The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (60 page)

We were very still and though I listened hard I couldn’t hear anything. Taffy said, ‘There’s a boat coming.’

Then I heard the faint creak of rowlocks and the splash of oars. I looked anxiously towards Geordie.

‘We take them,’ he decided. ‘We can’t have the game given away too soon.’ He issued quick instructions and the men spread themselves into the deck shadows. There was a soft bump as the boat reached the boarding ladder, on the other side from our own exit, and a few moments later I saw the outline of a man against the night sky. There was
only one man and as he came aboard I drew in my breath sharply.

It was Kane.

‘He’s my meat,’ I murmured to Geordie, who gave me the thumbs up. I moved forward in a crouch. Kane walked forward along the deck and just as he passed me I straightened up and gave him a tap on the shoulder. He turned and I let him have it, as hard as I could to the jaw. Ian tapped him on the head with something as he started to collapse and all in one movement, as it seemed, rolled him into a piece of canvas. Geordie looked over the railings and saw that Kane had been alone in the dinghy. ‘That’ll get us off the hook with Campbell,’ he said with satisfaction.

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ I said, rubbing my sore knuckles. ‘We can’t take Kane to the police now. They wouldn’t look at all kindly on our methods, and if they find out what we’ve done to this ship we’re for it, right on our side or not.’

‘You’ve said better than you know, Mike,’ Geordie concurred. ‘We’ll leave here right away – and we’ll take Mr Kane with us.’

We piled into our boat and pulled for
Esmerelda
, and as we passed under the stern of Ramirez’s ship I looked up and saw her name painted there –
Sirena.
Halfway across the harbour I had a sudden thought. ‘Geordie, what was Jim doing in the engine room?’

‘Nothing much,’ he said. Jim grinned briefly in the half-light and I was about to speak to him direct when Geordie interrupted me. ‘Heave, you bloody pirates – we haven’t much time.’ He seemed in a devil of a hurry.

As we climbed the bulwarks of
Esmerelda
I suddenly remembered that Jim Taylor had made a name for himself as a demolitions expert during the war. I hadn’t time to develop this thought because Campbell was on to me in a rage.

‘What in hell is going on?’

I found I’d stopped sweating and felt very calm. No doubt the reaction would set in later. ‘A little bit of direct action,’ I said coolly.

Geordie was already giving orders in a quiet bellow. ‘Get that bloody engine started up. Slip all lines bar the bow-line. Get that dinghy up smartly now.’ The deck was astir with movement.

‘You damned fools! You’ll get us all gaoled,’ Campbell was raging.

‘Better gaoled than dead,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what we found on that damned ship.’

‘Stand by the warps,’ I heard Geordie say. I heard a throb as the engines started.

‘I don’t care what you found,’ fumed Campbell. ‘Do you realize you’ve committed an act of piracy?’

It was lucky that the engine note drowned his voice. In the same moment Ian came running along the deck. ‘Mr Campbell, sir. Yon man on the jetty – he wants a wee crack wi’ you.’

We both looked ashore in alarm and saw a solitary figure standing just where our gangplank lay. It was about to be pulled inboard, but he arrested it with a gesture. It was Ernesto Ramirez.

‘By God, I’ll crack him!’ I burst out.

Campbell recognized him at once, and I heard a buzz behind me as Nick Dugan breathed the name for the benefit of the crew. I gave Nick a sharp glance and he shook his head slightly, spreading his hands to indicate that there had been no contact before.

Campbell took my arm. ‘Easy, Mike, don’t go off at half-cock. Let’s not compound whatever mischief you’ve been up to. Hold Geordie, will you?’ Amazingly, as my wrath had risen so his had subsided and he seemed in complete control of himself.

He walked away to the gangplank and I shouted, ‘Hold it, Geordie! There’s a snag – the boss has a visitor.’ I followed Campbell.

Ramirez was alone, leaning negligently on a bollard. Obviously he hadn’t yet been on
Sirena
– there hadn’t been time for that, and he was too composed. Campbell looked down at him. ‘Well?’ he asked coldly.

Ramirez smiled up at him. ‘I just came to wish you farewell. I thought you would be leaving about now.’ I realized that, Nick Dugan or not, he’d seen us at the hotel or he’d seen the Campbells and Paula leaving.

