THURSDAY'S ORCHID (28 page)

We remained tied up at the main wharf for yet another week, and still nobody was allowed off the ship. The surveyors had given us a certificate of fitness, but it wasn’t enough to convince the authorities to lift their requirement of our being able to leave at a moment’s notice.

Pete’s body was still on board. As soon as his father had learned that the ship was in Lae, he flew over to claim the body, wanting to take it back to Australia for burial. The Singapore Authorities wouldn’t agree. Pete had died on one of their ships and his death would have to be the subject of an enquiry in Singapore before the body could be released. Telexes passed rapidly between the Australian High Commissions in Moresby and Singapore, but to no avail.

Mr. Cameron
came down to the ship a few times; the crumpled suit-coat hanging off narrow shoulders, his stooping body a mirror of his son’s, the thin grey hair long and combed across his balding head. Only once did he ask to see the body, and that was on his last visit, when he knew that Pete would not be going home. I spent a couple of hours with him afterwards, listening to him and trying to give him comfort. He was full of self-recrimination; blaming himself for letting Pete take on this business, for letting him out of his sight, and for letting him mix with fast company. I wasn’t certain whether I was included in that category.

I did the best to persuade him that Pete had been happy with his venture, and that it had been the right thing to do. I tried to convince him that it had been just pla
in bad luck.

I felt like a hypocrite
during the whole of those two hours, knowing that it should have been me in that freezer, and knowing that but for Tek insisting I should travel on the ship, Pete would be alive and probably back in Adelaide by now, boasting of his success.

There was only one good piece of news. The insurance company had agreed on a complete settlement for the spoiled meat after reading the surveyors’ report. His uncle would be repaid the loan, and nobody would be out of pocket; but it was a hollow victory.

The family couldn’t afford a second trip out to claim the body; and the thought of an autopsy, of doctors delving into Pete’s body, had confirmed their decision to have him buried in Singapore. I promised I would do everything I could to see that he got a decent burial; knowing that Tek would look after that for me. I would be getting out of Singapore the minute we had been paid.

I was with him as he said a final farewell to his son
, and offered to go out to the airport to see him off. I didn’t think the crew would get upset at this visit ashore.

We travelled back to the hotel by taxi, collected his luggage and headed out to the airport – a short ride of just over a kilometre. The town centre rests on a headland overlooking the airstrip.

He didn’t say a word during the ride, sitting slouched back against the seat, his gaunt eyes staring ahead.

“Mr. Cameron,” I said as we entered the terminal. “Don’t think of Peter as you have just left him. Remember him as the excited young man who set out from your house on a great adventure. Picture him with a smile on his lips and happiness in his heart. That’s not Peter back there on the ship. That’s just the shell he occupied. He’s left it behind now. He’s still the same
cheerful spirit. He’s still with us.” I meant it, too. I didn’t at first, but by the time I had finished, I knew it was true.

I don’t think he heard a single word.

He looked at me as he walked towards the aircraft, tears streaming down his face, but with a calmness smoothing the lines of that face. Maybe he had been listening after all. He gave one slight nod, turned, and was gone. I watched the plane taxi to the end of the strip, watched as it turned around and then roared upwards and away.

I had filled my pockets with coins before leaving the ship, hoping to find a telephone that worked. There were several in the terminal, and only one of them out of order.

It took fifteen minutes to get through to Nick. The line was bad. I told him that the ship and cargo were safe and secure; and that we were only waiting for bonds to be posted. I didn’t tell him about the pollution investigation.

I couldn’t tell him about the trouble at Tek’s end, but I let him know that Pete had died and told him about the crew member who had mysteriously disappeared. He was smart enough to be able to read between the lines. I couldn’t reveal much more; for fear that our conversation might be overheard. I didn’t know whether anyone might be bugging his phone as well. He wished me luck and I hurried back to the ship.

I had been away too long, but nobody seemed put out. Mr. Cameron’s grief had affected more than a few of them.

Seeing Pete’s father on to the aircraft had left a sour taste. I sat down to lunch, but somehow I had lost my appetite, and I wasn’t prepared when Flint came into the dining saloon, grinning from ear to ear.

