Gavin Lyall - Blame The Dead

Very carefully, I took out the handkerchief and mopped myself. He slumped and half turned away. I said, 'You don't like naked flame? Well, that sounds reasonable, after what you went through.'

His hand reached for the whisky, then pulled back and patted the thin white strands on his scalp. And then tried to reach the bottle again. He gave me a quick sideways glance that was both sly and hopeful and I wanted to tell him to go ahead and have one. But you can't, not even when you know you can't stop it, you can't be the one to start it.

Then he picked the bottle up as if he'd never seen it before and studied the label carefully. 'I do not know this type before. It is good,; a?'

I shrugged. 'Don't know it myself.' Though at more than three quid for a half bottle it had ruddy well better be good.

He waved the bottle at me. 'You like some in the coffee?'

'Well…' What do you say? The small eyes looked at me yearningly.

He said quickly, 'I don't drink in the afternoon. But just once, to, try it, ja?'

He had the cap unscrewed. Silently, I held out my mug and he shook, rather than poured, a tot in. Then turned his back to me so that, maybe by accident, I couldn't see how much he gave himself.

'Skol.'He lifted the mug and took a gulp, and smiled easily. 'Is good, ja?'

'Yes, sure.' A car stopped somewhere outside – a rare enough noise in that street for him to hear it and pause. But he didn't go to look. I sipped on; he gulped.

Then I asked, 'You ever heard of something called H and Thornton?'

He had. He gave another jerk, then buried his face in the mug, and came up with a carefully thoughtful expression. 'You say what?'

'H and Thornton. I think they're a firm of solicitors, or maybe ship surveyors or something.'

Now he was looking genuinely puzzled. He shook his head. 'No, I do not know them. No.'

Hell. I'd had him and I'd lost him, but I didn't know how or where.

Then feet came galloping down the corridor – young feet. There was the briefest of knocks on the door, it slammed open, and she came straight in – and not to wish me a Merry Christmas.

She was young, tall, blonde, and she might have quite a figure under the dark blue anorak and black ski pants. Right now, she just stood and stared fiercely at me, flushed and panting slightly and with the funny little white student cap on her head knocked sideways.

'What are you doing here?1 'Having a quiet cup of coffee with Herr Nygaard.'

She glared suspiciously around, then spotted the whisky. 'Did you bring this?'

I nodded.

'It is not good for him!' For a moment I thought she was going to heave it through the window – and so did he. I've never seen anybody look so simply horrified.

But she controlled herself. 'Who are you?'

I told her, but it didn't mean anything.

'Why do you want to see him? '

'Hold on a minute. Who are you? – his daughter?'

'No, I am only a student. But I help look after him.' That accounted for the fresh-painted furniture, then, and the flowers and general tidiness.

"Very charitable of you,' I said approvingly. 'Nice to know there are still some students who don't spend all their time smashing up the campus and sleeping three in a bed. But I'm not doing him any harm.'

Ruud's face appeared over her shoulder and he gave me a triumphant leer. A quick man with a telephone, Herr Ruud.

The girl said, 'You will go, now.'

I looked at Nygaard. 'It's your room, chum.'

But he wasn't looking back. So I nodded and said, 'Thanks for the coffee, anyhow.'

'I thank you for the whisky,' he mumbled back.

'Any time.' The girl stepped aside and let me through the door, then followed. Ruud stayed in and shut the door.

She followed me clear down the stairs and out into the street – and then we just stood there in the drizzle and looked at each other.

She said firmly, 'You are going home, now.'

'Nope. I'm just standing here admiring the view.'

That made her blink thoughtfully. Then she had a bright idea. 'I know some students, very rough ones. They will make you go.'

'Dare say you do know them – every university's got some and they like being known – but they don't know you. Not some pansy do-gooding Christian piece like you. So forget the goon squad; they wouldn't do anything for you.'

She flushed. 'Then I get the police.'

'Try for Inspector Vik.' I was standing by a ramshackle old Volkswagen – so old it had the twin rear windows, and so beat up that it looked as if it had been dumped. I patted a wing and then had to stop it going on shaking. 'Yours?'

'I own one half of it.'

'Give me a lift back into town and I'll buy the beer at the other end."

'I do not drink.' But the rest of the idea suited her; at least it got me clear of Gulbrandsens Gate. As she climbed in, she said, 'I am Kari Skagen.' So now I knew her name, it was all right for us to be alone in a car.

As we chugged down the patched-up street, I asked, 'How long have you known Nygaard?'

'Since before Christmas.'

'From about when he came to the Home? How did you get to know him?'

'There is a – sort of club. Called Student Christian. We help old people and like that.'

'So it was pure chance you drew him?'

'Ja…' she stirred the gear lever around until she found a noise that suited her. 'But why did you-'

But I was determined to keep this interrogation in my hands for a while longer. 'Hasn't he got any family?'

'His wife is dead for ten years. They have no children. His sister lives in Denmark but she is also very old. So…'

We turned a corner and I got slung against the door – which tried to open. I scrambled back into my seat. 'But can't his old employers at ADP do anything? Like get him out of that dump? Have you seen Mrs Smith-Bang?'

'You know her? Yes, I have seen her. But she says she cannot pay more than his pension – and he says he does not want to leave the Home. He likes being with sailors.'

Come to think of it, whyshould Mrs S-B pay any more? She hardly owed a bonus to a crew that had done at least its fair share of running the Skadi into legal history, at whatever speed. And overpaying a star witness can look bad in court.

Then we turned on to the main road and she bollicksed the clutch work and we crossed two lines of fast traffic hoppity-hoppity-hop like a storybook bunny. A white Mercedes swerved around us and vanished ahead in a dying scream of its horn and my nerves.

Kari said seriously, 'I am a better driver with boats.'

I nodded breathlessly and she finally got a question in. 'Why did you come to see him – and bring the whisky?'

'Just as a present. Is that bastard Ruud going to steal it?'

'No. I asked him to, many times. If he did, he could stop Engineer Nygaard drinking very soon."

'And clap hands if you believe in fairies,' I murmured.

'Pardon?'

'Never mind. Just believe I wouldn't have brought the Scotch if I'd known he was an alcoholic.' Wouldn't I, though? Well, it was a moral problem I didn't have to solve right now. 'But you know Nygaard's an important witness in a legal affair?'

'Ja. He was on a boat that burned up.'

'So I'm hardly the first person to come asking questions, right?'

'Ja,'she admitted.

'And did you ever hear of a man called Jonas Steen?'

'Engineer Nygaard said about him. He did not like him.'

'Maybe, but that wasn't why he got murdered.'

'Hva?'she said incredulously.

D'you want to know why women will never rule the world? Because they can't be bothered to read a newspaper to find out if they've taken over the world, that's why. Spread all over the front page, that story had been -and the radio, according to Mrs S-B.

I tried to explain. When I'd finished, she asked carefully, 'But you do not think it was this man Lie who did it?'