He walked straight up the gangplank and stepped onto the deck, elegant in his white tropical suit.

Campbell’s voice was icy. ‘You don’t have to come on board to tell us that.’

‘Maybe not, but I am here.’

To give the devil his due, he had no nerves at all. After doing what he’d done I wouldn’t have had the guts to come within a hundred miles of
Esmerelda
, let alone without an escort. But he was a subtle and clever man, relying on Campbell’s known sense of justice, and maybe he knew that our scruples would hold us back. Still, he had guts.

He said, ‘I thought I should warn you. I have plans and I do not wish you to interfere with them. Why don’t you give up and go away?’

‘I’m not concerned with your plans,’ said Campbell stolidly.

‘You know what I mean, Mr Campbell. We met in battle before and you came off worst. And so you shall again if you do not get out of my way.’ He had the Spanish trick of making gutturals out of his aitches, but otherwise his English was good. I didn’t think my Spanish would be as fluent.

My mouth was dry. I said, ‘Ramirez, you’re a bloody murderer and I’m going to see you pay for it.’

His eyebrows quirked. ‘Murder?’ he queried mockingly. ‘That is a libel, Mr Trevelyan. Whom am I supposed to have murdered?’

‘My brother, for one,’ I said hotly.

Ramirez threw back his head and laughed. ‘My dear sir, I’m willing to go into any court in the world on a charge like that.’ His teeth flashed. ‘You have no proof, have you – no proof at all.’ And he laughed again.

That was only too true. The only man who had seen him at Tanakabu was Dr Schouten – and he too was dead.

Campbell said, ‘I fail to see the point of this conversation, Ramirez.’

Geordie tugged at my sleeve agitatedly. ‘We’ve got to get away – now. Before that thing goes bang.’

‘What thing, for God’s sake?’

He drew me aside and said in a low hurried voice, ‘Jim had a small charge of plastic explosive – he slapped it against the crank case of their engine. He wanted to blow a hole in the bottom of their boat but I wouldn’t let him – I wish I had, now.’

‘When’s it due to go off?’

‘That’s it – Jim doesn’t know. He rigged up a time switch from an ordinary alarm clock, and you can’t get those right to within five minutes or so. I thought we’d be away by now.’

‘It’ll rouse the whole harbour!’

‘But we’d have been gone – nothing to do with us.’ The urgency in his voice was an imperative. I looked across at Ramirez and said, ‘I think you ought to have the privilege of cleaning your own deck.’

Geordie caught on and went immediately up to the gangplank where Campbell and Ramirez were locked in a low-voiced, furious argument. I noticed Geordie dab his hand on the winch drum and then signal surreptitiously to Ian and Taffy. Of the rest of the crew all were spellbound except Jim,
who was watching anxiously across the water. There was no sign of the girls.

Geordie placed himself squarely in front of Ramirez and was blunt in his speech. ‘I’m the master of this ship – and the owner – and I’m particular about filth on my decks. I’d be pleased if you’d leave.’

Ramirez went bleak, looking carefully at his scarred face. ‘Ah, the brave and foolish Mr Wilkins,’ he said insultingly.

‘That’s me,’ said Geordie. He put out his hand and smeared it down the front of Ramirez’s gleaming white jacket, leaving a dirty trail of black oil. ‘You’re dirty, Mr Ramirez.’

Ramirez was so shocked at the action and at the contempt which lay behind it that he just stood there, making no move – but the fury grew in his eyes.

Geordie said again, ‘You’re filthily dirty, Mr Ramirez. I think you need a wash – don’t you, lads?’

They got the idea fast – faster than Ramirez. With a growl they were on to him, four of them. I saw Ramirez’s hand go to his pocket as quick as lightning, but Danny was faster and his hand came down in a mighty chop. A pistol clattered on deck.

Then Ramirez was lifted helplessly off his feet and carried to the side. They swung him twice and then over he went, making a great splash. Geordie wasted no time in useless triumph. He turned, picked up Ramirez’s pistol and began chopping out orders again. ‘Gangplank in. Don’t stand there gawking! Ian, get the wheel, and don’t run him down. Cast off forrard. Engine slow ahead.’

Esmerelda
got under way even while Campbell was still staring over the side. ‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said to no one in particular, while staring at Geordie. Geordie was oblivious, watching carefully out into the darkness and giving orders in a low, carrying voice. He conned us out past the sleeping vessels and the marker buoys and Ramirez’s splashing progress fell astern.

