Hammond Innes - The Strange Land

I looked at Jan. ‘All?’

‘I imagine so.’ He hesitated and then drew me aside. ‘Did Karen tell you?’

‘About the name? Yes, she told me. Look, Jan,’ I said. ‘This is crazy. You’ll never get away with it.’

He gave me a quick, sidelong glance. ‘All right, it’s crazy,’ he said. ‘But I don’t have to convince anybody. They’re convinced already.’

‘And what about the British authorities?’ I asked.

But he smiled and shook his head. ‘Their only worry would be if they discovered I was alive. So long as I’m dead they don’t have to try and explain the disappearance of another scientist.’ He looked up at me anxiously. ‘It’s up to you now, Philip.’ And then he added with sudden violence, ‘Don’t you see? This is the perfect solution.’

I shook my head. He seemed utterly blind to the real problem. ‘You seem to forget that a body has been washed up.’

‘Well, it was an accident, wasn’t it?’ And then he added quickly, ‘Whether I’m Wade or Kavan, I’ve still got to explain that.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘But you’ve entered Morocco illegally.’

He nodded, but he didn’t seem worried about it. ‘I think I can make them understand. If Kostos keeps his mouth shut, I know I can. And if we could prove this mine…’ He glanced towards Ed White who was pulling on his clothes. He was frowning again. ‘Did Karen tell you what happened when we arrived at the camp last night? Ed met us with that German Luger of his in his hand. He seemed scared stiff. He was all packed up, too, ready to clear out.’

‘Why? Because Ali has men watching him?’

Jan nodded. ‘That and something that happened yesterday afternoon. He had a visit from the Caid’s younger son — the man who made tea for us when we visited the kasbah that night. He rode out on a white mule to give Ed a message from his father.’

‘Well, what was the message?’ I asked.

‘The man only spoke a few words of French. But he kept pointing to the Post — ‘

Ed White’s shadow fell between us. ‘I got the idea anyway,’ he said. ‘I was to get out, and quick.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘How the hell do I know why? Could be that the food trucks haven’t arrived and the people are getting sore. Could be that your friend Ali is just trying to scare me. I don’t know. But I can tell you this; I was plenty scared last night.’ His gaze swung again to the watcher on the cliff. ‘Those three Ay-rabs I had working for me were paid good dough. They wouldn’t have quit for nothing.’ He shook his head angrily, buttoning up his bush shirt. ‘I suppose Miss Corrigan is down at the camp now?’

‘Yes.’

‘At least those two girls ought to go down to the Post. I don’t mind staying on here so long as you guys are with me. But they should be down at the Post. They’d be safe there.’

His attitude made me feel uneasy. ‘What are you expecting to happen?’ I demanded.

He pushed his fingers up through his hair. ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be so Goddamned jittery.’

Jan had scrambled down the rock tip to the water to wash the dust off his body. He was out of sight and for a moment Ed and I were alone. There was something I had to find out and now was the time to do it. If Jan had really convinced Ed, then there was just a chance he could get away with it. I hesitated, wondering how to put it. ‘Sooner or later,’ I said, ‘the police will want a statement from you.’

‘From me? What about?’

‘About him,’ I said, nodding towards Jan.

‘Well, they won’t get much out of me.’ He seemed to consider the matter. ‘The only intelligent comment I could make is that he doesn’t seem British the way you do. And he talks differently.’ He said it slowly, as though it were something that had been on his mind for a long time.

‘He’s Cornish,’ I said, remembering the details of Wade’s passport.

‘Cornish? Oh, you mean dialect. And then he’s knocked around a bit. I guess that would make him different.’ He nodded to himself, frowning slightly. And then he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, Mrs Kavan should know. I feel sorry for that girl. When she came down here she must have been thinking there was a chance that her husband was alive. Instead, it’s a stranger, impersonating him. That’s not very nice, is it?’ He had been staring down at his boots, but now he looked up at me. ‘Wasn’t Kavan going to act as doctor at your Mission?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He nodded, staring at me, and then turned away. ‘What I’ve seen of the people here, they could have used a doctor.’ Jan climbed up from the water and he called to him: ‘Come on. Let’s get some food.’

Jan picked up his clothes and joined us. ‘Pity about that shaft,’ he said, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘Fortunately Ed had that dynamite and he knows how to use it. But even so, it may take several days to break through the falls.’

I knew he was thinking about Bilvidic and I asked him how long he thought he’d be allowed to stay up here. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hope he’ll leave us here until the piste is open. He knows I’m here. That orderly from the Post rode out to the camp on a mule this morning to check that. And he knows I can’t get out — not unless I walk, and the Military would soon be informed if I tried to do that.’ His eyes lifted to the slope of the mountain above us. It was very steep and about five hundred feet up there was a sudden cliff face, not high, but sheer and crumbling. It shone red in the sunlight. ‘I didn’t like it when I first saw it,’ he muttered. ‘But now that we’re blasting …’ He shook his head and turned and started to walk down the track towards the camp.

‘It’s the Ay-rabs that worry me,’ Ed said. ‘Legard’s away and with the piste cut, God knows when the food trucks will get through. And now there’s this discoloration of the water.’

We had reached the entrance of the gorge and in the sunlight the water pouring down the stream-bed was almost the colour of blood against the yellow of the sand. ‘How far does the discoloration extend?’ I asked., ‘Right down into the palmerie,’ Jan said over his shoulder. ‘There was quite a rush of water coming out of the gorge last night.’

None of us spoke after that and we walked down to the camp in silence. We were thinking about the water and the watcher on the cliff top. For the moment I had forgotten about Jan’s personal problems. But it was impossible to forget about them once we had reached the camp, for Karen was there to remind me. She ignored Jan completely. He might not have been there, and not by a single glance, even when Ed’s back was turned, did she betray the fact that she was conscious of him. Her self-control was so rigid that I began to understand how it must have been for her in Czechoslovakia.

Lunch was laid out in the open under the fly of the big tent as it had been on Christmas Day. But the atmosphere was very different. There was a sense of strain. As though conscious that she was partly responsible, Karen announced at the end of the meal that she had arranged for Julie to take her down to the Post. ‘It will be better if I go.’ She said it to Ed, but it was directed at Jan. He stared at her for a moment and then turned abruptly away.

‘What about you?’ I asked Julie.

‘I’ll drop Karen and then bring the bus back here.’

‘No, don’t do that,’ I said. ‘Stay down at the Post, It’d be safer.’

‘My view is we should all go down to the Post,’ Ed announced. ‘When Legard gets back — ‘

‘No,’ Jan said, almost violently. ‘I’m damned if I’ll leave here now. A day’s work might see that shaft opened up. And if it is a workable mine …’ He hunched his shoulders, staring up towards the gorge. He was thinking that it would give him a stake in the country. That was the thought that was driving him.