The Devil in Amber (12 page)

I was mulling this over when I suddenly became aware that Aggie had stopped crying. At first I assumed she’d drifted into sleep but then I felt a soft fumbling at my fly buttons and an immediate tumescence in my moleskins.

Aggie’s neat little hand slipped inside my trousers and I felt a thrill of desire as her cold fingertips connected with my thighs, instantly prickling the skin into goose-flesh.

Lifting her head from my chest, I gazed into her night-black eyes and then leant to kiss her once more, my stubbly chin scratching her soft, downy face. Her lips parted with sudden ferocity, like a snarling lioness, and she bit at my face and tongue. I pushed her down onto the bunk and dragged the sweater from her body, revealing a long, marble-smooth neck and perfect, pert breasts, the nipples huge and brown as toffee.

With practised ease, I slipped out of my trousers and wrenched
down Aggie’s own till they reached her knees, passion preventing any further undressing.

Must I burden you with the details of that night? Of how we thrashed about in the none-too-clean sheets, plunging towards ecstasy till almost dawn? Of my lean and lithe body (it still was, I swear!) conjoining with hers, our legs intertwining, our mad kisses, locked in a fevered embrace that for a few sweet stolen hours banished all thoughts of Sal Volatile, Percy Flarge, nuns, lambs and mysterious Cabalistic handkerchiefs?

Well, it was shaping up to be a dashed good shag, is all I can tell you, when something rather uncommon occurred.

Quite suddenly, the incessant pounding of the waves against the rusty hull fell quiet, as though I were in a kinema and the sound had suddenly shut off. Even the constant asthmatic grumbling of the ship’s engines stilled. I glanced down at Aggie’s face but her eyes were screwed tightly shut in pleasure, fully absorbed in the matter in hand. Yet I knew in my very bones that if I opened my mouth to cry out, not a sound would escape me.

And, all at once, the air in the cabin began to thicken. A strange bluey haze, like wood-smoke, began to bleed through it, hanging in trailing threads, one layer overlapping another like a formation of storm clouds. Deep, deep within the smoke there was a noiseless detonation, as though I was looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun, and two points of red light, glowing hellishly like coals, blossomed into life.

I knew even before the smoke that surrounded them began to take on the vague, ectoplasmic structure of some nightmarish face that these ghastly, glowing embers were
eyes.

I choked in shock and ceased my coupling. Aggie stirred beneath me, and as I felt cold sweat trickle down my neck, the spectre began to take on more solid form, the blood-red eyes leering out from a long, goatish face, crazed with deep lines, black as gunpowder. There was no nose, only a hellish, skeletal hole edged about with
scraps of mouldering fur. As for the mouth, it never seemed fully to form. Only a terrible, gaping, indefinite maw occupied the lower half of the face, the bluey smoke drifting in and out of its orbit like rank breath. But in its baleful black emptiness I seemed to see all the dismal, hateful things of the world distilled. I was seized by a sudden, blank terror, rolled off Aggie and curled up into a ball.

I could feel the girl’s hands shaking me by the shoulders but still there was no sound.

I glanced fearfully over her shoulder and the goatish face broke into a filthy heathen grin.

Then I screamed.

T
he pounding of the waves and the wheezing of the engines crashed back into my consciousness with the force of Dempsey’s right hook. I recall opening wide my eyes and calling out, before sinking into the cool embrace of the pillow, where I must have fallen into a deep, deep sleep.

When at last I awoke, there was no sign of Aggie. Lord knows what she must’ve been thinking,
pauvre petite
, choosing me as her first tumble only for yours truly to screech into her lovely face some little way from any kind of, shall we say, resolution.

My thoughts, though, were somewhat disarranged. I own I was in a total funk, trembling all over and covered in a sheen of cold sweat. What the hell had I seen? Or, indeed, what
from hell
had I seen? It could only have been some fevered hallucination. Perhaps the noxious fumes from the ship’s engines had finally taken their toll?

I shuddered at the memory of that dreadful apparition and tried to dismiss it, yet even as my eyes closed the hateful, bestial face
sprang back into my mind. Further sleep seemed impossible and I’d pretty much made up my mind to track Aggie down in order to apologize when I heard heavy footsteps in the passage outside.

Staggering unsteadily from the bed and opening the door just a fraction, I caught sight of the woolly-headed sailor who’d taken my papers when first I’d come aboard. He was carrying one of the crates I’d seen in the hold, branded with a Maltese cross, though this one was small and knotted with tarry string.

I let him pass from view, took several deep breaths to right myself, then slipped out of the cabin and followed.

The corridors of the vessel were as stifling as rabbit warrens, swirling with oily vapour and shaking incessantly with the drumming of engines. Passing door after closed door, I suddenly flattened myself against the wall as Woolly-Head gave a stealthy look back and crept into the crew’s quarters.

I waited a few moments, then bobbed my head around the jamb.

It was almost completely dark inside but I could make out the sound of stifled giggles and, as my eyes grew accustomed to the murk, the Behemothal form of Bullfrog the cook, squatting on the floor clad only in his shatteringly awful underwear. Above the perished elastic waistline hung ropes of flabby flesh.