He stopped in the middle of the room and called for attention. “Gentlemen!” he boomed. “You’ll be pleased to hear that all bonds have now been posted and accepted. The local authorities have given us clearance to leave, and I want to get out of here before they change their bloody minds.” He turned to me. “You can keep on with your lunch, Mr. Rider, if you wish.”

I dropped my knife and fork with the rest of them, too excited to continue.

“Right,” he ordered. “We leave as soon as the Chief can get the mains turning over. I’ve arranged for a tug to be standing by within the next half-hour. Let’s move it!”

This was the captain as I had first met him, doing what he knew best: running his ship in the way it was meant to be run. He turned on his heel and headed for the bridge with several of the officers close behind. The crew moved even faster than the officers, if that were possible. They were all out on deck, clearing ropes and making ready to cast off.

The engines began their slow rumble and once more the decks trembled, but this time gently, without anger. The harbour tug strapped up alongside; our mooring lines were cast off from the wharf and we moved out into the main stream and turned towards the open sea. Fifteen minutes later we left the harbour tug – tiny compared to the
Ranger
– and moved off under our own power.

The faces lining the deck were wreathed in smiles; maybe not quite as wide as those when we had slid off the reef, but not far less. Next port – Singapore. Not quite full speed ahead, but near enough.

Singapore!

Seventeen

It was a great feeling to steam away from Lae and to break our contact with New Guinea. We had been stuck there, in more ways than one, for far too long.
The threat of arrest over the pollution allegation had been a real one; but once we had cleared port, that was the end of it, unless they sent a gun-boat after us, which wasn’t likely.

The voyage ahead was n
early five thousand kilometres: up around the north coast of New Guinea, through the Pacific Ocean and, after that, into the Celebes Sea and around North Borneo into the China Sea. The mere mention of the China Sea was enough to conjure up romantic images in my mind, images from boyhood dreams of pirates and galleys; but it was like any of the other stretches of ocean through which we had passed: open water extending as far as one could see, a few flying fish and nothing more.

Fro
m the China Sea it was a straight line to the island of Singapore. It would be the last country at which I would ever arrive by boat. I’d had enough of the sea to last a lifetime.

Flint estimated that the voyage would take another fifteen days, depending on the weather, strandings, murders and any other contingencies that might come to mind.

We made good time. There were three men on the bridge at all times; and I felt a lot safer knowing they were there.

I couldn’t break the habit of barring the cabin door at night, even though I was certain there were no more problems on board. It was the only way I could sleep.

We arrived off Singapore Harbour sixteen days later; dropped anchor in the harbour and waited for the quarantine officer to come on board.

It wasn’t only the quarantine officer who came on board, but the police as well. We still had Pete’s body in the freezer. If they had received a tip-off about the marijuana there would have been customs officers swarming all over the ship.

The police were shut away with Flint in his cabin for over an hour and a half, leaving the quarantine officer free to carry out his inspections. He spent very little time with the cargo, checked out a c
ouple of the crew who had complained about sore throats and the like, issued the necessary clearance and spent the next hour sitting in the officers lounge with the first officer.

The police were a different matter. They stayed on board as we headed for the wharf
, letting the quarantine officer take the launch back by himself.

As soon as we berthed, more police came on board and an interrogation centre was set up in the dining saloon. Word soon spread around the vessel that nobody would be leaving until statements had been taken from every member of the ship’s complement who might know anything of relevance to Pete’s death.

Flint had already taken statements from everybody and I couldn’t see why they had to be duplicated. Most of the crew would have forgotten where they had been that night in any case. So much had happened since Pete was killed; but he hadn’t been killed. It had been an accident. I had to keep my mind in the right perspective or I might never survive the police enquiry.

Being the prime witness
, my statement was taken first. I was able to repeat my earlier statement almost word for word, but was deliberately vague on one or two points. They cross-examined me on several matters, trying to get me to be more specific, but I wasn’t having any of that. A couple of times they were quite obtuse; as if trying to trip me up. I stuck with the original story, changing nothing, but claiming that it was hard to remember exactly what had happened.

