Алистер Маклин - River of Death

‘How far?’

‘The headwaters of the Rio da Morte are only a hundred miles away. To reach the landing strip? Perhaps eighty. In half-an-hour’s time we’ll leave in the DC3. We’ll still be there before them.’

Hamilton moved off and sat by the side of the river, idly lobbing stones into the dark waters. Some minutes later Maria appeared and stood uncertainly beside him. Hamilton looked up, smiled briefly, then glanced indifferently away.

She said: ‘Is it safe to sit here?

‘Boy-friend let you off the leash?’

‘He’s not my boy-friend.’ She spoke with such vehemence that Hamilton looked at her quizzically.

‘You could have fooled me. Misinterpretations, so easily come by. You have come, no doubt, or been sent, to ask a few craftily probing questions?’

She said quietly: ‘Do you have to insult everybody? Wound everybody? Antagonise everybody? Provoke everybody? Back in Brasilia you said you had friends. It is difficult to understand how you came by them.’

Hamilton looked at her in some perplexity then smiled. ‘Now look who’s doing the insulting.’

‘Between gratuitous insults and the plain truth there’s a big difference. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She turned to walk away.

‘Oh, come and sit down. Childish, childish. Maybe I can ask a few probing questions while you congratulate yourself on having found a chink in Hamilton’s armour. I suppose that could be misinterpreted as an insult, too. Just sit down.’

She looked at him doubtfully. ‘I asked if it’s safe to sit here.’

‘A damn sight safer than trying to cross a street in Brasilia.’

She sat down gingerly, a prudent two feet away from him. ‘Things can creep up on you.’

‘You’ve read the wrong books or talked to the wrong people. Who or what is going to creep up on us? Indians? There’s not a hostile Indian within two hundred miles of here. Alligators, jaguars, snakes – they’re a damned sight more anxious to avoid you than you are to avoid them. There are only two dangerous things in the forest – the quiexada , the wild boar, and the carangageiros. They attack on sight.’

‘The caran what?’

‘Giant spiders. Great hairy creatures the size of soup plates. They come at you one yard at a time. Jumping, I mean. One yard and that’s it.’

‘How horrible!’

‘No problem. None in these parts. Besides, you didn’t have to come.’

‘Here we go again.’ Maria shook her head. ‘You really don’t care much for us, do you?’

‘A man has to be alone at times.’

‘Evasion, evasion.’ She shook her head again. ‘You’re always alone. Married?’

‘No.’

‘But you were.’ It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

Hamilton looked at her, at the remarkable brown eyes which reminded him painfully of the only pair he’d ever seen like them. ‘You can tell?’

‘I can tell.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Divorced?’

‘No.’

‘No? You mean–’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh! Oh, I am sorry. How – how did she die?’

‘Come on. Plane to catch.’

‘Please. What happened?’

‘She was murdered.’ Hamilton stared out across the river, wondering what had caused him to make this admission to a total stranger. Ramon and Navarro knew, but they were the only two in the world he’d told. Perhaps a minute passed before he became conscious of the light touch of finger-tips on his forearm. Hamilton turned to look at her and knew at once that she wasn’t seeing him: the big brown eyes were masked in tears. Hamilton’s first reaction was one of an almost bemused incomprehension: this was totally out of character with the image she – ably abetted by Smith – projected of herself as a worldly-wise, street-wise cosmopolitan.

Hamilton gently touched the back of her hand and at first she didn’t appear to notice. Perhaps half a minute passed before she wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand, disengaged her other hand, smiled apologetically and said: ‘I’m sorry. What must you think of me?’

‘I think I may have misjudged you. I also think that in some way, some time, you may have suffered a lot.’

She had nothing to say to this, just wiped her eyes again, rose and turned away.

‘Battered’ is the adjective invariably, and perhaps inevitably, used to describe vintage and superannuated DC3s and this one was no exception: if anything it was an epitome, a prime example. The gleaming silver fuselage of yesteryear was but a fond and distant memory, the metal skin was pitted and scarred and appeared to be held together chiefly by large areas of rust: the engines, when started up, were a splendid complement to the rest of the plane, coughing, spluttering and vibrating to such an extent that it seemed improbable that they would not be shaken free from the airframe. But the plane lived up to its reputation of being one of the toughest and most durable ever built. With what seemed a Herculean effort - it couldn’t have been, it was under-loaded – it clambered off the runway and headed east into the late afternoon sky.

There were eleven people in the plane, Hamilton’s party, the pilot and co-pilot. Heffner, as was customary, was taking counsel with a bottle of Scotch: the aluminium flask, presumably, was being held as an emergency reserve. Seated across the aisle from Hamilton, he turned to him and spoke or, rather, shouted, for the rackety clamour from the ancient engines was almost deafening.

‘Wouldn’t kill you to tell us your plans, would it, Hamilton?’

‘No, it wouldn’t kill me. But what does that matter? How’s that going to help you?’

‘Curiosity.’

‘No secret. We land at Romono airstrip about the same time as the helicopter and hovercraft. Helicopter refuels – even those big birds have only a limited range – takes the hovercraft downstream, leaves it, returns and takes us down to join it in the morning.’

Smith, sitting in the seat next to Hamilton and listening, put a cupped hand to Hamilton’s ear and said: ‘How far downstream and why?’

‘I’d say about sixty miles. There are falls about fifty miles from Romono. Not even a hovercraft could negotiate them so this is the only way we can get it past there.’

Heffner said: ‘Do you have a map?’

‘As it happens, I have. Not that I require it. Why do you ask?’

‘If anything happens to you it would be nice to know where we are.’

‘You better pray nothing happens to me. Without me, you’re finished.’

Smith said into Hamilton’s ear: ‘You have to antagonise him? You have to be so arrogant? You have to provoke him?’

Hamilton looked at him, his face cold. ‘I don’t have to. But it’s a pleasure.’

Romono airstrip, like Romono itself, looked, as it always did, a miasmic horror. The DC3 and the helicopter-cum-hovercraft arrived on the strip within minutes of each other. The helicopter’s rotors had hardly stopped when a small fuel tanker moved out towards it.

The passengers disembarked from the DC3 and looked around them. Their expressions ranged from the incredulous to the appalled.

Smith contented himself with saying merely: ‘Good God!’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Heffner said. ‘What a stinking, nauseating dump. Jesus, Hamilton, is this the best you could do for us?’

‘What are you complaining about?’ Hamilton pointed to the tin shed which constituted both the arrival and departure terminals. ‘Look at that sign there. Romono International Airport. What more reassuring than that? This time tomorrow, gentlemen, you may well be thinking of this as home sweet home. Enjoy it. Think of it as the last outpost of civilisation. Look, as the poet says, your last on all things lovely every hour. Take what you need for the night. We have a splendid hotel here – the Hotel de Paris. Those who don’t fancy it – well, I’m sure Hiller will put you up.’ He paused. ‘On second thoughts, I think I could have a better use for Hiller.’