Night Over Water (34 page)

As soon as they sat down, Harry sensed hostility between Eddie the engineer and Luther the passenger. That was interesting.

The dinner started with shrimp cocktail. The two crew members drank Coke. Harry had a glass of hock and Tom Luther ordered a martini.

Harry was still thinking about Margaret Oxenford and the boyfriend killed in Spain. He looked out of the window, wondering how much she still felt for the boy. A year was a long time, especially at her age.

Jack Ashford followed his look and said: “We’re lucky with the weather, so far.”

Harry noticed that the sky was clear and the sun was shining on the wings. “What’s it usually like?” he said.

“Sometimes it rains all the way from Ireland to Newfoundland,” Jack said. “We get hail, snow, ice, thunder and lightning.”

Harry remembered something he had read. “Isn’t ice dangerous?”

“We plan our route to avoid freezing conditions. But in any event the plane is fitted with rubber deicing boots.”

“Boots?”

“Just rubber covers that fit over the wings and tail where they tend to ice up.”

“So what’s the forecast for the rest of the trip?”

Jack hesitated momentarily, and Harry saw that he wished he had not mentioned the weather. “There’s a storm in the Atlantic,” he said.

“Bad?”

“In the center it’s bad, but we’ll only touch the skirt of it, I expect.” He sounded only half convinced.

Tom Luther said: “What’s it like in a storm?” He was smiling, showing his teeth, but Harry saw fear in his pale blue eyes.

“It gets a little bumpy,” Jack said.

He did not elaborate, but the engineer, Eddie, spoke up. Looking directly at Tom Luther, he said: “It’s kind of like trying to ride an unbroken horse.”

Luther blanched. Jack frowned at Eddie, plainly disapproving of his tactlessness.

The next course was turtle soup. Both stewards were serving now, Nicky and Davy. Nicky was fat and Davy was small. In Harry’s estimation they were both homosexual—or “musical,” as the Noel Coward set would say. Harry liked their informal efficiency.

The engineer seemed preoccupied. Harry studied him covertly. He did not look the sulky type: he had an open, good-natured face. In an attempt to draw him out, Harry said: “Who’s flying the plane while you’re eating dinner, Eddie?”

“The assistant engineer, Mickey Finn, is doing my job,” Eddie said. He spoke pleasantly enough, although he did not smile. “We carry a crew of nine, not counting the two stewards. All except the captain work alternate four-hour shifts. Jack and I have been on duty since we took off from Southampton at two o’clock, so we stood down at six, a few minutes ago.”

“What about the captain?” Tom Luther said worriedly. “Does he take pills to stay awake?”

“He naps when he can,” Eddie said. “He’ll probably take a long break when we pass the point of no return.”

“So we’ll be flying through the sky and the captain will be asleep?” Luther said, and his voice was a little too loud.

“Sure,” said Eddie with a grin.

Luther was looking terrified. Harry tried to steer the conversation into calmer waters. “What’s the point of no return?”

“We monitor our fuel reserves constantly. When we don’t have enough fuel to get back to Foynes, we’ve passed the point of no return.” Eddie spoke brusquely, and Harry now had no doubt the engineer was trying to scare Tom Luther.

The navigator broke in, trying to be reassuring. “Right now we have enough fuel to reach our destination or to return home.”

Luther said: “But what if you don’t have enough to get there or get back?”

Eddie leaned across the table and grinned humorlessly at Luther. “Trust me, Mr. Luther,” he said.

“It would never happen,” the navigator said hastily. “We’d turn back for Foynes before we reached that point. And for extra safety, we make the calculations based on three engines instead of four, just in case something should go wrong with one engine.”

Jack was trying to restore Luther’s confidence, but of course talk of engines going wrong only made the man more frightened. He tried to drink some soup but his hand was shaking and he spilled it on his tie.

Eddie sank back into silence, apparently satisfied. Jack tried to make small talk, and Harry did his best to help out, but there was an awkward atmosphere. Harry wondered what the hell was going on between Eddie and Luther.