I was under scrutiny for at least an hour – and there were still another forty people to be questioned. After waiting a further fifteen minutes, my typed statement was handed to me. I read it through and signed it.

As I got up to leave, handing the piece of paper to the junior officer, the other one, also Chinese, looked up from his notebook and said in an officious tone of voice: “Wait a minute please, Mr. Rider. We haven’t finished yet.”

My heart skipped a beat. What now? I sat down again, trying to appear calm, but my heart
was beating furiously.

“What do you know about Usman Ali?” he finally asked.

“Who?” I asked. “Who’s Usman Ali?”

“The crewman who disappeared during the salvage. Do you know anything about that disappearance?”

I hadn’t even bothered to ask his name, and for a moment it frightened me. I had killed a man by slowly squeezing his throat with a length of cord; thrown his body over the side; and then realised that I had never even known his name. He had always been
the Malay
.

“No,” I replied, feeling my hands grow moist. “I don’t know a thing, other than the captain telling me he had gone missing. I didn’t even know him. I didn’t have much to do with any of the crew if it comes to that.”

They both wrote down a few lines, but didn’t seem all that concerned with my answer. I stood up to leave once more. The senior one waved me down.

“Why didn’t you have much to do with the crew?” he asked. “You have been on board now for many weeks.”

I decided to give them some of the truth.

“They seemed to regard me as a bad luck omen. They blamed me for everything that went wrong; from Pete’s death
, to the stranding, and to the delays in Lae. They don’t seem to like passengers.”

I didn
’t know whether they believed me or not, but there was no other explanation I could give.

“Tell me, Mr. Rider. Why did you take passage on this ship?”

I stuck to my story about wanting to write a book and trying to get some background. It didn’t seem to impress them.

“I’ve been to Singapore a number of times before,” I went on, knowin
g that they could easily check, and probably would. “But always by air, so this time I decided to take a ship. I needed a place where I could sit and think without being disturbed. It was like that for the first week but, believe me; it wasn’t like that for the rest of the voyage. There’s no way you’ll get me back on a ship again. I’ll be going home by air, and make no mistake about it!”

Their persistence was unnerving, but I laughed, hoping it would lighten the atmosphere. It didn’t; but they
didn’t ask any more questions about my book either; or my earlier quick trip to Singapore. I think they were satisfied that I was merely another eccentric European, trying to do it differently.

“We are sorry to hold you up, Mr. Rider,” he said at last. “But we have a job to do. We must ask these questions.”

“I appreciate that, Inspector, but I haven’t set foot on dry land for quite some time.” I didn’t think I needed to mention my quick trip out to Lae airport. “I was looking forward to booking into a hotel and getting rid of the smell of diesel and salt.”

Which was true; but what I really wanted was to get away from the ship and all that it represented.

“Do you recall seeing this Usman Ali the night that he disappeared?” he continued.

“No, I don’t, but that’s not to say I might have seen him. It’s just that I wouldn’t have known him from the rest of the crew.”

“What were you doing the night he disappeared?”

A trick question. Nobody knew for certain when he had disappeared; except me.

“Well, Inspector. I don’t really recall what night he disappeared; that’s if it was at night. As far as I can recollect, from what was said, he just wasn’t around anymore. He could’ve been missing for days for all I know.”

The inspector
tapped a pencil against the rim of his glasses and glanced across at his junior officer.

“I understand,” he said. “But if you do remember anything, you will get in touch with us, Mr. Rider, won’t you?” It wasn’t a request.

I nodded and turned for the door, my hand on the handle as he spoke again. “By the way, Mr. Rider. Where will you be staying in Singapore; and for how long?”

I had intended to leave as soon as the wool had been unloaded and the weight of marijuana checked; which was when we would receive the second payment. There would be nothing further to keep me in Singapore after that; only Mee Ling, and she would be ready to leave as soon as I was: a matter of only a few days; a week at most. A short visit wouldn’t sound logical; not after taking the round-about way of getting there.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying now,” I replied thoughtfully. “The stranding and all the delays have taken up much more time than I had allowed. I don’t really know. Probably a couple of weeks.”

