Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

It seemed unlikely, but just to be on the safe side, tomorrow morning every man of them would leave Australia. Curtis would lease another ship, hire a captain, man the new ship with the old crew, and send it any damn place; Singapore, why not?

“Probably get there before I do,” he muttered, glowering at the Botanical Gardens down below, and the doorbell softly ding-donged.

Three o’clock exactly. Police Inspector Fairchild was a prompt man, apparently. Let him be impatient, too, Curtis thought, as he crossed to the door, let him not give a single shit about some dead Chinaman.

On the phone, Inspector Tony Fairchild had sounded like an older man, gruff-voiced, perhaps pedantic. In person, though, he was something else, more impressive and, if you were the kind to be intimidated, intimidating. He was considerably taller than Curtis, big-boned with very little body fat, and with large big-knuckled hands. He had a hawk head, topped by a stiff brush of gray hair, and he had turned what must be a habitual squint into something that looked more like a disapproving frown. “Mr. Curtis,” he said.

“Come in, Inspector. You’re prompt.”

“I thought you’d appreciate that, being a businessman,” Fairchild said, as they shook hands. “Time is money, isn’t that it?”

“That is certainly it,” Curtis agreed. “Come sit over here.”

As they crossed to the sofas, Fairchild looked around in approval, saying, “The last time I was in here, it was to pick up a pair of stock swindlers. Lived high, they did, for a while. These days, to them, I’m afraid, time is only a sentence.”

They sat, and from his various pockets Fairchild took a notebook, a pen, and a pair of tiny granny glasses. “Captain Zhang Yung-tsien,” he said.

Curtis sighed, and shook his head. “Poor Captain Zhang. I am absolutely astounded.”

“No hint this was coming?”

“None. Well, in truth, I don’t know the man — I mean, I didn’t know the man that well.”

“Only as an employee.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Three years.”

“You get to know a man in three years, don’t you, Mr. Curtis?”

“If you’re around him all the time,” Curtis said. “The Mallory is a luxury, Inspector, that I justify by having business meetings on it. I had one last week. Before that, it was probably four months since I’d been on the ship. In three years, I suppose I’ve been around Captain Zhang for a total of less than two months.”

“What does he do— There you are, I’m doing it, too. What did he do with himself the rest of the time?”

“Yachts are not fast,” Curtis said. “If I want him in San Francisco, let us say, two weeks from today, he should leave Brisbane by Wednesday at the latest. Most of the time, Captain Zhang was moving the Mallory toward where I wanted it next, without me being aboard.”

“And when you were aboard, it was usually business.”

“Always,” Curtis said. “I have a station out beyond the Darling Downs, that’s where I go to rest, when I can. That’s where I was when the word came about Captain Zhang.”

“You’d gone there from the ship.”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Fairchild said, peering at Curtis over the top of his little glasses, “this most recent time, what business were you doing on the ship?”

“We’re planning a new destination resort,” Curtis told him, “on an island out by the reef. I have partners, and we were looking at the first stage of construction.”

Fairchild had opened his notebook to a page covered with cramped little writing. He gazed through his glasses at it, then over them at Curtis again, and said, “This work was in the charge of an engineer named Manville?”

“George Manville, yes,” Curtis said, and laughed. “You’ve probably seen our names together in the news, just yesterday.”

“Yes, I did,” Fairchild agreed. “First, he’d stolen secrets from you, and second he hadn’t.”

“It’s a long story,” Curtis said. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with Captain Zhang.”

“Still,” Fairchild said. “I’m the tidy type, I like to roll all the pieces of string onto the same ball.”

“Someone had stolen privileged information from me,” Curtis said. “It looked as though it must have been Manville. Angry, I made too hasty an accusation. Robert Bendix is a competitor of mine, who either did or did not pay for these documents. At first, he wouldn’t say anything, which is why I thought Manville must be guilty, but it was merely that Bendix didn’t want to have to point to the actual thief. Bendix and I know each other, we’re friendly rivals, so eventually we spoke on the phone and he cleared Manville’s name, and I was happy he had. George and I have always gotten along very well.”

“And where is Mr. Manville now?”

“On his way to Singapore,” Curtis said. “Which is where I’m supposed to be right now, myself. My main office is there.”

“So if I wanted to talk to Mr. Manville,” Fairchild said, “I’d have to go through your Singapore office.”

“That would be simplest,” Curtis agreed. “But what do you want with George? He knew Captain Zhang even less than I did.”

“Still, he might have some ideas.” Fairchild frowned at his notes again. “I believe there was a young woman guest on your ship as well,” he said. “One Kimberly Baldur.”

Curtis didn’t like this. The conversation had been ranging too far from Captain Zhang almost since they’d sat down together. And now Kim Baldur. What is this police inspector up to?

The girl has gone to the police. That has to be the answer. She told who knows what story, and at the same time Curtis and Manville are in public with accusations and then retractions, and to top it all Captain Zhang has to commit suicide. Naturally this inspector is intrigued; what’s going on here?

All right, he’s talked with Kim Baldur. What does she know? Nothing that matters, not if this police inspector can be dealt with here and now. Tread carefully, and all will be all right.

Curtis chuckled. “Kimberly Baldur. Kim. Yes. Not exactly a guest.”

“Tell me about her.”

Curtis did, from the explosions on Kanowit Island to her unconscious in a cabin when he and his business partners helicoptered back to Townsville. And through it all, Fairchild took no notes; meaning he already knew all this.

At the end, Fairchild said, “What happened to Kimberly Baldur next?”

“I have no idea,” Curtis said. “I haven’t been interested enough to ask. I assume she got off the ship here in Brisbane.”

“Well, no,” Fairchild said. “She had no passport or other identification, as I understand it, but there’s no record of her arrival at Immigration, and there would be.”

Curtis did his own angry frown. “Just a second,” he said. “The reason Mallory ’s still here is because she lost a lifeboat. I was told it was just an error, carelessness when the boats were brought back aboard at Kanowit. Does Kim Baldur have something to do with that boat?”

“Ms. Baldur says,” Fairchild answered, admitting his knowledge at last, “that people boarded the ship out by Moreton, intending to do her harm, and she and George Manville escaped.”

Curtis displayed astonishment. “Pirates? This close to Brisbane? I’ve never— There are things like that hundreds of miles from here, but not in these waters.”

“It is her belief,” Fairchild said, “that you sent those people.”

“Me? Good God!”

“She believes you wanted her dead,” Fairchild went on, “to help you deal with your problems with Planetwatch.”

“This is a very crazy and very paranoid young lady,” Curtis said. “Inspector, I have lawyers to deal with the groups like Planetwatch, and they do it very well. The situation is, the environmentalists are on one side, and the developers are on the other, and we both lobby government, and compromises are worked out, so that business can go on and the planet is once again saved. That’s the way it works. We’re businessmen, we don’t kill people. Inspector, I do not know of one businessman in the world who ever murdered an environmentalist. The idea is absurd.”