Bullfrog was concentrating intently on something at his feet. I strained to see. It was the crate! The string had been sliced off and his meaty hand and rusted hook were busily scrabbling about inside. I could hear vague grinding sounds and for one crazed moment assumed he was preparing supper for his pals.

Woolly-Head was giggling with a kind of manic glee. ‘In the name of the father,’ he said between hyena laughs. ‘And of the son…’

‘And of the holy ghost!’ chorused the others, Bullfrog making a horrible wet response as though swallowing a live eel.

To my astonishment, I saw the mute lift a Communion wafer from the box and break it in two. Then he dropped the two halves into a little pot and began to grind up the stuff with a pestle.

I looked on in fascination as he tipped the powder onto a tin tray and proceeded to divide it into neat lines.

And then I understood. I’d seen Corpusty deep in confab with Olympus Mons and now here was the connection that bound them together! Mons was behind the massive influx of cocaine into Manhattan–smuggled innocuously across the Atlantic in the form of Communion wafers!

And now the
Stiffkey
’s crew were presumably enjoying the leftovers, the last few crates left unsold to Mons’s New York supplier. Woolly-Head, Bullfrog and the others bowed their heads as if in prayer and partook of the cocaine in a great snuffling orgy, like sweaty pigs round a truffle-rich tree.

I used the distraction to creep past, but had gone no more than a few yards when a door flew open and Captain Corpusty was revealed, his bulk silhouetted against the glow of the hurricane lamp within.

‘Trouble sleeping?’ he said, cocking his head to one side.

‘’Fraid so!’ I extemporised. ‘Martyr to insomnia, alas. Do you…do you mind if I carry on with the picture?’

The old bruiser didn’t seem more than faintly surprised and happily consented to this evening shift, busying himself with brewing tea and pouring booze as I sharpened my pencils with a pearl-handled knife.

We sat in silence as I laboured steadily away, my mind racing the whole time, only Corpusty’s breathing and the scratch of the lead pencils disturbing the stillness. I had fallen into a kind of trance when there came a light double knock and Aggie’s be-capped head appeared around the door.

I flashed her a reassuring look but she completely ignored me, merely announcing we would be in sight of the eastern coast of England that very night. Through busy contractions of my brows, I tried to telegraph my profoundest apologies but the girl didn’t even favour me with a glance as she ducked back into the corridor.

Grumpily, I hastened to finish my picture of the captain, ending with a hasty flourish around his wiry eyebrows of which I wasn’t particularly proud. I called to the fellow and he craned over my shoulder, nodding appreciatively as I laid down my pencils for the final time.

‘Marvellous!’ he cried. ‘Marvellous, Mr Box! A ruddy triumph. I never dreamed I’d see this day! But there’s a little something you’ve neglected.’

I frowned, looking the portrait over. ‘I don’t think so.’

Corpusty chuckled. ‘Why, your signature, sir! Just scribble it at the bottom there.’

‘I thought you a student of my work, Captain,’ I said lightly. ‘Don’t you know I never sign?’

He laughed and rubbed at his chin. ‘Of course, of course! I just wondered, perhaps this one time. As a special favour…’

‘It would be very odd to make an exception, even for you.’

Corpusty nodded, grunted and gestured helplessly with both hands. ‘But how else is it to be…?’ he began. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he clapped one hand on my shoulder. ‘Forgive the hasty words of a mere amateur, Mr Box. For genius is visible in every line, every battered old contour you’ve rendered of this old mug o’ mine! And I shall treasure it, sir. Treasure it as long as I live. These past few days have been a joy to me. Now, let’s see about getting you home and safe.’

He gave orders for the rowing boat to be prepared for launch just before dawn, we shook hands and I left him sizing up the sketch, pride lighting up his ravaged features. I made my way back, a mite unsteadily, to my own cabin and began to make ready for disembarkation.

Firstly, I made sure the precious silk relic was still safely stowed within my money belt, then I turned my attention to Percy Flarge’s stolen automatic. I was wrapping it in oilskin and secreting it in a pea coat (another treasure the lovely Aggie had procured) when I
straightened up, convinced that someone was standing on the other side of the woodwork. Throwing open the door, I revealed Aggie crouched low, her eye level with the keyhole.

She turned at once on her heel but I dashed forward and jerked her back.

‘Now you wish to touch me!’ she cried. ‘Before, I disgust you so much that you flee from my embrace!’

‘No, no, no,’ I insisted. ‘It wasn’t like that at all—’

Aggie wriggled about as I tried to restrain her. ‘Get off me! I do not wish to see you—’

‘Then why were you spying at my door, hm?’

‘I was not!’

‘Look!’ I yelled with finality. ‘Just listen for a moment, damn you!’

I dragged her further into the cabin and kicked the door shut. Aggie looked a little shocked and fell silent.

I rubbed my weary face. ‘What happened before, it was nothing to do with you. You’re divine, my dear, really you are. The cat’s pyjamas. But something dashed odd happened. I…I saw something. In the air above us. A…a sort of face.’

Aggie stiffened in my arms. ‘Face?’

