Isvik (15 page)

‘Then why are we stopping off in Lima?' I asked him.

‘You don't have to. You can go straight on to Punta Arenas if you'd prefer.'

‘But you're stopping off?'

‘Yes. She didn't fly on into Chile. Ah checked with both Lan Chile and UC Ladeco. Also Aero Peru. In any case, she had a hire car delivered to the hotel. The assistant manager said when she left she was drivin' it herself.'

My thoughts of the night came back to me. ‘You think she's gone up to Cajamarca?'

‘Well, she's certainly not drivin' herself all the way down through Chile to Punta Arenas. That's well over three thousand miles and God knows what the roads are like south of Valparaíso, if there are any. It's all mountains and deep-cut fjords.' He smiled at me. ‘So ye've reached the same conclusion as Ah have, that Mario Ángel Gómez is the navigator she referred to as the man who can lead her to that icebound ship. Ah doubt there's anybody else has had the sort of opportunity he's had for flyin' around at will in that part of the Antarctic'

‘There are bases,' I said, ‘Half a dozen countries have survey and exploration establishments around the fringes of the Antarctic land mass.'

He nodded. ‘But they fly set pattern routes on direct lines from their southern supply points to their Antarctic bases. Ah had a look at the Royal Geographical Society's latest maps, some of the charts, too. None of the supply routes go close to the point where Sunderby's aircraft ditched. And Ah had a word on the phone with a Cambridge don they put me on to – he was somethin' to dae with the Scott Polar Institute, and he confirmed that supply aircraft would not normally be overflying the area we're interested in.'

The fact that Sunderby's plane was en route for the American base at McMurdo made no difference except that the operational word was ‘normally'. ‘There were tae things that were not normal about that flight. In the first place, the plane made an emergency landin' at Port Stanley to have an electrical fault put right. That's how Sunderby came to be on the flight. Secondly, he was a glaciologist and it may well be that he persuaded the pilot to swin' away to the east. It would only call fur a small diversion from the direct route from Stanley to McMurdo Sound to give him a glimpse of the Ice Shelf and the area where Shackleton's
Endurance
was beset and finally sunk.'

His point was that the Americans did not normally fly supplies out of the Falklands. I asked him what Gómez's point of departure had been and he replied, ‘Ushuaia, accordin' to Rodriguez. That's the Argentine base in the south-west of Tierra del Fuego, on the Beagle Channel. Not ideal, Ah'm told, but that may have been part of the test.'

‘You say he was refuelled. He must have had some sort of a flight plan.'

Ward was silent for a moment. ‘He was testin' a plane. It had probably been modified fur work in Antarctica. The Argentinians have a short strip airbase in the north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Visecomodorio Marambio Ah think it's called.' He spoke hesitantly as though trying to work it out for himself. ‘Maybe he flew the final stage from there. And he must have been testin' in part fur flight refuellin' because Rodriguez says in his book he was refuelled somewhere over the Bellingshausen Sea, which is a long way west of the area where Sunderby lost his life.'

‘What are you suggesting?' I asked. ‘That as soon as he was refuelled he took the opportunity of seeing if he could locate the remains of that American plane?'

‘No. The plane's sunk. Ah don't think there's any doubt about that.'

‘Then what?'

‘Ah don't know.' His voice had slowed again, little more than a murmur. ‘Ah'm just thinkin' aloud.' He turned his head towards me. ‘
And Ah saw an angel come down from Heaven, havin' the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his band
. D'ye recognise that?' he asked.

I shook my head. ‘You're quoting from the Bible, are you?'

‘The Revelation of St John.' He smiled. ‘Wonderful stuff. Ye should read it.' And then, suddenly practical, he said, ‘When ye've finished yer drink Ah suggest ye put Prescott away, turn yer light out and try and get some sleep. There should be a car waitin' fur us at the airport when we get in to Lima. Ye've got your international driving licence?'

I nodded.

