Алистер Маклин - Athabasca

Ffoulkes stopped smiling. “Ah, yes, the dead men. Not only a tragic affair but an extremely unpleasant one. I’ve had reports from my own State troopers and the F.B.I. I wonder if you could have anything to add to what they said?”

“I doubt it. Mr Morrison of the F.B.I. struck me as a highly competent officer.”

“He’s all that, and a close friend of mine. But tell me anyway, please.”

Dermott’s account was as succinct as it was comprehensive. At the end Ffoulkes said: “Tallies almost exactly with the other reports. But no hard facts?”

“Suspicions, yes. Hard facts, no.”

“So the only lead you really have are the prints we got from that telephone booth?” Dermott nodded, and Ffoulkes brought out a buff folder from a desk drawer. “Here they are. Some are pretty smudged but a few are not too bad. Are you an expert?”

“I can read them with a powerful glass and a lot of luck. But an expert – no.”

“I’ve got a first-class young lad here. Like to borrow him for a day or two?”

Dermott hesitated. “That’s kind. But I don’t want to tread on Mr Morrison’s toes. He’s got his own man up there.”

“Not in the same class as our David Hendry. Mr Morrison won’t object.” He pressed an intercom button and gave an order.

David Hendry was fair-haired, smiling and seemed ridiculously young to be a police officer. After introductions, Ffoulkes said: “Lucky lad. How do you fancy a vacation in a winter wonderland?”

Hendry looked cautious. “Which wonderland, sir?”

“Prudhoe Bay.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Good, glad you’re happy. That’s settled then. Pack your equipment and, of course, your clothes. Three parkas should be enough – worn on top of each other. When’s your plane out, Mr Dermott?”

“Two hours.”

“Report back in an hour, David.” Hendry opened the door to leave, then stood to one side as a lean man, white-bearded like an Old Testament prophet, bustled into the room.

“Apologies, John, apologies. Couldn’t have caught me at a worse time or on a worse day. Two court cases, two suicides – people get more thoughtless every day.”

“You have my sympathies, Charles – as I, one hopes, have yours. Dr Parker – Mr Dermott.”

“Hah!” Parker looked at Dermott with an ill-concealed lack of enthusiasm. “You the fellow who’s come to add to my burden of woes?”

“Through no wish of mine, doctor. Three burdens, to be precise.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything about them today, Mr Dermott. Snowed under, just snowed. Very likely I can’t do anything about them tomorrow either. Most unprofessional.”

“What is?”

“My two assistants. Going down with the flu at the busiest time of the year. This modern generation–”

“I daresay they couldn’t help it.”

“Namby-pambies. What happened to those three anyway?”

“Two we know for sure. They were in the close vicinity of an explosion. After that an oil fire broke out. Savagely scarred. The fumes alone would have finished them off.”

“But they were already finished off. So. Blasted to death, burnt, asphyxiated. Doesn’t leave very much for an old sawbones like me to do, does it?”

“Each of them has also a low-velocity bullet lodged somewhere near the back of his skull,” Dermott said.

“Hah! So you want them out, is that it?”

“Not me, Dr Parker. The State police and the F.B.I. I’m no cop, just an oilfield sabotage investigator.”

Parker looked sour. “I hope my efforts aren’t as thoroughly wasted as usual.”

Ffoulkes smiled. “What odds would you offer, Mr Dermott?”

“About a million to one that they’ll be wasted. That gun has almost certainly been tossed out of a helicopter somewhere over the Brooks Range.”

“I’ll still have to ask you, Charles,” said Ffoulkes.

Dr Parker was unimpressed. “What about this third man?”

“B.P/Sohio’s field production manager in Prudhoe Bay, John Finlayson.”

“Good lord! Know the man well. Suppose I should say ‘knew’, now.”

“Yes.” Dennott nodded to Ffoulkes’s desk. “That’s his death certificate.”

Parker picked it up, screwed on a pince-nez and read through the report.

“Unusual,” he said testily. “But it seems a straightforward medical report to me. There’s no autopsy required here.” He peered at Dermott. “From your expression, you appear to disagree.”

“I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing. I’m just vaguely unhappy.”

“Have you ever practised medicine, Mr Dermott?”

“No.”

“And yet you presume to take issue with a colleague of mine?”

“You know him, then?”

“Never heard of him.” Parker breathed deeply. “But, dammit, he’s a physician.”

“So was Dr Crippen.”

“What the devil are you insinuating?”

“You read into my words what you choose,” Dermott said flatly. “I’m insinuating nothing. I merely say that his examination was perfunctory and hurried, and that he may have missed something. You wouldn’t claim a divine right of infallibility for doctors?”

“I would not.” His voice was still testy, but only a testy mutter now. “What is it you want?”

“A second opinion.”

“That’s a damned unusual request.”

“It’s a damned unusual murder.”

Ffoulkes looked quizzically at Dermott and said: “I’ll look in at Prudhoe Bay tomorrow. There’s nothing like adding a touch of chaos to an existing state of confusion.”

Dermott and David Hendry flew in from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay in the leaden twilight of late afternoon to find the weather distinctly improved, with the wind down to ten knots, the top of the drifting snow-cloud not more than five feet above ground level, visibility in the plane’s headlights almost back to normal, and the temperature at least twenty degrees higher than in the morning. In the administration building lounge the first recognisable face Dermott saw was that of Morrison of the F.B.I., who was sitting with a young, ginger-haired man incongruously dressed in grey flannels and blazer. Morrison looked up and smiled.

“Trust John Ffoulkes,” he said. “No faith in the F.B.I.” He gestured towards the ginger-haired young man. “Nick Turner. Ignore the way he dresses. He’s been to Oxford. My fingerprint man. On your right, David Hendry, your fingerprint man.”

Dermott said mildly: “John Ffoulkes just observed that two pairs of eyes were better than one. No developments?”

“Not one. You?”

“Largely a waste of time. Had a thought on the way up. Why don’t we print John Finlayson’s room?”

“No dice. We’ve done it.”

“Clean as a whistle?”

“Close enough. Lots of unsatisfactory smudges which can only be Finlayson’s, a couple belonging to a plumber who was there on his rounds, and one – would you believe it, just one – belonging to the bull cook, who must be a real whiz-kid with duster and polishing cloth.”

“Bull cook?”

“Kind of house-keeper. Bed-maker and cleaner.”

“Could some other industrious soul have been busy in there with a duster?”

Morrison produced two keys. “His room key and the master key. Had them in my pocket since Finlayson was taken out this morning.”

“Here endeth the lesson.” Dermott laid the buff folder on the low table before Morrison. “Prints from the Anchorage phone booth. Now, I must go and report to the boss.”

Morrison said: “It should amuse the two young gentlemen here to compare your Anchorage prints with the ones in the office safe.”

“You don’t sound very optimistic,” Dermott said.

The F.B.I. agent smiled. “By nature I’ve always been an optimist. But that was before I crossed the forty-ninth parallel.”