The dining room filled up rapidly. The beautiful woman in the dotted dress came to sit at the next table with her blue-blazered escort. Harry had found out that their names were Diana Lovesey and Mark Alder. Margaret should dress like Mrs. Lovesey, Harry thought: she could look even better. However, Mrs. Lovesey did not look happy—in fact she looked as miserable as sin.

The service was fast and the food was good. The main course was filet mignon with asparagus hollandaise and mashed potatoes. The steak was about twice as big as would have been served in an English restaurant. Harry did not eat it all and he refused another glass of wine. He wanted to be alert. He was going to steal the Delhi Suite. The thought thrilled him but also made him apprehensive. It would be the biggest job of his career, and it could be the last, if he so chose. It could buy him that ivy-grown country house with a tennis court.

After the steak they served a salad, which surprised Harry. Salad was not often served in fancy restaurants in London, and certainly not as a separate course following the main dish.

Peach melba, coffee and petits-fours came in rapid succession. Eddie, the engineer, seemed to realize he was being unsociable, and made an effort to converse. “May I ask what’s the purpose of your trip, Mr. Vandenpost?”

“I guess I want to stay out of the way of Hitler,” Harry said. “At least until America gets into the war.”

“You think that will happen?” Eddie asked skeptically.

“It did last time.”

Tom Luther said: “We have no quarrel with the Nazis. They’re against communism, and so are we.”

Jack nodded in agreement.

Harry was taken aback. In England everyone thought America would come into the war. But around this table there was no such assumption. Perhaps the British were kidding themselves, he thought pessimistically. Maybe there was no help to be had from America. That would be bad news for Ma, back in London.

Eddie said: “I think we may have to fight the Nazis.” There was an angry note in his voice. “They’re like gangsters,” he said, looking directly at Luther. “In the end, people of that type just have to be exterminated, like rats.”

Jack stood up abruptly, looking worried. “If we’re through, Eddie, we’d better get a little rest,” he said firmly.

Eddie looked startled at this sudden demand, but after a moment he nodded assent, and the two crew members took their leave.

Harry said: “That engineer was kind of rude.”

“Was he?” said Luther. “I didn’t notice.”

You bloody liar, Harry thought. He practically called you a gangster!

Luther ordered a brandy. Harry wondered if he really was a gangster. The ones Harry knew in London were much more showy, with multiple rings and fur coats and two-tone shoes. Luther looked more like a self-made millionaire businessman, a meat packer or shipbuilder, something industrial. On impulse Harry asked him: “What do you do for a living, Tom?”

“I’m a businessman in Rhode Island.”

It was not an encouraging reply, and a few moments later Harry stood up, gave a polite nod and left.

When he reentered his compartment, Lord Oxenford said abruptly: “Dinner any good?”

Harry had enjoyed it thoroughly, but upper-class people were never too enthusiastic about food. “Not bad,” he said neutrally. “And there’s a drinkable hock.”

Oxenford grunted and went back to his newspaper. There’s no one as rude as a rude lord, Harry thought.

Margaret smiled and looked pleased to see him. “What was it like, really?” she said in a conspiratorial murmur.

“Delicious,” he replied, and they both laughed.

Margaret looked different when she laughed. In repose she was pale and unremarkable, but now her cheeks turned pink and she opened her mouth, showing two rows of even teeth, and tossed her hair; and she let out a throaty chuckle that Harry found sexy. He wanted to reach across the narrow aisle and touch her. He was about to do so when he caught the eye of Clive Membury, sitting opposite him, and for some reason that made him resist the impulse.

“There’s a storm over the Atlantic,” he told her.

“Does that mean we’ll have a rough ride?”

“Yes. They’ll try to fly around the edge of it, but all the same it’s going to be bumpy.”

It was hard to talk to her because the stewards were constantly passing along the aisle between them, carrying food to the dining room and returning with trays of dirty dishes. Harry was impressed that just two men were able to do the cooking and serving for so many diners.

He picked up a copy of Life magazine that Margaret had discarded and began to leaf through it while he waited impatiently for the Oxenfords to go to dinner. He had not brought any books or magazines: he was not much of a reader. He liked to see what was in the newspaper, but for entertainment he preferred the radio and the cinema.

