Desmond Bagley - Night Of Error

He moved round the table and stopped suddenly. His face went very pale. 'Paula!' he whispered. He turned his head quickly to Ramirez. 'You didn't tell me she was aboard.'

Ramirez shrugged. 'Just another woman,' he said casually. For an instant they glared at one another and I had an insight into their relationship.

Paula stood up. 'Mark – oh Mark! I thought you were dead. Why didn't you come to me, Mark? Why didn't you trust me?'

Ramirez laughed softly.

Mark actually looked troubled. 'I'm truly sorry,' he said. 'Sorry you had to be on this ship.' He made a curious gesture as though wiping her away, and a prickle ran up my spine. In that one sudden movement he had rejected us all – wiped us out of his world.

Paula took a step forward. 'But Mark, I…'

Ramirez snapped out a curt phrase in Spanish and one of the guards lifted his rifle. The meaning was unmistakable.

Paula stopped dead and looked at Mark with the comprehension of horror. His eyes flickered and he looked away from her and she slowly fell back into a chair and buried her face in her hands. I heard the racking sobs that shook her, and saw Clare move to put her arms round her shoulders.

I had to force myself to speak calmly. 'We all thought you were dead. Why did you do it?'

' I had to die,' he said. He perked up – the change of subject took his mind off Paula. 'The police were after me and getting a little too close, so I conveniently killed myself.'

I suddenly knew another black truth. 'You did kill Sven Norgaard, didn't you.'

He turned on me. 'What else could I do?' he said defensively. 'The bloody fool wanted to publish. Him and his bloody scientific integrity – he wanted to give it all away, billions of dollars that belonged to me – to me, do you hear that? I made the discovery, didn't I?' His voice tailed off, and then he added softly, 'I had to kill him.'

The silence was murderous and we all stared at the ego-maniacal horror that was my brother. He straightened up and said, 'And then I killed myself. The police would never look for a dead murderer. Wasn't that pretty clever of me, Mike?'

'It was stupid,' I said flatly. 'But then you always were a stupid man.'

His hand crashed on the table and we all jerked at the sudden violence. Only Ramirez watched him unmoved and dispassionate. 'It wasn't stupid!' he yelled. 'It was a damn good idea! But I'm surrounded by bungling idiots.'

'Like Kane and Hadley,' I said.

That's right, them,' he agreed, suddenly calm again. 'Those damn fools gave me appendicitis, of all things. I could have killed that madman, Hadley – there was no need to invent extra details.'

'I'm sure you could,' I said. 'But it was you who bungled it. You should have told them precisely what to say.'

He betrayed for the first time his lack of authority. 'It had nothing to do with me,' he said sullenly. 'Ernesto fixed it.'

I shot a sidelong glance at Ramirez. 'So he's a bungler too?'

Ramirez smiled sardonically and Mark said nothing. I went on, 'You bungled again when Hadley let your papers and the nodules go. You should have taken them with you – that was bad planning.'

'They got them back though.'

'Not quite, Mark. I had a nodule still – and I had your diary.'

He reacted to that with white-faced fury, then subsided and nodded thoughtfully. 'You were lucky. You read it?'

'Oh yes,' I said casually. 'A simple code, really.' And watched him swallow his ire yet again as item by item I did my best to undermine his self-confidence. Then he suddenly laughed.

That lunatic, Hadley. But you all thought I was dead anyway. And poor old Ernesto here was getting all the blame. That was really funny.'

Ramirez, who had been leaning negligently against the bulkhead, suddenly straightened, his face cold. This is a pointless conversation,' he said shortly.

Mark said, 'Let me have my fun, old boy. It isn't often a corpse can hold an inquest on himself. I'm getting a kick out of it.'

Ramirez looked at him contemptuously. 'All right. It won't make any difference,' he said dismissively. I knew that he was only waiting for word that his crew had separated the two ships before he did what he was going to do – and I had a good idea what that was.

I rubbed my ear – there seemed to be something getting in the way of my hearing, and Ramirez's voice had seemed to vibrate in a curious way. The ship creaked and rocked uneasily, and I wondered what was really happening outside. But it was also important to me to hear what my brother had to say, and I pushed the thoughts that were bothering me to the background.

'My inquest,' Mark said again. 'Let's develop this interesting theme.'

'Yes, let's do that,' said Campbell suddenly.

I turned to find him sitting up on the settee, waving away Clare and Ian. 'Let's do that,' he repeated, and I noticed that his voice was stronger and his speech clearer. 'Let's consider the burning of a hospital and the murder of a doctor and fourteen of his patients.'

Mark flinched. 'I didn't do that. It was Hadley again.'

'Hadley again,' I said caustically. 'You sound as pure as Hadley's pal Kane.'

'You condoned it,' said Campbell relentlessly.

'It was nothing to do with me. I didn't even know about it until afterwards. That man's beyond controlling.'

Ramirez had picked up my injudicious reference to Kane and was looking at me enquiringly. He was very acute.

'You have spoken to Kane again, Mr Trevelyan? He was supposed to come to me in Nuku'alofa, but I didn't see him there.'

I tried to make the best of my slip. 'Yes, we've spoken to him. He's told us a great deal too – enough to condemn the lot of you, so think carefully about what you're planning, Ramirez.'

'Might one ask where he is?'

'Where you won't find him, and all ready to sing like a bird.'

He looked thoughtful and did not speak again for a mo ment, and Campbell, sensing a faint opening, was quick to take advantage.

'What were you planning to do with us? It won't work now, you know.'

'You speak stupidly,' Ramirez said. Mark watched us fascinated, all his boasting silenced. He'd shocked us but he'd failed to impress us, and now things were taking a turn that he didn't like. It was slowly becoming obvious to me that in spite of Mark's almost insane posturing, it was Ramirez who was the more powerful of the two, and possibly the more dangerous.

Campbell said, 'You've decided that you can't leave us alive, haven't you? That would be too much to expect. You've already killed some seventeen people – another dozen or so won't make any difference. But you won't get away with it. We have covered our tracks, Ramirez, and for another thing your own crew will talk about all this, sooner or later.'

It was a bold try and I had never admired Campbell more.

Ramirez threw back his head and laughed. 'My crew -those morons?' He gestured to the stolid guards. 'Those oafs? They do what I tell them and nothing else. They have no mind of their own – I am the only brain they have. And who would believe them if they talked? They have never understood what it is all about, not one of them. Besides, that can be taken care of too.'

'A series of unfortunate accidents?' asked Campbell sardonically.

'Regrettable, isn't it?'

I listened to this ghastly conversation with a feeling of unreality. Ramirez was prepared to kill us without compunction. What was more, he was equally prepared to kill his own crew as well. I could just imagine how it would be arranged. The men would be well paid, split up and dispersed and then there would be, as Campbell foresaw, a series of accidents. A man found dead in a harbour here, a fatal car smash there, until the whole crew was disposed of.

'All right,' Campbell was saying. 'You still won't get away with it. Quite apart from Kane's evidence, you don't suppose I haven't made my own arrangements, do you? My agents have sealed letters which will be handed to the police if I don't turn up somewhere soon. There's going to be one hell of an investigation if I go missing.'