As we drew level with
Sirena
, anchored in the harbour, there was a dull
thump
, not very loud, which carried over the water. At the same time there was a flicker of lights from a dinghy arriving alongside. The crew returning no doubt, to find a shambles. That would do her engine a bit of no good. Silence held us until we were well past all the shipping and abreast of one of the openings in the fringing reef, and then a babble of noise got up as everyone’s tongue was loosened. Ian had to shout to make himself heard, giving orders to get some sail on her. The excitement on board was electric.

Geordie turned and grinned, his battered face alight with triumph. Raucously he began to sing at the top of his voice.
‘Oh, we’re off to see the Ozzard – the wonderful Ozzard of Whiz!’

He looked very piratical because of the captured pistol dangling negligently in his hand.

‘You pack of damned fools,’ said Campbell. ‘Whatever possessed you to do a crazy thing like that?’

Ian shuffled his feet, Geordie was clearly unrepentant and I suspected we were in for a tongue-lashing, and didn’t relish the thought. The lights of Nuku’alofa were falling astern as
Esmerelda
ran at full speed. Danny Williams was at the wheel and Campbell had gathered the three of us together to take us to task.

‘Well,’ Geordie began. ‘We thought it would be a good idea to go and get hold of either Kane or Hadley and –‘

‘Kane! Hadley! You won’t find them with Ramirez. Ramirez may be a son of a bitch but he has brains – he won’t chance himself being linked with those two, not now he won’t.’

I grinned at Geordie. ‘Where did you put Kane, by the way?’ I asked casually.

‘We haven’t a brig on the ship, but we’re making one now. In the meantime he’s under guard in my cabin.’

Campbell’s jaw dropped. ‘You mean you’ve
got
Kane?’

‘Of course,’ I said. I didn’t say that it had been a near thing, or how close we came to not achieving our objective. ‘We thought we’d hand him over to the Tongan police but circumstances – ah – preceded that.’

‘What circumstances?’

‘Ramirez’s ship got a bit bent,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t control the lads.’ I gave Geordie a sly look – I was taking his argument and using it against Campbell.

‘How bent?’

‘One of us had an accident with some explosive,’ I said.

‘That thump we heard? As we left harbour? You blew up their ship?’ He was incredulous.

‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ said Geordie placatingly. ‘There’s a bit of a hole in their engine crankcase, that’s all. They won’t be following us in a hurry.’

‘They won’t have to,’ said Campbell. ‘What do you suppose Ramirez is doing now? He’ll have got back to his ship – seething mad thanks to you fools – found it wrecked, and by now he’ll be presenting himself at the nearest police station, still in his wet clothes, claiming assault and piracy. I should say that within an hour there’ll be a fast patrol boat leaving Nuku’alofa and coming right after us. And we won’t get out of it as we did in Tahiti – this time we
are
in the wrong.’

We looked at each other in silence.

‘Or maybe he won’t,’ said Campbell slowly. ‘Not after what I told him back there.’ He jerked his head astern.

‘What was that?’ I said. I saw that Campbell’s eyes suddenly held the same glint that I’d seen in Geordie’s earlier that night.

‘I said the Tahitian police were very unhappy. I said they knew about Hadley and Kane and that they had witnesses who’d seen Ramirez with them at Tanakabu, the first time they went there.’

‘What witnesses?’

He grinned at us. ‘That’s what Ramirez wanted to know. I said three of the hospital patients and a couple of staff had seen him. He laughed at me, but it hit home.’

‘I don’t know anything about any witnesses,’ I said.

‘Mike, sometimes you’re pretty slow on the uptake – there were no goddam witnesses, as far as I know. But someone had
to think fast to get us out of this jam. I told Ramirez that the police were looking for more evidence, but that they already had him fairly linked with the events on Tanakabu, and that if he went to the cops in Tonga with any kind of story about us pirating his ship, and if we were picked up, then we’d make enough of a stink to get the Tahitian police down here fast.’

Geordie said, ‘Now, that’s interesting. We know he was at Tanakabu – Schouten saw him.’

