Stormchild (31 page)

I walked through a door on which the faded word
Waschraum
was painted in the same black-letter as the calendar. The washroom consisted of lavatory stalls and two zinc-lined troughs. The lavatories were blackened and broken, while the troughs had collapsed under a welter of old water pipes. The roof of this room was almost entirely missing and the rain poured in to make a huge puddle on the decayed floor. Moss and weeds grew thick in some of the broken lavatories, while the stalls still bore their pre-war graffiti, mute wit-nesses to the lonely frustrations of breaking limestone from this quarry at the world’s bitter end.

I went through another door and edged carefully down a passage from which a number of small rooms opened to my right. Some of the rooms still held the rusted metal frames of old cot beds, and I assumed that the quarry’s managers had once slept here. The windows offered fine views of the Desolate Straits’ blind end where the deceptive waterway widened into an immense and sheltered pool and in which a great ship could easily have turned its full length before docking beside the quarry’s pier. Berenice had told us how Genesis had begun using this anchorage because it was so much more sheltered than the bay at the settlement, and I could see the sense of that decision, for this great sea pool had to be one of the most secure anchorages I had ever seen. It was also an empty anchorage, unless I counted a half-sunken rusted barge that lay at the seaward end of the old pier. On the southern side of the bay was a stone quay which was backed by a row of low stone buildings. Beside the quay was a slipway up which two steel rails ran, evidence that boats could, as Berenice had said, be drawn safely out of the water in this place, but there was no sign of any activity on the quay or on the slipway. There were no yachts or dinghies in sight, just the wet wind, the cold rain, and the empty straits.

The absence of any boats disappointed and relaxed me. I was disappointed because their absence surely meant that Nicole was not here, but it also meant that no one else from Genesis waited in this dreadful spot, and that, therefore, I could not possibly be in any danger. I decided my enemies must have sailed northward, gone to intercept
Stormchild
off Cape Raper.

I went through another door and stopped in sheer amazement. I was also overcome with sudden fear because I found myself standing on a rickety wooden platform high above a machinery floor. The timbers under my feet creaked ominously, and it seemed as if one more step would splinter the old wood and tumble me forty feet down to the floor.

I had entered the largest of all the quarry’s buildings, the tall gaunt shed, which I now saw had been built above and around an excavated pit, and it was in that huge stone pit, shadowed dark beneath me, that the quarry’s old machinery rusted into powder.

The quarry had been dug to produce limestone. The great rocks, once they had been exploded and dragged out of the mountain, had entered the building to my left and then been processed through the massive crushers and grinders beneath me until, turned into rubble and powder, they had gone spilling down the ramp on my right and into the holds of ships waiting at the pier. Then, carried to Europe or to North America or to Australia, the limestone had been manufactured into cement, lime wash, or fertilizer. There was still something very impressive about the gargantuan and silent machinery, and its presence in this lost corner of a vast continent was evidence of a nineteenth-century determination to conquer the world and all its resources.

Gingerly, fearfully, I crept down the ramshackle stairs. I became more confident when I saw that the old wooden treads were supported by cast-iron moldings, but it was still with a sense of relief that I reached the machine-hall floor and could walk among the huge, silent engines that were now useless rust. In their day they had been engineering marvels, massively powerful machines that still bore the proud cast-iron plaques that boasted of the towns where they had been forged: Essen, Dortmund, and Bochum. Above the great machines were the giant spindles which had once held the slapping leather belts that had carried power from a bank of huge steam engines built on the pit’s lip. Those old steam engines were still there, though they had clearly been the first of the machines to fall silent, their power supplanted by the row of squat diesel generators that looked as if they had come from some First World War battleship. The huge room was like a museum of industrial ingenuity, a great rusting museum. When I kicked a rusting bolt with my right boot the sound echoed forlornly in the huge, dank space.

“How very clever you are to find us, Mr. Blackburn,” the voice said when the bolt’s last echo died away.

“Oh my God! Jesus Christ!” I blasphemed, twisted down, and huddled into a rust-flaked corner of a machine where I unslung the rifle from my shoulder. My heart was thumping like a runaway jackhammer. I could not see the speaker, and the echoes of the great room made it hard to tell from where he had spoken, but I recognized the voice. It was Caspar von Rellsteb.