‘Good. Ye'll be drivin' when we take it over. It'll save time. There's always the chance they'll query the validity of my own licence –' He tapped the steel forearm and gloved hand resting on his lap. ‘Foreigners can be a wee bit difficult about it sometimes.' Somewhat pointedly he closed his own book and tipped his seat right back, preparing himself for sleep. ‘We'll go to the hotel first. Ah'd like a word with the doorman if they've got one. Then we'll head fur the coast and the Pan-Am Highway, drive right through the night. Okay?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘We'll drive and sleep in turn. With luck we should be in Cajamarca in time for breakfast.' And then he switched abruptly from practicalities, quoting in a stage whisper: ‘
And I saw a new Heaven and a new earth; for the first Heaven and the first earth were passed away: and there was no more sea
.' He spoke it without a trace of a Scot's accent. ‘Patmos,' he murmured. ‘I was there very briefly a couple of years back. There's a great white fortress of a monastery crowning the top of the island. It was once full of treasures, but all I could think about as I stood on the battlemented roof, looking out over the Aegean, was that a disciple of Christ's had sat in his cell in a little monastery half-way up the hill recording the extraordinary revelations he had been vouchsafed. Was he mad? The Emperor Domitian condemned him, so he had evidently seemed so, to a Roman. But it's great reading.'

He settled himself more deeply in his seat. ‘Och well, we'll see whether those lines fit when we reach the top of the pass over the Andes.' He switched out his overhead light, closed his eyes, and instantly, it seemed, he was asleep.

When we arrived in Lima it took time to go through the formalities. Again the immigration people questioned him about his occupation, even going so far as to check the word antiquarian in an English-Spanish dictionary. ‘Useful, ye see,' Ward said as we went through to the baggage claim area. ‘He was so busy worryin' over what “antiquarian” meant that he hardly glanced at our visas. And yer occupation of wood preservation consultant is not exactly a description he comes across every day.' He was smiling as we took our place by the baggage conveyor belt.

When we had finally retrieved all his excess baggage, it took us even longer than in Mexico to clear customs because he insisted on unrolling a big holdall right there on the bench to get at his oilskins. ‘We'll almost certainly need them at Punta Arenas. Iris said it blows and rains like hell just about every day in the Strait of Magellan. Better get yers out, too. It's rainin' up in the mountains accordin' to that nice immigration laddie. He said he'd heard it on the radio this mornin'. There's floodin' too, in places. The
Niño
factor. Rodriguez was right.'

We checked all but our oilies, hand baggage and briefcases into the airport lock-ups, and after what he had said about the weather, I was glad to see, when we got to the car desk, that he had laid on a four-wheel-drive land-cruiser. While he was signing the hire and insurance papers, the girl produced a parcel from a cubby-hole at the back. ‘Ees left for you this morning,
señor
. A courier from the
Librerío Universal
bring it. There is some extra to pay, plees.'

He nodded without looking up as she placed it on the counter. ‘Books,' he said.

She nodded, asked for our driving licences, then took us outside to where the vehicle was parked in the shade of a tree. ‘It may not be as comfortable as an ordinary saloon,' Ward said on a note of apology, ‘but buggered if Ah was takin' any chances in a country like this.' He pulled open the rear door and tossed the package of books on to the back seat, together with his gear. ‘Ye check the vehicle over while Ah see that we've got a manual and all the necessary papers.'

The girl was already producing the car's documents from a compartment below the instrument panel. ‘What are the roads like? Bad I suppose.' I was walking round the vehicle, peering underneath to check the state of the tyres and the exhaust line.

‘The coastal road is fine, macadam all the way. The turn-off to Cajamarca is north of Trujillo, so we've got about six hundred kilometres of fast drivin'.'

The speedometer read 62805, but that was kilometres, not miles. The vehicle was dusty and there was some rust. I lifted the bonnet. ‘What about the mountain road?' I asked. ‘We have to cross the first of the cordilleras according to the map you showed me.'

‘Rodriguez said it was okay. Macadam until we run out of the coastal plain and start to climb. After that it's a dirt road, but fairly new. It seems heavy trucks use it every day, so it can't be too bad.'

I finished checking the leads and cooling pipes. ‘Nothing to worry about then.' And I closed the bonnet.

He nodded, paid the deposit, again in US dollars, and passed me the keys. ‘Ye're drivin'. Okay?'

‘
¡Buen viaje!
' The girl flashed us a brilliant smile and took her brightly uniformed efficiency off to deal with another customer, a big American with a broad-brimmed stetson shading his leathery features.