I led her back towards the bunk, more or less content that she wouldn’t flee. ‘It sounds like utter rot, I know. But it was like some demon had appeared. Scared the bloody life out of me.’

Aggie’s smooth brown cheeks had drained of colour. ‘You have seen it too!’

‘You mean—?’

‘Yes!’ cried the girl. ‘Perhaps three or four times since I came to live aboard the
Stiffkey
. At first I thought it was a dream, but…’

‘No dream,’ I insisted. ‘But maybe it’s some foul concoction Bullfrog puts in the ship’s grub? There’s narcotics aboard, Aggie. Cocaine. Perhaps there might be other stuff. Heady stuff from Kingston or Shanghai intended to dope us. But why?’

Aggie’s countenance resumed its solemn aspect. ‘I do not believe this to be true. I have long felt that there is something strange about this ship. The face of the demon–that was just one more part of it. But then I began to feel…’ She shook her head dismissively.

‘No,’ I urged. ‘Go on.’

‘I felt that it was watching over me,’ Aggie bit her lip. ‘Like…like a guardian.’

She turned her fathomless eyes towards me and then, like a child needing reassurance, draped her arms around my neck and we slid back onto the bed.

Though my first instinct was to take advantage, like the good Christian I’m not, I let the girl fall asleep with her head on my chest. With nothing to do until my dawn departure, I attempted to fall into the arms of Morpheus myself.

Yet sleep stubbornly refused to come. I tried to concentrate on the rhythmic motion of the ship and the familiar chug of the engines, yet still I lay awake, my eyes burning.

At first my brain fizzed with chaotic thoughts. Why was I being falsely accused of Volatile’s death? He’d been alive, if injured, when last I’d seen him, so what had happened whilst I was drugged? Who had put three bullets in his lungs? Who stood to gain? Was Flarge so ludicrously jealous that he was behind the whole mad scheme?

There was something else, though, something the captain had said, and it kept jabbing at my thoughts like a fat bluebottle banging against a windowpane. That little exchange of ours after I’d completed his drawing. What had he muttered when I’d refused to sign the damned thing?

But how else is it to be
…?

To be
what
?

I sat up in my bunk, making Aggie stir. How is it to be
identified
?

I knew all at once, with terrible certainty, that I was about to be betrayed. Looking down at my wristwatch I saw that it was twenty minutes to four.

As carefully as I could, I disentangled myself from Aggie’s embrace, reached down for my discarded coat and carefully removed Flarge’s pistol from its oilskin wrapper.

I glanced quickly towards the bunk–the girl was still sleeping peacefully–then creaked open the cabin door and stole out into the darkness.

The old ship rolled unsteadily beneath my bare feet as I padded through the dinge.

An irregular electronic bleeping told me I was nearing the
Stiffkey
’s radio room. I crouched down in the shadows of the weird greenish aura given off by the dial. Inside the room, Corpusty and Woolly-Head–acting as operator–were conversing in low voices.

‘Understood,’ said the Captain. I could see his great thick bonce, nodding in silhouette. ‘Rendezvous oh-four-thirty hours,’ he continued, the sharp, insistent bleep of the Morse telegraph sending out his message into the ether. ‘Package to be taken off and…disposed of at your discretion.’

Woolly-Head laughed his hissing laugh and Corpusty joined in, throatily.

So there it was! The jolly old smuggler was trying to have his cake and eat it. He meant to turn me in, collect the reward and then, at some later date, flog off the picture I’d done of him. The provenance would be impeccable and my price was bound to rocket once I’d been hanged as a murderer.

I cursed the talentless booby. I’d steal a march on him yet!

There was very little time, though, before the rendezvous. I was supposed to be roused just before dawn for my pretended escape, Corpusty evidently bargaining on catching me asleep.

Feet slapping against the rotten old planking, I dashed back to my cabin. As quietly as I could, I crept back inside–to be met by the blade of a knife jabbing at my cheek.

Aggie sighed with relief and let the weapon drop. ‘It is you! I am glad. I woke up and was afraid–what is wrong?’

I stuffed away the pistol. ‘Change of plan. Corpusty’s trying to double-cross me. I’m off.’

‘Double-cross you? But why?’

I decided against putting on my boots. There might be swimming to come and I didn’t much fancy being dragged down by the steel toecaps.

‘Long story, my pet,’ I said with a smile. ‘You coming?’

‘What?’

‘Are you coming with me?’ I said, crossing to the cabin door and swinging it open.

Aggie violently shook her head. ‘No! I cannot do that!’

‘Why ever not, for God’s sake? What is there for you here?’

‘The
Stiffkey
is my life. I owe everything to the captain.’

‘The same captain who’s about to give me up for filthy lucre?’ I whispered.

She looked pained and confused. ‘These people are my comrades. My world.’

I sighed. ‘Listen, I need to tell you something. My name’s not Volatile, it’s Box. Lucifer Box. I’m on the run from America because someone’s accused me of murder. Your precious Corpusty is even now arranging for the police to meet this ship and take me away. I’m completely innocent. Well, not completely. There’ll come a reckoning outside the Pearly Gates, I shouldn’t wonder. But if you like me and you want to help, I’d be most awfully grateful. Are you game?’