Redcap (13 page)

“Listen,” Sir Donald said with irritation. “Man’s been in the habit of having these all-night card sessions, and he was at it again last night. That’s all. On the face of it, there’s nothing suspicious and nothing we can do.”

“There must be something we can get him on.”

Sir Donald looked at Shaw forbearingly from under his thick brows. He said, “Its not quite a question of getting him on anything. You may be entirely wrong, you know.”

“But I feel certain of my facts, sir.”

“Ah, you may! I’m not so sure I do. Look here, man! How the devil can I arrest a passenger when he’s got an alibi like that? Look what we’re up against. There’s a man who’ll swear he was with Andersson all night, there’s the evidence of the night-steward and his own steward. Personally I doubt if a man who’s as tight as Andersson seems to have been, could have done such a precision-killing at all. Then there’s the fact that you’ve had word from your own chief that whatsisname, Karstad, is dead. Further, I very much doubt if this Karstad was—or is if you like—the only man in the world who ever used that particular killing method. He may have been the only agent to use it, but everyone’s not an agent. And anyhow, it’s only that tiny bruise that supports your murder theory at all! Gresham could have had a simple heart attack. He wasn’t a young man, poor fellow.” Sir Donald banged his fist on the desk. “There’s nothing we can do on such slender grounds—shreds—of mere theorizing. No one would ever convict him. The Line’d be sued for damages, wrongful arrest, everything under the sun! You’ve got to look at this sensibly, Shaw.”

“I’m trying to, sir.”

“Good! Then have a drink to help the process.” The Captain got up and crossed the cabin, took a bottle of gin and two glasses from a cupboard and came back with them. He poured out a couple of stiff gins and pushed one across to Shaw.

He said, “Skin off your nose, my boy!”

“Good health,” Shaw murmured. He lit a cigarette, rubbed a hand across his eyes. He said, “I’m still convinced I’m right, but of course I see your point. There may be other ways of going about this—watch him, give him more rope and bowl him out properly later on. ... I suppose if Andersson was arrested now on what I’ll have to agree does amount to no real evidence, we’d lose any chance of finding out what really is going on, and of course a lot of security would be blown automatically by the time he’d kicked up a stink.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Shaw got up and walked over to a big square port, looked out for a while at the blue Mediterranean and the clear sky. The main reason for getting hold of Karstad for his intrinsic value had now gone, for it was obvious that Karstad was not on their side and he doubted if he would ever get any information out of the man. But meanwhile his principal job was unchanged—-to get hold of Lubin. Lubin was said to be in Australia—unless that information too was false—and that was the way he and Karstad were both going. If Karstad were handled carefully he might yet point the way to Lubin’s whereabouts. . . .

Shaw turned, faced Sir Donald. He said crisply, “I think you’re right, sir. I’ll drop the question of Karstad’s part in this for the time being. But that means I’ll have to ask you something else.”

“Well?”

“I’d like you to let the inquiry drop now, sir. Pass the word that you’re satisfied.”

The Captain’s eyebrows went up. “What? What d’you mean?”

“Well, sir—aren’t we going to get badly held up in Port Said over all this, for one thing? I mean, if it’s—unsolved, as it were?”

“Yes, we most certainly are. Unless we can produce an answer, with fully sworn statements for entry into the Official Log and all that, they’ll probably hold the ship for full-scale investigations.”

Shaw said wearily, “It’s all very well talking about producing answers, sir. I’m still convinced it’s murder and Andersson did it. You’ll only be wasting your time looking for anything else. Anyway—here’s my suggestion. Don’t let it be known that murder was ever suspected. Call it death from natural causes. You said the man who found the body didn’t touch him, so he won’t have seen anything to make him suspicious. And murder was never mentioned, was it, to any of the people you questioned this morning?”

“No. But why d’you want this, Shaw?”

“Because we don’t want anyone to know we’re on the track, sir. And once people start looking into a case of murder—and murder of the MAPIACCIND man in charge of Red-cap—it’s going to blow all aspects of security. Then there’s the question of delay which I mentioned. It’s vital we get REDCAP to Bandagong as fast as possible with this threat hanging about.”

