Boris Akunin - Murder on the Leviathan

‘Let me take a look,’ said the navigator, leaning over a map.

Maybe it’s not too late just to swing hard to port.’

Renier’s guilt was obvious. The fellow didn’t even pretend to be outraged, he just stood there hanging his head, with his hands raised in the air and his fingers trembling.

‘Right then, let’s go for a little talk, shall we?’ Gauche said to him. ‘Ah, what a lovely little talk we’ll have.’

Renate Kleber

Renate arrived for breakfast later than everyone else, so she was the last to hear about the events of the previous night. Everyone threw themselves on her, desperate to tell her the incredible, nightmarish news.

Apparently, Captain Renier was no longer captain.

Apparently, Renier was not even Renier.

Apparently, he was the son of that rajah.

Apparently, he was the one who had killed everybody.

Apparently, the ship had almost sunk in the night.

‘We were all sound asleep in our cabins,’ whispered Clarissa Stamp, her eyes wide with terror, ‘and meanwhile that man was sailing the ship straight onto the rocks. Can you imagine what would have happened? The sickening scraping sound, the impact, the crunching as the metal plating is ripped away. The shock throws you out of bed onto the floor and for a moment you can’t understand what’s happening. Then the shouting, the running feet. The floor tilting over further and further. And the terrible realization that the ship isn’t moving, it has stopped.

Everyone runs out on deck, undressed …’

‘Not me!’ the doctor’s wife declared resolutely.

‘… The sailors try to lower the lifeboats,’ Clarissa continued in the same hushed, mystical voice, ignoring Mrs Truffo’s comment, ‘but the crowds of passengers milling around on the deck get in their way. Every new wave throws the ship further over onto its side. Now we are struggling to stay on our feet, we have to hold on to something. The night is pitch-black, the sea is roaring, the thunder rumbles in the sky … One lifeboat is finally lowered, but so many people crazed by fear have packed into it that it overturns. The little children …’

‘P-please, no more,’ Fandorin interrupted the word-artist gently but firmly.

‘You should write novels about the sea, madam,’ the doctor remarked with a frown.

But Renate had frozen motionless with one hand over her heart. She had already been pale from lack of sleep and now she had turned quite green at all the news.

‘Oh!’ she said, and then repeated it: ‘Oh!’

Then she turned on Clarissa with a stern face.

‘Why are you saying these awful things? Surely you know I mustn’t listen to such things in my condition?’

Watchdog was not at the table. It was not like him to miss breakfast.

‘But where is M. Gauche?’ Renate asked.

‘Still interrogating his prisoner,’ the Japanese told her. In the last few days he had stopped being so surly and given up glaring at Renate like a wild beast.

‘Has M. Renier really confessed to all these appalling crimes?’

she gasped. ‘He is slandering himself. He must be confused in his mind. You know, I noticed some time ago that he was not quite himself. Did he himself say that he is the rajah’s son? Well, I suppose it’s better than Napoleon’s son. It’s obvious the poor man has simply gone mad.’

‘Yes, that too, madam, that too,’ Commissioner Gauche’s weary voice said behind her.

Renate had not heard him come in. But that was only natural the storm was over, but the sea was still running high, the steamship was rolling on the choppy waves and every moment there was something squeaking, clanging or cracking. Big Ben’s pendulum was no longer swinging since the clock had been hit by a bullet, but the clock itself was swaying to and fro - sooner or later the oak monstrosity was bound to keel over, Renate thought in passing, before concentrating her attention on Watchdog.

‘What’s going on, tell me!’ she demanded.

The policeman walked unhurriedly across to his chair and sat down. He gestured to the steward to pour him some coffee.

‘Oof, I am absolutely exhausted,’ the commissioner complained.

‘What about the passengers? Do they know?’

‘The whole ship is buzzing with the news, but so far not many people know the details,’ the doctor replied. ‘Mr Fox told me everything, and I considered it my duty to inform everyone here.’

Watchdog looked at Fandorin and the Ginger Lunatic and shook his head in surprise.

‘I see that you gentlemen, however, are not inclined to gossip.’

Renate did not understand the meaning of his remark, but it was irrelevant to the matter in hand.

‘What about Renier?’ she asked. ‘Has he really confessed to all these atrocities?’

Watchdog took a sip from his cup, relishing it. There was something different about him today. He no longer looked like an old dog that yaps but doesn’t bite. This dog looked as though it would snap at you. And if you weren’t careful it would even take a bite out of you. Renate decided to rechristen the commissioner Bulldog.

‘A nice drop of coffee,’ Bulldog said appreciatively. ‘Yes, he confessed, of course he did. What else could he do? It took a bit of coaxing, but old Gauche has plenty of experience. Your friend Renier is sitting writing out his confession as we speak. He’s got into the flow, there’s just no stopping him. I left him there to get on with it.’

‘Why is he “mine”?’ Renate asked in alarm. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.

He’s just a polite man who gave a pregnant woman a helping hand. And I don’t believe that he is such a monster.’

‘When he’s finished his confession, I’ll let you read it,’ Bulldog promised. ‘For old times’ sake. All those hours we’ve spent sitting at the same table. And now it’s all over, the investigation’s finished. I trust you won’t be acting for my client this time, M. Fandorin? There’s no way this one can avoid the guillotine.’

‘The insane asylum more likely,’ said Renate.

The Russian was also on the point of saying something, but he held back. Renate looked at him curiously. He looked as fresh and fragrant as if he had spent the whole night dreaming sweetly in his own bed. And as always, he was dressed impeccably: a white jacket and a silk waistcoat with a pattern of small stars. He was a very strange character; Renate had never met anyone like him before.

The door burst open so violently that it almost came off its hinges and a sailor with wildly staring eyes appeared on the threshold. When he spotted Gauche he ran over and whispered something to him, waving his arms about despairingly.

Renate listened, but she could only make out the English words ‘bastard’ and ‘by my mother’s grave’.

‘Now what’s happened?’

‘Doctor, please come out into the corridor.’ Bulldog pushed away the plate with his omelette in a gesture of annoyance.

i’d like you to translate what this lad is muttering about for me.’

The three of them went out.

‘What!’ the commissioner’s voice roared in the corridor. ‘Where were you looking, you numskull?’

There was the sound of hasty footsteps retreating into the distance, then silence.

‘I’m not going to set foot outside this room until M. Gauche comes back,’ Renate declared firmly.

The others all seemed to feel much the same.

The silence that descended in the Windsor saloon was tense and uncomfortable.

The commissioner and Truffo came back half an hour later.

Both of them looked grim.

‘What we ought to have expected has happened,’ the diminutive doctor announced, without waiting for questions. ‘This tragic story has been concluded. And the final word was written by the criminal himself