Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

‘I’ll put her to bed,’ said Sigurlin. ‘Strict medical supervision. She’ll argue, but she’ll do it. You do what you have to do and Elin will stay here. But I won’t be able to keep her long. What happens if you don’t come back from Geysir?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But don’t let her go back to Reykjavik. To go to the apartment would be extremely unwise.’

Sigurlin took a deep breath. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down. ‘If it weren’t for the concern you show for Elin I’d be inclined to...’ She shook her head irritably. ‘I don’t like any of this, Alan. For God’s sake get it cleared up as quickly as you can.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

The next day seemed very long.

At breakfast Sigurlin read the paper and suddenly said, ‘Well, well! Someone tied up the cable transport on the Tungnaá just the other side of Hald. A party of tourists was stranded on the farther side for several hours. I wonder who could have done that?’

‘It was all right when we came across,’ I said blandly. ‘What does it say about the tourists? Anyone hurt?’

She looked at me speculatively across the breakfast table. ‘Why should anyone be hurt? No, it says nothing about that.’

I changed the subject quickly. ‘I’m surprised that Elin is still asleep.’

Sigurlin smiled. ‘I’m not. She didn’t know it, but she had a sleeping draught last night. She’ll be drowsy when she wakes and she won’t want to jump out of bed.’

That was one way of making sure of Elin. I said, ‘I noticed your garage was empty — don’t you have a car?’

‘Yes. Gunnar left it at the stables.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘In two days — providing the party doesn’t get saddle-sore.’

‘When I go to Geysir I’d just as soon not use the Land-Rover,’ I said.

‘You want the car? All right — but I want it back in one piece.’ She told me where to find it. ‘You’ll find the key in the glove locker.’

After breakfast I regarded the telephone seriously and wondered whether to ring Taggart. I had a lot to tell him but I thought it would be better to let it go until I heard what Jack Case had to say. Instead I went out to the Land-Rover and cleaned Fleet’s rifle.

It really was a good tool. With its fancy hand-grip and freestyle stock it had obviously been tailor-made to suit Fleet, whom I suspected of being an enthusiast. In every field of human endeavour there are those who push perfection to its ultimate and absurd end. In hi-fi, for example, there is the maniac who has seventeen loud-speakers and one test record. In shooting there is the gun nut.

The gun nut believes that there is no standard, off-the-shelf weapon that could be possibly good enough for him and so he adapts and chisels until he finally achieves something that looks like one of the more far-out works of modern sculpture. He also believes that the ammunition manufacturers know damn-all about their job and so he loads his own cases, carefully weighing each bullet and matching it with an amount of powder calculated to one-tenth of a grain. Sometimes he shoots very well.

I checked the ammunition from the opened box and, sure enough, found the telltale scratches from a crimping tool. Fleet was in the habit of rolling his own, something I have never found necessary, but then my own shooting has not been of the type necessary to get a perfect grouping at x-hundred yards. It also explained why the box was unlabelled.

I wondered why Fleet should have carried as many as fifty rounds; after all, he was a good shot and had brought us to a standstill with one squeeze of the trigger. He had loaded the rifle with ordinary hunting ammunition, soft-nosed and designed to spread on impact. The closed box contained twenty-five rounds of jacketed ammunition — the military load.

It’s always seemed odd to me that the bullet one shoots at an animal is designed to kill as quickly and as mercilessly as possible, whereas the same bullet shot at a man is illegal under the Geneva Convention. Shoot a hunting load at a man and you’re accused of using dum-dum bullets and that’s against the rules. You can roast him to death with napalm, disembowel him with a jump mine, but you can’t shoot him with the same bullet you would use to kill a deer cleanly.

I looked at the cartridge in the palm of my hand and wished I had known about it earlier. One of those going into the engine of Kennikin’s jeep was likely to do a hell of a lot more damage than the soft-nosed bullet I had used. While a .375 jacketed bullet with a magnum charge behind it probably wouldn’t drill through a jeep from end to end at a range of a hundred yards, I wouldn’t like to bet on it by standing behind the jeep.

I filled the magazine of the rifle with a mixed load, three soft-nosed and two jacketed, laid alternately. Then I examined McCarthy’s Smith & Wesson automatic pistol, a more prosaic piece of iron than Fleet’s jazzed-up rifle. After checking that it was in order I put it into my pocket, together with the spare clips. The electronic gadget I left where it was under the front seat. I wasn’t taking it with me when I went to see Jack Case, but I wasn’t going empty-handed either.

When I got back to the house Elin was awake. She looked at me drowsily, and said, ‘I don’t know why I’m so tired.’

‘Well,’ I said judiciously. ‘You’ve been shot and you’ve been racketing around the Óbyggdir for two days with not much sleep. I’m not surprised you’re tired. I haven’t been too wide awake myself.’

Elin opened her eyes wide in alarm and glanced at Sigurlin who was arranging flowers in a vase. I said, ‘Sigurlin knows you didn’t fall on any rock. She knows you were shot, but not how or why — and I don’t want you to tell her. I don’t want you to discuss it with Sigurlin or anyone else.’ I turned to Sigurlin. ‘You’ll get the full story at the right time, but at the moment the knowledge would be dangerous.’

Sigurlin nodded in acceptance. Elin said, ‘I think I’ll sleep all day. I’m tired now, but I’ll be ready by the time we have to leave for Geysir.’

Sigurlin crossed the room and began to plump up the pillows behind Elin’s head. The heartless professionalism spoke of the trained nurse. ‘You’re not leaving for anywhere,’ she said sharply. ‘Not for the next two days at least.’

‘But I must,’ protested Elin.

‘But you must not. Your shoulder is bad enough.’ Her lips compressed tightly as she looked down at Elin. ‘You should really see a doctor.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Elin.

‘Well, then, you’ll do as I say.’

Elin looked at me appealingly. I said, ‘I’m only going to see a man. As a matter of fact, Jack Case wouldn’t say a word in your presence, anyway — you’re not a member of the club. I’m just going to Geysir, have a chat with the man, and then come back here — and you might as well keep your turned-up nose out of it for once.’

Elin looked flinty, and Sigurlin said, ‘I’ll leave you to whisper sweet nothings into each other’s ear.’ She smiled. ‘You two are going to lead interesting lives.’

She left the room, and I said gloomily, ‘That sounds like the Chinese curse — “May you live in interesting times.” ’

‘All right,’ said Elin in a tired voice. ‘I won’t give you any trouble. You can go to Geysir alone.’

I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s not a matter of you giving trouble; I just want you out of this. You disturb my concentration, and if I run into difficulties I don’t want to have to watch out for you as well as myself.’

‘Have I been a drag?’

I shook my head. ‘No, Elin; you haven’t. But the nature of the game may change. I’ve been chased across Iceland and I’m pretty damn tired of it. If the opportunity offers I’ll turn around and do a bit of chasing myself.’