“It’s a pretty extreme thing to do, if it is murder.”

“I know. But there’s so much at stake. Well, sir?”

After a long pause Sir Donald said: “I see your point. But won’t it make a murderer think? I mean, he’ll know what he’s done.”

“Yes, but we mightn’t.” Shaw grinned tightly. “Why, sir, you don’t even really believe it’s murder yourself! That’s the whole point of Karstad’s method. There’s no mark on the body to speak of, and it just doesn’t look like murder. If I hadn’t known Karstad’s methods I’d never have been so sure myself.”

Sir Donald said, “All right, Shaw. I’ll back you, God forgive me. But we’ll have to have a word with the doctor first.” He touched a bell-push by his desk.

After considerable pressure from Shaw, who revealed such of the background story as he felt able to after swearing the doctor to secrecy, O’Hara, who still hadn’t made up his mind anyway, agreed that in the circumstances he could quite properly put down the cause of death as heart failure; and this he was prepared to do, subject to Shaw’s guarantee that, since he was acting purely for the sake of national security, the department would see to it that if there should ever be any inquiry, he personally would be in the clear.

Sir Donald Mackinnon thereupon noted in the ship’s Official Log that Colonel Gresham had died of heart failure and that he had no reason to suspect other than natural causes; he then sent a cable ahead to this effect to the Line’s agents in Port Said and also reported direct to London. In due course he passed the word among the men he had interviewed that morning, that the inquiry was now complete and no resultant action had been found necessary.

Shaw, as soon as he could get a long message cyphered, reported everything in detail to Latymer, giving it as his view that it was now essential he should remain aboard the
New South Wales
instead of disembarking at Port Said. He added that he was himself taking over Colonel Gresham’s MAPIACCIND responsibilities aboard pending further orders. When this message was ready, he went up to the radio room to send it off. As he left the room, Sigurd Andersson came out of the library nearby. He said good evening to Shaw and walked on towards the radio room. Shaw looked back, noted that he had gone in. Shaw strolled away, gave Andersson time to send his message and then went back to the radio room, asked if he could just check up on his own message again. While he was pretending to do this, he looked about him and was able to glance quickly at the cable sent by Andersson.

He read:

COMING ASHORE STOP ARRANGE MEETING STOP ARRIVING

EIGHT P.M. REGARDS

ANDERSSON

It was addressed to the local agents of Ycecold Refrigeration and it could so easily have been merely to do with Andersson’s supposed job as a salesman. But it would have to be followed up now.

Afterwards, Shaw wondered if he’d been intended to read that message.

That evening in the dog watches and beneath a heavy, almost purple sky, the New South Wales stopped engines and the body of Colonel Gresham slid into the Mediterranean from under the draping of Sir Donald Mackinnon’s own Blue Ensign.

Shaw and Judith—and Sigurd Andersson—were among those who attended the simple, very moving service.

And the following morning, a long way across the Indian Ocean and the Great Australian Bight, a small, slightly built, grey-haired man with heavy spectacles hooked across large ears, walked down the hallway of a scruffy lodging-house in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo district and picked up his Sydney Morning Herald from the table where it had just been placed by a blousy woman in curlers.

He walked back to his room and opened it.

He read a headline in a fairly prominent position:

DEATH STRIKES NEW LINER

And in smaller print:

RETIRED COLONEL HAS HEART ATTACK IN STATEROOM

The small man smiled momentarily in satisfaction, showing bad teeth, and then he walked down into the hall again. Taking up the telephone, he rang a number in the suburb of Clontarf across the harbour. And shortly after he had passed a brief message a further telephone connexion was made, this time between Clontarf and a restaurant in King’s Cross not far from Woolloomooloo.

The morning after Gresham’s sea burial Shaw received Latymer’s confirmation that he was after all to continue with the ship to Sydney. Latymer made no reference to his earlier information about Karstad’s death, but suggested that Shaw should watch Andersson closely and should not bring matters to a head until the man had given a clear lead.