‘Exactly,’ said Campbell. ‘And how does he know that someone else didn’t see him too? He can’t take the chance – he’ll have to lie low. As long as the suspicions of the Tahiti police remain just that – suspicions – he’ll be happy. But he won’t stir up anything that will give the cops a line on him. At least, I hope not. So I hope he’ll dummy up about your stupid raid.’

I said, ‘He won’t go to the police while we have Kane. Kane is our trump card. Ramirez wouldn’t dare let Kane get into the hands of the police.’

‘Mike, he’s a clever man. Clever and subtle when he has to be. I wouldn’t put it past him to wriggle out of that one.’

‘And something else,’ I said. ‘Maybe the raid wasn’t as stupid as you think – a bit hare-brained, I’ll grant you, but worth while. What we found on that ship was as subtle as a crack on the head with a hammer.’ I gestured to Ian. ‘Trot out your collection of ironmongery.’

Ian delved in various pockets and brought out the bolts he had taken from the rifles. Campbell’s eyes widened as he saw the mounting pile they made on the deck.

‘He had
ten
rifles?’

‘Fifteen,’ I corrected. ‘The others were automatic action. We’ve smashed them and dropped them over the side. Plus four sub-machine guns and a lot of pistols.’

Geordie dug into his pocket and produced a hand grenade which he tossed casually. ‘There were a few of these too. I hung on to a couple.’

‘Not much subtlety about that, is there?’ I asked.

‘And he’s got twice as many men as he needs,’ said Geordie. ‘He isn’t paying that big crew to stand half-watches either.’ Geordie, too, wasn’t losing any opportunity to rub Campbell’s nose in it.

Campbell’s eyes flickered as he watched the grenade bounce in Geordie’s hand. ‘For God’s sake stop that. You’ll blow us all up. Let’s go down to the saloon and have a drink – it’s pretty damn late.’

It was in fact getting into the small hours of the morning but I felt wide awake, and everyone else seemed to share that feeling, even Campbell. Only Clare and Paula, after a brief appearance on deck, had vanished below again.

‘No,’ I said to Campbell’s offer. ‘I want to talk to Kane – now. And I want to be dead sober when I do it. Is he conscious, Geordie?’

‘Nothing that a bucket of sea water won’t cure.’

The three of us went down to the cabin, leaving Ian on deck, to find Jim and Nick Dugan stolidly on guard. Kane was conscious – and scared. He flinched when we went into the cabin and huddled at the end of Geordie’s bunk as though by making himself smaller he wouldn’t be noticed. Four of us made a crowd in the small cabin, and Kane was, and felt, thoroughly hemmed in.

He looked as haggard as when I’d first seen him in London, unshaven and ill, and carried his right arm awkwardly – I remembered that Clare had shot him. His eyes slid away when I looked at him.

‘Look at me, Kane.’

Slowly his eyes moved until they met mine. His throat worked and his eyes blinked and watered.

‘You’re going to talk to us, Kane, and you’re going to tell us the truth. You might think you’re not, but you are. Because if you don’t we’ll work on you until you do. I was at Tanakabu, Kane, and you must know that anyone who
was there won’t be squeamish in their methods. I’m a civilized man and it may be that I’ll be sickened – but don’t count on that, Kane, because there are more than a dozen men on this ship who aren’t nearly as squeamish as I am. Do you understand me, Kane? Have I made myself perfectly clear?’

But there was never going to be any resistance out of him. His tongue flickered out and he licked his lips and croaked incoherently. He was still reacting to the blow over the head, a physical problem to add to his mental ones.

‘Answer me.’

His head bobbed. ‘I’ll talk to you,’ he whispered.

‘Give him a whisky, Geordie,’ I said. He drank some of it and a little colour came into his face, and he sat up straighter, but with no less fear in his face.

‘All right,’ I said deliberately. ‘We’ll start right at the beginning. You went to London to find Helen Trevelyan and then me. Why?’

‘Jim boobed,’ he said. ‘He let that suitcase get away. There were the books and the stones in it. We had to get them back.’

‘You and Ramirez and some of his cut-throats, right?’

‘Yair, that’s right.’

‘But you didn’t get them all back, did you? Did Ramirez know that?’

‘He said – you must have something else. Didn’t know what.’

‘So he laid you alongside me to try and find out what I had?’

‘Yair. And to pass word where you went, anytime I could.’ Now he was volunteering information, and it was getting easier. Campbell and Geordie were silent and watchful, leaving the going to me. I was eager to find out about Mark but decided to lead up to that by taking other directions first, which would also serve to confuse Kane.