“Von Rellsteb!” I shouted.

“Of course! Who else did you expect to find here? Santa Claus, perhaps?” He paused, and, though I looked frantically around, I still could not see him. Von Rellsteb, as if comprehending my panic, laughed. “Or perhaps you expected to find Nicole and the pirated Genesis boats hidden here. Is that what Berenice told you? She has spun that yarn before. Last year she hitched a ride on a visiting Australian yacht and told a wonderful tale of enslavement, and of a worldwide AIDS epidemic, and of pirated boats that we hid at the very end of the Desolate Straits. Such an imagination for a little American girl, eh?” Von Rellsteb laughed again. “Her imagination brought the Chilean police here, and we had two or three weeks of unnecessary trouble before they realized the poor girl was simply unstable. We offered to fly her home to her mother, but, at the last moment, she chose to come back to us. I sometimes regret she made that choice, but we think of all our community’s members as family, and, as in every family, love cannot help but take the good with the bad. Isn’t that so, Mr. Blackburn?”

I worked a round into the Lee-Enfield’s chamber. The rifle’s bolt made a very loud noise that echoed menacingly in the tall, dripping, wind-chilled chamber.

I heard von Rellsteb’s footsteps grate somewhere close by, but the acoustics of the shed made it almost impossible to detect just where he was. He sighed. “Your caution is misplaced, Mr. Blackburn. Do come out. I’m entirely alone, and I have no weapons. But I need to apologize to you! My people were stupid to have fired on you when you visited the settlement two days ago. It was purely a reaction of fear and nervousness. Our little community lives a most sheltered life here, and any incursion from the outside world tends to unsettle us.”

I slipped off the rifle’s safety catch. Was von Rellsteb’s voice coming from the right? I peered that way and saw nothing.

“Did you hear me, Mr. Blackburn? I apologize most profoundly, and am only glad that no one got hurt at the settlement. We’re re-evaluating our policy on guns, so I hope it will never happen again. Please do come out. Please.”

I straightened up, then edged very cautiously round the ponderous rock-crushing machine that had sheltered me. I still could not see von Rellsteb. I thought how furious David would be, for I had done everything I had promised him I would not do, and everything that he had warned me against, which meant that all our careful planning had been shot to hell.

“Good morning!” the voice said behind me, and I whipped the rifle round to see von Rellsteb standing just thirty feet away. He smiled, then spread his empty hands to show that he was indeed unarmed. “Good morning,” he said again, and with an intonation that chided me for not responding to his first friendly greeting.

I still did not respond, but just watched him. He was wearing red and black oilskins, sea boots, and a black woolen hat into which he had crammed his long gray hair. He seemed amused by my wary scrutiny. “If I was going to kill you,” he said, “I would already have done so. Please put your gun down. I fear that Berenice has filled your head with the most nonsensical fancies. No doubt she told you that Nicole might be found here? Is that right?”

I said nothing. I was again struck by the intelligence in his face, and I had the weirdest and most uncomfortable impression that he was reading my thoughts.

“You’ve come to see Nicole, of course,” he went on as though my silence was an agreeable response to his remarks, “and I know she’s delighted that you’re here! It was the greatest pity that she wasn’t at the settlement when you visited two days ago, but she’s waiting there now.”

“You lying bastard,” I blurted out.

“Oh, Mr. Blackburn.” A look of injured sadness crossed von Rellsteb’s sensitive face. “What has Berenice told you? That Nicole and I have arguments? That Nicole has taken refuge here, while the rest of us live at the settlement? What nonsense. Nicole very nearly wrote to you after she received the letter you gave me in Florida, but in the end she decided that our policy of separation should be preserved. But when she heard you were here! She was excited, so excited! And she still is! In fact she’s waiting at the settlement right now!” Von Rellsteb looked at his wristwatch. “If we hurry we might reach the farm by mid-afternoon, and we can have tea with her. Nicole is very fond of her afternoon tea. It’s a rather English trait, and one that the rest of us often tease her about.”

I aimed the rifle at his long, thin face. “Say a prayer, you smug bastard.”

