Gavin Lyall - Blame The Dead

'Have you concluded anything yet?' Willie went on.

'Maybe. His description of the engine breakdown was pretty detailed, but he doesn't really remember anything of the rescue at all. Now, according to the log-'

'Which we don't have any more,' he reminded me, just missing the river with a grenade-sized stone.

'Thank you. But according to it and the clever work you did with the atlas and so forth, that engine must have been out of action untilnearly the collision even if it actually was working again when they hit – right? '

'Er, yes. That's right.'

'For the moment it doesn't matter if they ever got it fixed or not. The point is the thing was out of action for aboutforty hours, while he mucks about thinking first it's the exhaust valve and then the fuel filter and finally the injector pump camshaft. We saw him in action last night; what took him so long aboard the Skadi with an engine he knew far better?'

He heaved a rock and got a weird brownish splash; maybe the river was full of gold dust. 'What do you suggest?' he asked.

'Look at who survived. Nobody else from the engine-room, nobody who was on the bridge. Just three sailors who were off watch and probably asleep in cabins – and Nygaard.'

'So you think…?'

'I think all the stuff he gave me about the breakdown comes from some other time; he doesn't remember the last one of all any more than he remembers the rescue. He was blind paralytic drunk the entire time, stretched out on his bunk. That's why it was taking them so long to fix the engine. And why they died and he survived. And what does a boozed-up chief engineer do to a Lloyd's insurance policy?'

'Nothing, I'm afraid,' he said sadly, and threw another stone.

'Nothing?'

'Afraid not, old boy. I mean, it wouldn't matter if thecaptain was smashed out of his mind. I dare say it would make a difference to who was held to blame and all that, but it wouldn't invalidate the insurance. You've got to remember that one of the biggest things an owner's insuring against is the damn stupidity of the crew – you know? "Negligence of Master Officers, Crew, or Pilots", that's how the Lloyd's policy puts it. Suppose it goes back to the days when you recruited your crew out of the dockside pubs half an hour before sailing. But as long as they're on board, they don't have to be sober or even awake.'

Then he added politely, 'You seem to have had a lot of trouble for nothing, what? '

'Damn it.' I slung a stone across the river and it crunched into a deep, crusted snowbank. 'Damn it, there's got to besomething.'

'I thought Kari said Nygaard hadn't really started drinking untilafter the accident. Rather because of it, you know?'

'She didn't know him before. And you don't get to his stage in months; he's been boozing at top speed for years. Maybe since his wife died,' I said, thinking of it suddenly.

For a while we threw stones silently. Then Willie asked, 'I say -1 suppose Paul really didn't know it was Ellie Smith-Bang behind it all?'

'No. He wouldn't tell me which way was up if I was under water, but he'd have toldyou. He was just scared it was the Sahara Line doing the blackmailing. After all, if the Sahara's other directors had started it, they wouldn't have told Mockby anyway. Conflict of interests. Mockby just wanted to get hold of the log to find out where he really stood – if he was likely to find himself charged with blackmail and accessory to murder as a Sahara director.'

'Ah. So Martin didn't tell him about anything that was in the log? Or not in it?'

'No. Mockby was lying to us that night -1 told you. But just because a man tells you lies you shouldn't assume he knows the truth. Basic rule of interrogation.'

'Ah, yes. Are you going to… go on interrogating?'

'Yes. I want you to take the girl out shopping this afternoon. Just down to the crossroads to buy a tin of beans or something, but out. He's going to get worse.'

He frowned thoughtfully. 'It's not going to bring Martin back to life… and Nygaard's a… a person, as well.'

'Dammit, I know. But he knowssomething about the collision. Something he told Steen or Steen guessed from him and that log.'

'But I'm not sure it matters, does it, old boy? As Paul said, it's only forty thousand against us, a small piece of the year's business. He was telling the truth there.'

I stared at him. 'Hell's teeth, Willie, we've come so far-'

'Speaking as Light Cavalry, that always struck me as a jolly good reason to turn back.'

It was a quiet lunch, and without Nygaard; he'd wrapped himself in the sleeping bag and retired to a bedroom. Not hungry. The rest of us ate tinned fish soup and scrambled eggs and biscuits and cheese, and I hurt Willie's feelings by taking a shot of his whisky. He was getting pretty tired of his job as a teetotal chauffeur.

'I mean, justone whisky,' he grumbled. 'In Britain that wouldn't make the slightest difference, I could drive all over the country, through any traffic. And that road out there isn't exactly liable to be swarming with police, is it?'

Then he caught the horrified expression on Kari's face. 'Do you really feel youmust have a drink? '

His turn to look horrified. 'Good God, no. It's just that, about lunchtime, well, it's my habit to have one, you know?'

'The habit is how it begins.' And she gave me a brisk, cool look.

I shrugged. 'I just hope I live long enough to die of drink.'

She started clearing away with a fair amount of unnecessary clatter.

I went outside to see them off; David had decided to stay with me. As he climbed into the car, Willie looked back at the cabin and asked, 'D'you think anybody'11 be looking for us?'

I looked back for myself. I suppose if you knew, for sure, we were in one cabin, you could pick out which: there was a slight bare patch in the snow around the chimney-pipe, and an occasional whisp of smoke from the top. But not much more; the ground was too rough, the snow too old and trampled already for our footprints to show any patterns.

I said, "I hope they'll think it's hopeless. We could be anywhere in Stavanger – or anywhere out of it – by now. And we didn't tell the hotel where we'd be."

'We didn't book out, either,' Willie reminded me.

'No.' We'd need the rooms again – and anyway, we had to have somewhere to leave most of our luggage. The Volkswagen couldn't have taken all that and the sleeping bags and all.

'Well,' Willie said firmly, 'we'll be finished by this evening. We'll go down the hill then.' He caught my eye and stared unblinking. And that was that.

I shrugged. Well, I'd got a few hours left. The Volkswagen crawled on to the road and buzzed off down it.

I'd just turned back to the cabin when David burst out of it. 'Mr Card! Mr Card!'

I ran. He pointed inside, white-faced, and I jumped the steps and crashed through the door.

Nygaard was standing at the table, holding the paraffin lamp in one shaking hand and a mug in the other…

I ripped the lamp away and the mug scattered the fuel across the room. 'For Christ's sake! You can't drink that stuff!'

Couldn't he, though. The little eyes were hot coals of hatred. The mug fell from one twisted claw and then he rammed both hands on the table to try to stop the shaking that was rattling his whole body like a bumpy road.

'I want a drink,' he pleaded.

'Let's get back in there.' I could feel David behind us, guess at his sick, horrified expression. I took Nygaard's arm and led him through into the tiny bedroom. He slumped on the edge of the folding metal bed.

'I want to go home to Gulbrandsen's,' he moaned.

'Not Rasmussen's?'

'Who is Rasmussen?' His body suddenly clenched with a shuddering spasm.

'Do you know where you are? '

'By Bergen, of course.'