At last the Oxenfords were called for dinner, and Harry was left alone with Clive Membury. The man had sat in the main lounge, playing cards, on the first leg of the trip, but now that the lounge had become the dining room he had settled in his seat. Perhaps he’ll go to the carsey, Harry thought; and perhaps I’d better remember to call it the john before I get caught out.

He wondered again whether Membury was a policeman, and if so what he was doing on the Pan American Clipper. If he was following a suspect, the crime would have to be a major one, for the British police force to fork out for a Clipper ticket. But perhaps he was one of those people who save up for years and years to take some dream trip, a cruise down the Nile or a ride on the Orient Express. He might be an aircraft fanatic who just wanted to make the great transatlantic flight. If that’s true, I hope he’s enjoying it, Harry thought. Ninety quid is a hell of a lot of money for a copper.

Patience was not Harry’s strong point, and when after half an hour Membury had not moved, he decided to take matters into his own hands. “Have you seen the flight deck, Mr. Membury?” he asked.

“No—”

“Apparently it’s really something. They say it’s as big as the entire interior of a Douglas DC-3, and that’s a pretty big airplane.”

“Goodness.” Membury was only politely interested. He was not an aircraft enthusiast, then.

“We ought to go look at it.” Harry stopped Nicky, who was going by with a tureen of turtle soup. “Can passengers visit the flight deck?”

“Yes, sir, and welcome!”

“Is now a good time?”

“It’s a very good time, Mr. Vandenpost. We’re not landing or taking off, the crew aren’t changing watches, and the weather is calm. You couldn’t pick a better moment.”

Harry had been hoping he would say that. He stood up and looked expectantly at Membury. “Shall we?”

Membury looked as if he were about to refuse. He was not the type to be easily bullied. On the other hand, it might seem churlish to refuse to go and see the flight deck; and perhaps Membury would not want to seem disagreeable. After a moment’s hesitation, he got to his feet, saying: “By all means.”

Harry led him forward, past the kitchen and the men’s room, and turned right, mounting the twisting staircase. At the top he emerged onto the flight deck. Membury was right behind him.

Harry looked around. It was nothing like his picture of the cockpit of an airplane. Clean, quiet and comfortable, it looked more like an office in a modem building. Harry’s dinner companions, the navigator and the engineer, were not present, of course, as they were off duty; this was the alternative shift. However, the captain was here, sitting behind a small table at the rear of the cabin. He looked up, smiled pleasantly and said: “Good evening, gentlemen. Would you like to look around?”

“Sure would,” said Harry. “But I gotta get my camera. Is it okay to take a picture?”

“You bet.”

“I’ll be right back.”

He hurried back down the stairs, pleased with himself but tense, too. He had got Membury out of the way for a while, but his search would have to be very quick.

He returned to the compartment. One steward was in the galley and the other in the dining room. He would have liked to wait until both were busy serving at tables, so that he could feel confident they would not pass through the compartment for a few minutes; but he did not have time. He would just have to take a chance on being interrupted.

He pulled Lady Oxenford’s bag out from under her seat. It was too big and heavy for a cabin bag, but she probably did not carry it herself. He put it on the seat and opened it. It was not locked: that was a bad sign—even she was not likely to be so innocent as to leave priceless jewelry in an unlocked case.

All the same he rummaged through it quickly, watching out of the comer of his eye in case anyone should walk in. There was scent and makeup, a silver brush-and-comb set, a chestnut-colored dressing gown, a nightdress, dainty slippers, peach-colored silk underwear, stockings, a sponge bag containing a toothbrush and the usual toiletries, and a book of Blake’s poems—but no jewels.

Harry cursed silently. He had felt this was the likeliest place the suite would be. Now he began to doubt his whole theory.

The search had taken about twenty seconds.

He closed the case quickly and put it back under the seat.

He wondered whether she had asked her husband to carry the jewels.

He looked at the bag under Lord Oxenford’s seat. The stewards were still busy. He decided to push his luck.

He pulled out Oxenford’s bag. It was like a carpetbag, but leather. It was fastened with a zipper at the top, and the zipper had a little padlock. Harry carried a penknife with him for moments such as this. He used the knife to snap the padlock, then unzipped the bag.