“Would you rather I brought Nicole here? I will, of course, if you insist.” His German-accented voice implied I was being unreasonably difficult, and his self-possession and charm were beginning to make me doubt my own reason. “Fetching Nicole will take time,” he went on calmly, as though I was not threatening him with a rifle, “and frankly I can’t do it in much under five or six hours.” He paused to let me admit the force of his objections, but I said nothing, which prompted von Rellsteb to offer me a disappointed smile. “You’re lucky she’s here at all,” he went on, “because she was planning to spend some days on the lower islands to conduct some seismic studies for the government. That’s a great nuisance. When we first came here we were welcomed by the Chilean authorities”—he laughed confidingly, as though he was about to make a private jest that only he and I might under-stand—”or rather by the old General,
el Presidente,
Pinochet. He liked all things German, you see, so I was definitely flavor of the month.” Von Rellsteb enlarged his explanation by clicking his heels together and putting a forefinger like a moustache on his upper lip. He chuckled. “Now we must make ourselves welcome in more useful ways, and the Ministry of the Interior believes there may be silver deposits in the archipelago, and they asked us to make the survey, so, naturally, we’re complying. But to be really honest with you, Mr. Blackburn, I’m not sure we want to find any mineral deposits, because exploiting the discoveries is certain to threaten the ecology of the islands, so I rather think that Nicole is falsifying the returns!” He chuckled. “A small deception, but one that is surely justified by the scenery of these islands. It’s magnificent scenery, isn’t it?”

“Does the Chilean government supply you with the necessary explosives for seismic tests?” I asked.

I had hoped the mention of explosives might unsettle von Rellsteb, but he seemed entirely unfazed by my suspicions. “The Ministry of Mines issues us with the necessary operating permits, of course, but, in fact, we fetch our dynamite from commercial suppliers in Valparaiso.” He looked at his watch again. “I’m enjoying talking to you, but if I’m to fetch Nicole I really should leave.”

“Radio the settlement,” I said. I was staring at him through the open ring battle sight of the rifle.

“Alas”—he smiled—”I came here in a sea kayak and didn’t think to bring a radio.”

“I’ve got one,” I said.

“Splendid! But I fear it won’t transmit from this rock pit!” Von Rellsteb gestured about the high walls of the machine hall which would, indeed, block any transmission. “But if you want to climb the outside stairs to the roof you can talk to the settlement. They monitor channel 16. The reception is sometimes a bit erratic, but if you persevere you should succeed. Please.” He took a pace backward and courteously invited me to walk to the staircase. I did not move. Von Rellsteb smiled and still held his hand toward the stairs. “Nicole might very well answer herself”—he enticed me—”she often takes a radio watch about this time of day.”

I still did not move, nor did I lower the rifle, though in all honesty von Rellsteb had completely unsettled me. He had thrown all my accusations and suspicions out of gear. Had Berenice fed David and me with fantasy? It seemed impossible that von Rellsteb meant me harm, for he was facing me unarmed and he seemed utterly unworried by the threat of my gun. And still he smiled at me, so that I was beginning to feel mesmerized by the piercing blue eyes in his kindly face. Everything he said was so plausible, and I felt my defenses against him weakening.

“Please?” he said again, and gestured to the staircase, then, as though an idea had suddenly struck him, he tapped his hands lightly together. “But this is ridiculous! Your boat must be moored nearby, so why don’t you just sail to the settlement! It’s ten miles up the straits, that’s all. This old mine is such a very uncomfortable place for a family reunion.”

“My boat isn’t in the straits,” I said. My left forearm, bracing the barrel of the Lee-Enfield, was beginning to ache.

Von Rellsteb stared at me with a disbelief that slowly turned into genuine admiration. “Are you moored in the Almagro Channel?” He waited a second, and, when I gave no answer, he shook his head. “No! You can’t be! It’s never been done!”

I still said nothing. My lips felt dry despite the rain which whirled about the great rusting machines under the broken roof.

Von Rellsteb shook his head in astonishment. “Did you sail up the fjord? Is that what you did? I don’t believe it can be done!” He gave me a very suspicious look. “You can’t have dared the fjord! I’ve never risked it, nor has Nicole for that matter, and there isn’t much she won’t dare in a boat! There can’t be more than five feet of water in the entrance to the Almagro Channel!”