.’

‘Ten minutes and I’ll be across.’

And in ten minutes’ time Harper was in the stateroom as promised. He made free of Bruno’s liquor cabinet, made himself at armchair ease and heard out Bruno’s account of his conversation with Maria. At the end, and after due thought, he said: ‘I’d say it gives you at least a fighting chance. Better than mine, I must admit. When do you propose to carry this into effect?’

‘The final decision is, of course, yours. I’d thought of making the reconnaissance on Sunday and making the entry on Tuesday night. Late Tuesday night. That seems like the best plan, the best time, for we will be leaving the following day and that will give the police less time for questioning if questioning there will be.’

‘Agreed.’

‘If we have to make a break for it – you have escape plans?’

‘We have. But they’re not finalized yet. I’ll let you know when they are.’

‘Coming via your little transceiver? Remember you promised to show me that some time.’

‘I shall. I’ve got to – I told you. I’ll do three things at one time, show you the transceiver, give you the guns and give you the escape plans. I’ll let you know when. What does Maria think of your idea?’

‘A marked lack of enthusiasm. But then she was hardly over the moon about yours either. But, however unwillingly, she’ll co-operate.’ Bruno stopped and looked around him in some puzzlement.

Harper said: ‘Something’s wrong?’

‘Not necessarily wrong. But the ship’s slowing down. Can’t you hear it? Can’t you feel it? The engine revolutions have dropped right away. Why should a ship stop – well, anyway, slow down – in the middle of the Mediterranean? Well, I suppose we’ll find out in good enough time.’

They found out immediately. The door was unceremoniously thrown open, with a force sufficient to send it juddering on its hinges. Tesco Wrinfield almost ran into the room.

His face was grey, his breathing heavy and short at the same time. He said: ‘Henry’s missing. He’s missing! We can’t find him anywhere.’

Bruno said: ‘Is that why the Carpentaria is slowing down?’

‘We’ve been searching everywhere.’ He gulped down the glass of brandy which Harper had handed to him. ‘The crew has searched, is still searching everywhere. There’s just no trace of him. Vanished, just vanished.’

Harper was soothing. He glanced at his watch. ‘Come on, now, Mr Wrinfield, that couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes ago. And this is a very big ship.’

‘With a very big crew,’ Bruno said. ‘They have a standardized routine for this sort of thing – searching for a missing passenger, that is. From the lifeboats to the hold they can cover every conceivable area in less time than you would believe possible.’ He turned to the distraught Wrinfield. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you any comfort, sir – but is the captain slowing down so as not to get too far away from the place where your nephew may have fallen overboard?’

‘I think so.’ Wrinfield listened. ‘We’re picking up speed, aren’t we?’

‘And turning,’ Bruno said. ‘I’m afraid that means, sir, that the captain is pretty sure that Henry is not aboard. He’ll be taking the Carpentaria through a hundred and eighty degrees and tracking back the way we came. If Henry is overboard he may well be swimming or afloat. This sort of thing has happened before: there’s always a chance, Mr Wrinfield.’

Wrinfield looked at him with distraught disbelief on his face and Bruno did not blame him: he didn’t believe it himself either.

They went on deck. The Carpentaria , retracing the course it had come, was making perhaps ten knots, no more. A motorized lifeboat, already manned, was swung out on its davits. Two powerful searchlights, one on either wing of the bridge, shone straight ahead. In the bows two seamen directed the beams of their portable searchlights almost vertically downwards. A little farther aft two seamen on either side waited with rope-attached and illuminated lifebelts. Beyond them still, rope-ladders, picked out in the beams of torches, hung over the side.

Twenty minutes of steadily mounting tension and dwindling hope passed. Wrinfield abruptly left his two companions and made his way to the bridge. He found the master on the starboard wing, binoculars to his eyes. He lowered them as Wrinfield came by his side and shook his head slowly.

He said: ‘Your nephew is not on the ship, Mr Wrinfield. That is for certain.’ The captain looked at his watch. ‘It is now thirty-eight minutes since your nephew was last seen. We are now at the precise spot where we were thirty-eight minutes ago. If he is alive – I’m sorry to be so blunt, sir – he cannot be beyond this point.’

‘We could have missed him?’

‘Most unlikely. Calm sea, windless night, no currents hereabouts worth speaking of and the Mediterranean, as you know, is virtually tideless. He would have been on the line we have taken.’ He spoke to an officer by his side: the man disappeared inside the bridge.

Wrinfield said: ‘And what now?’

‘We’ll take her round in a tight circle. Then in widening concentric circles, three, maybe four. Then, if we turn up nothing, we go back at the same speed to the spot where we turned.’

‘And that will be it?’

‘That, I’m afraid, will be it.’

‘You are not very hopeful, Captain.’

‘I am not very hopeful.’

It took the Carpentaria forty minutes to complete the search pattern and return to the position where she had turned round. Maria, standing with Bruno in the shadow of a lifeboat, shivered as the throb of the engines deepened and the Carpentaria began to pick up speed.

She said: ‘That’s it, then, isn’t it?’

‘The searchlights have gone out.’

‘And it’s my fault. It’s my fault.’ Her voice was husky.

‘Don’t be silly.’ He put his arm round her. ‘There’s no way this could have been prevented.’

‘It could! It could! I didn’t take him seriously enough. I – well, I didn’t quite laugh at him – but, well, I didn’t listen to him either. I should have told you two days ago.’ She was openly weeping now. ‘Or Dr Harper. He was such a nice person.’

Bruno heard the word ‘was’ and knew she had finally accepted what he himself had accepted an hour ago. He said gently: ‘It would be nice if you spoke to Mr Wrinfield.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. But – well, I don’t want to see people. Couldn’t we – I don’t like asking, but if he could come here – if you could bring him and–’

‘Not on your sweet life, Maria. You’re not staying here alone.’

He sensed her staring at him in the darkness. She whispered: ‘Do you think that someone–’

‘I don’t know what to think because I don’t know how or why Henry died. All I’m certain of is it was no accident: he died because he found out that someone was too interested in you and because he must have made the mistake of finding out too much. I’ve been asking one or two questions. Apparently he left the dining saloon just after we did. He left by another door but I suppose he wanted to avoid any obvious connection. I’m sure he wasn’t directly following us – he may have taken a dim view of my association with you, but he was straight, honest and the last peeping Tom one could imagine. I think he was acting in his self-appointed guardian role. I think he was checking to see if anyone was following or watching us – Henry had a romantic streak and this sort of thing would have appealed to him. I can only assume that he did indeed find some such person, and that that person – or another person, God only knows how many unpleasant characters there may be aboard – found Henry in a highly compromising situation. Compromising to the villains, I mean. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the primary object of attention was you. Just bear in mind that you can’t swim very far if the back of your head has been knocked in in advance.’ He produced a handkerchief and carried out running repairs to the tear-stained face. ‘You come along with me.’