That evening the
New South Wales
reduced speed and slid in towards the land. A little later she moved slowly and stately out of the Eastern Mediterranean, along the thin finger of the breakwater and into Port Said harbour, past the blazing neons of Simon Artz, the tourists’ Mecca, elbowed her way through the harbour traffic, the bum-boats, the busy launches standing by to send their hordes of port officials aboard the incoming liner as she crept through the dark water and the stifling, airless heat.

The port doctor boarded to clear the ship inwards; and he only glanced casually at the entry regarding Gresham’s death, asked Dr O’Hara one or two questions, and that was all.

Soon after 8 p.m. the
New South Wales
, moving slowly on, secured to a buoy just clear of the Roads to await the southbound convoy for the passage through the canal. The accommodation-ladder was lowered and an Egyptian armed guard, sweating into a blue tunic, took up his position as usual by the top platform. A barge nosed up alongside with the canal searchlights, which were brought aboard and placed well for’ard to give full illumination of the banks when the liner’s great beamy hull moved through the narrow waterway, a trip which she would start just after midnight. Soon, her decks were thronged with passengers making deals with the milling bum-boats, from which, by means of a spider’s web of thin ropes hauling baskets, there came up silks and toys and fezes, watches, trashy jewellery, leather goods and pornographic literature unobtainable in England. The gulli-gulli man was aboard and performing on the veranda deck until he was chased away by a ship’s officer; there was a fortuneteller and a man who extracted corns with a little arrangement that looked like a blow-pipe and which he applied to the corn, sucking vigorously through it . . . Shaw had seen all this many times before, but Judith, enjoying the thrill of breaking new ground, was enthralled by all the supposed glamour of the Middle East. She laughed delightedly at the gulli-gulli man, tried to persuade Shaw to let her buy something from the bum-boatmen; but he absolutely refused.

He said, grinning down at the eager girl: “Not on your young life. If there was anything that was the slightest good, I’d buy it for you myself. Take my word for it—there isn’t! It’s all junk. And darned expensive at that.” He added, “By the way, I’m going ashore. I’ll have to leave you now—I’ve got to get my passport stamped by the police. They’ve set up shop in the lounge.”

She asked, “Can’t I come ashore?”

He looked down at her, took her arm gently. His eyes roved over the girl’s fresh white frock, which set off the sun-browned, slim body, looked at her eyes alight with interest in everything around her. He felt a sudden longing to forget the job and take her ashore, to be, for one evening’s fun, just an ordinary tourist. He sighed a little, said: “I’d rather you didn’t. I want to do this on my own.” She looked up and saw the determination in his face and she knew she had

to accept that. “All right, then,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

He smiled, took her chin in his fist for a moment and examined her. He said, “None of your business, young lady! Can you amuse yourself for the evening?”

She said quietly, “Oh, I’ll manage.”

“Don’t take any chances. Try and keep where there’s people, in the public rooms.”

“Why?”

“Just because I say so. We don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He left her then, got his passport stamped, put his special identity card (which would be useless and dangerous in Egyptian territory) into his cabin safe, and after that he hung about the lower promenade deck until he saw Anders-son emerge from the starboard accommodation-ladder and step down on the floodlit floating pontoon, the ‘snake’ pontoon which had been positioned to link ship with shore. An-dersson had got a fair start by the time Shaw had reached the ladder, obtained a receipt for his stamped passport which was collected at the gangway, crossed the pontoon and reached dry land; Shaw pressed on after him, caught up and then remained at a discreet distance as Andersson made for the centre of the city. There was nothing suspicious about Andersson so far; he didn’t appear even to be in a hurry. He stopped now and again to stare into the windows of shops still open as they reached the main streets, glanced round once but didn’t appear to notice Shaw. He went into a shop and came out five minutes later with a wrapped parcel; while he was in there, Shaw moved across the street and kept him under observation from there. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, and afterwards Andersson walked on again, unhurriedly still, carrying his parcel.

A few minutes later he was walking up towards a refrigerator show-room, where he stopped. He lit a cigar. Shaw turned and looked into a shop-window, watched Andersson from the corner of his eye. The man was doing something funny with his cigar, almost as though he were signalling. And then he was moving on, puffing at the cigar; he turned a corner, disappeared. Shaw put on speed. If Andersson was allowed to vanish round that corner for long, the chances would be that he’d be gone altogether.