‘You smashed our radio, didn’t you?’

‘Yair. I was told to.’

‘And led Hadley in the
Pearl
around on our track?’ We already knew this but I let him confirm it.

‘Why did you tell the Papeete police that we’d burnt the hospital? Surely even you could see that we could disprove that pretty easily.’

He looked, for a moment, almost exasperated. ‘That was Jim. Bloody hell, I told him it wouldn’t wash. You can’t tell him anything.’

I nodded and veered off on another tack. ‘That time you saw Miss Campbell’s drawings on deck, did they mean anything to you?’

‘Eh?’ He was taken aback and had to readjust his thinking. ‘No, why should they?’

‘You identified one as a “scraggy falcon”. Why did you say that?’

He stared blearily at us. ‘I dunno – did it have something to do with Falcon Island, maybe?’

We exchanged glances, and I carried on evenly.

‘Go on. Why should it have?’

‘I – I suppose it just slipped out. It looked like a falcon, and maybe it was on my mind, see.’

‘What about Falcon Island?’

Kane hesitated and I snapped, ‘Come on – out with it!’

‘I dunno much about it. Ramirez, he talked a bit about Falcon Island, somewhere in Tonga it is. He said once that’s where we were going after we’d got rid of you lot.’

‘“Got rid of”? How was he going to do that? And why?’

‘I dunno that either, Mr Trevelyan. Something about those stones you’ve been pulling out of the sea – those nodules, you call ’em. He had to ditch you before he could go to Falcon Island, ’cos that’s where they were. My word, Mr Trevelyan, I don’t know what it’s all about!’

Behind me I heard Campbell let out his breath. ‘Do you know exactly where they are?’

‘No, they’d never let me in on anything like that, none of us except – except the top brass.’

I could believe that. Kane was much too far down the line to have access to such information, but it was a pity. I changed my tack again and suddenly shot the question. ‘Who killed my brother?’

Kane’s mouth twitched. ‘Oh God. It was Jim – and – and Ramirez. They killed him.’ He looked mortally sick.

‘And you helped them.’

He shook his head violently. ‘No – I had nothing to do with it!’

‘But you were there.’

‘I don’t know nothing about it.’

‘Look, Kane, stop lying to us. You were with Hadley when he went to see Schouten to get the death certificate, weren’t you?’

He nodded unwillingly.

‘Then you were in on Mark’s death, damn you!’

‘I didn’t kill him. It was Jim – Ramirez fixed it all up.’

‘Who killed Schouten?’

The answer came promptly. ‘It was Jim – Jim Hadley.’

‘And again you were there?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t kill Schouten, I suppose?’

‘No!’

‘And of course you didn’t set fire to the hospital and burn fourteen people to death?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Kane. ‘It was Jim – he’s a devil. He’s crazy mad.’

‘But you were there.’

‘I told you I was.’

‘And you’ll be sentenced as an accessory.’

Kane was sweating and his whole face quivered. I said, ‘Who killed Sven Norgaard?’

Kane didn’t answer for a moment, and then under the threat of our gaze he said, ‘It was Jim.’

‘You’re not too sure about that, are you? Now, tell me again.’

‘I dunno for sure – I wasn’t there. It was Jim or – or your brother.’

‘My
brother?’

I could sense Geordie behind me, a restraining presence.

‘The cops were looking for him, weren’t they?’ cried Kane defensively. ‘How was anyone to know he didn’t do it? He might have for all I know – I wasn’t there, I tell you.’

I said, ‘Tell me more about my brother. Why was he killed?’

‘Ramirez didn’t – didn’t tell me,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t be smart. Answer the question.’

‘Well, they didn’t ever tell me everything. I think he was – holding out on something. Something Ramirez wanted. I think it had something to do with those stones. I never – never killed him or nobody!’

I straightened up and said wearily, ‘Well, my lilywhite friend, so you didn’t kill anyone, you were never anywhere, and you’re as pure as driven snow. I think you’re a damned liar, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll be an accessory all the same. I believe they still use the guillotine out here.’

As Kane flinched I said, ‘Anyone got any more questions?’

Campbell said harshly, ‘You seem to have covered it. I can’t think of anything right now. Later maybe.’