The hotel we were headed for was in the centre of the city, a nightmare ride with everybody driving like crazy and blaring their horns. And it was hot, the humidity very high with a miasma hanging over the buildings as though the clouds were so heavy with moisture they needed to rest themselves on terra firma.

There was no doorman at the hotel where Iris Sunderby had stayed, but the woman at reception confirmed that she had left by car shortly after eight on Sunday morning. She remembered because she had seen her drive off and it was unusual for ‘a
señora
of her quality' to be driving herself with no companion.

All the time Ward had been talking to the receptionist his head had been half turned to the street doors, which were wide open, framing an incessant movement of people in an iridescent haze of hot sunlight. His eyes darted from door to lift, watchful and alert, as though he were expecting somebody. It had been the same at the airport and I had thought then that perhaps he half expected Iris Sunderby to materialise out of the crowd. Now it worried me, but you can't ask a man like Ward if he's scared. I felt he was as tensed-up as that.

It was the same as we drove off, but my attention was then concentrated on the traffic. ‘Turn right at the corner here.' He said it abruptly, his body twisted round so that he could look back at the hotel.

‘It's straight on,' I said. I had looked up the directions for the Pan-Am Highway at the hotel.

‘Ah know it is, but turn right. Turn right, damn ye – here!' A horn screamed from behind us as I swung the wheel over without indicating. ‘And right again.' He wanted me to go round the block and park the car about fifty metres short of the hotel.

‘Why?' There was a car close behind me.

‘Just do as Ah say.'

The car was still with us as I slid into the kerb just short of the hotel entrance. It passed us then, a very battered American car with a young Indian at the wheel. He gave us a hard stare as he passed, very slowly. A moment later he also parked, right outside the hotel entrance. ‘Quick! Pull up close behind him!'

Ward had his door open and was out in a flash before we had even stopped. The Indian had got out too and was coming round the back of his car. Ward's left hand shot out, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him past me. ‘Drive on!' The door behind me was flung open, the man bundled in. ‘Go on – drive!' Torrents of Spanish as I backed away and pulled out into the traffic. I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand Ward's behaviour, so I just concentrated on getting out of the city as fast as I could.

‘We'll dump him somewhere up the Pan-Am.' Ward's voice was close against my left ear.

‘What's it all about?' I could hear the Indian struggling in the back. ‘For God's sake! You can't do this sort of thing …' A main intersection was coming up, the traffic lights not working and a policeman on duty. He waved me through so that I didn't even have to slow. ‘Let him go,' I yelled. But Ward didn't answer. He was talking to the Indian, sharp, barked questions in Spanish.

It went on like that all the way out of Lima, Ward's voice sometimes hard and accusing, sometimes dangerously quiet, and the Indian mumbling his replies, and sometimes answering in his own tongue. ‘He's from Puno,' Ward said at one stage. ‘Thirteen thousand feet up on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Says he has a woman and two boys to keep and needs money.' And he added, ‘Can't blame him. If Ah lived in a clapped-out city like this with inflation at two hundred per cent, or whatever it is, Ah'd dae just about anythin' fur payment in solid US dollars.'

It occurred to me that Ward's early background couldn't have been all that different. ‘What's he got in his mouth?' I had caught a glimpse of the Indian's face in the rear mirror, a flat, rather moon-shaped face with high cheekbones, blackened teeth and dark eyes that were so slitted he had a Mongol look. His hair was lank and very black and his right cheek bulged where he had something wadded behind his teeth. ‘There's a smell, too,' I said.

Ward laughed. ‘Nothin' to the way ye probably smell to him. But it's coke. That's what he's chewin'. The coca leaf. They all chew it. Keeps hunger at bay.' And he added, ‘Ah wish Ah'd known about coke when Ah was a kid.'

‘Why, have you used it?'

‘Of course Ah have. But Ah was put where the poppy grows so Ah started on hashish and stuff like that. Not good. But cocaine – no, let's say the coca leaf … Hell, if ye know how to use the stuff it can dae ye a power of good. There was a man way back at the beginnin' of this century made an elixir of it, sent it to all the crowned heads of Europe, the Pope, too. They all loved it, thought it was the greatest thing they'd ever drunk.'