I didn’t think they would bother to check on my past histor
y, but if they did, I hoped they wouldn’t find out that I had been tripping around Europe for the last couple of years. My passport had been renewed not so long ago and there were very few entries in the new one.

“I’ll probably stay at the Hilton, Inspector,” I continued. “It’s expensive
but, after the
Syrius
, I think I should spoil myself. I’ll give you a call as soon as I settle in.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Rider. Here is my card. If you do think of anything, please call that number. If I am not there, please leave a message. It will reach me.”

“Thank you, Inspector. I’ll give you a call before I leave, in any case.”

It seemed to make him happy. He turned to the other officer with a questioning look and received a shake of the head. They were satisfied.

“Fine, Mr. Rider. That would be most helpful. We have no further questions at the moment. You are free to leave as soon as you wish.”

I turned for the door once more, relieved to have finally escaped from those two pairs of piercing eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Rider. One further matter.”

I halted in my tracks and turned.

“Have a pleasant stay in our beautiful country.”

I went straight to my cabin to collect my suitcases, both of which had been packed as soon as we had sighted land.

There was nothing left to do but say goodbye to Flint and his officers. I didn’t give a damn about the crew. They could rot in hell for all I cared.

I made my way down to the officers lounge, figuring that most of them would be there. Sure enough, with the television blasting out some local Chinese station, they were all congregated around the set, trying to catch up on the latest programs. Nobody looked up as I entered the room, so I slammed the door shut with a crash, getting their attention. “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” I said as soon as all eyes were focussed on mine. “We’ve had our differences, but it has been pleasant knowing you.”

I was looking at one particular face when I said the last two words. She blushed.

“
I would be lying,” I continued. “If I said that it had been a pleasant voyage.” A couple of them laughed. “Although we did have a few enjoyable moments.” I tried to catch her attention, but her eyes would not meet mine again. “Goodbye. I trust that my next voyage is not quite as eventful as this one was. It’s certainly something I’ll remember for the rest of my days. Good luck.”

And good riddance too, you miserable pack of bastards, was what I really wanted to say.

A few shook my hand, and there were several mumbled farewells, but as I turned to the door they swivelled back to the television set.

I found Flint waiting for me as I came down the stairs. “Goodbye, Jeff,” he said. It was the
only time he had ever used my Christian name. “In a way I’ll be sorry to see you go. I know we’ve had a few angry words from time to time, but it’s been mainly in the heat of the moment. It’s been good to have you around; someone to talk to. At least you’re able to string more than two sentences together.” I was at a loss for words. “Next time you’re thinking of taking a trip, look me up. I might be able to find room for you.”

I didn’t know what to say. He was serious. It took me a couple of seconds to get rid of my embarrassment.

“Ah…., well…, ah…, it’s nice of you to say that, Vic,” I replied. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ve had enough of the sea to last me a lifetime. Look me up when you’re next in Adelaide.”

I knew he wouldn’t; as he probably knew I wouldn’t get in touch with him again. We were just a
nother of those shipboard realtionships that fade as soon as the boat leaves port.

We shook hands and I departed, stepping carefully down the gangway and into the hands of customs and immigration.
Anything to declare? What is the purpose of your visit?
All the normal questions; and then I was ashore – free at last from
Syrius
.

I felt as a man just released from prison must feel. It all seemed so unreal. After so much waiting and worrying I w
as finally ashore in Singapore.

There were plenty of cabs about and I headed straight for the Hilton. I thought of staying at Raffles, but didn’t
think I could take much more of the East. What I needed was Western culture; sanitized toilet seats, centralised air-conditioning, impersonal boxes – like a thousand other hotels the world over.

It was
early evening, but dinner was far from my mind. I was exhausted. The excitement and relief of reaching Singapore had been too much. The bed looked comfortable and inviting, and food could wait until morning; but there was one thing that couldn’t wait – Tek. I had to make contact and I didn’t intend to make the call through the hotel switchboard.