The Blue Ice (22 page)

‘No,' he answered. ‘You shouldn't have done this without her permission.'

‘If you don't do it, I will,' I said, and seized the pick from him. I heard Jill cry out as I brought the point down into the crack between the top and sides. With a splintering of wood, I prised up the top. It came away in one piece. Few nails had been used. I ripped it up with my hands and flung it back. Curtis had pulled Jill away. Her face was buried against his chest and she was sobbing. Very gently I pulled the white shroud away from the body.

Then I shuddered. The body was a mangled mass of frozen blood and flesh. The head was smashed in, the neck broken and the left arm and hand crushed to a pulp. I straightened up. How was I to tell whether Farnell had died by accident or design? The body was so broken and destroyed that I couldn't even recognise it as Farnell. It wasn't decomposed at all. The frozen ground had seen to that. It was just that there was nothing left by which to recognise him. The face was pulp and the hand … I suddenly bent down. Why had that hand been so badly battered? Of course it could have happened naturally. He'd fallen from a great height. Boulders might have crashed down on top of him. But I'd seen a lot of accidents – accidents in mines where men had been crushed by fallen rock. Hardly ever had I seen a man as badly smashed as this. It was almost as though the body had been deliberately smashed in such a way that it wouldn't be recognisable. That left hand. I picked up the broken, lacerated member. The torn flesh and congealed blood were stiff and frozen. In the light of my torch I saw that the bones of the fingers were all crushed and the splinters stuck out like sharp teeth from the flesh. I examined the little finger. The top two joints were missing, just as Farnell's had been missing. But a long sinew stuck out from a torn joint.

A sudden urge of excitement swept through me. What other identification marks had Farnell got? I couldn't think of any, but surely there must be something, some mark on his body. I turned to Jill. ‘Jill,' I said. ‘Is there anything by which you would know George Farnell, other than his face and the little finger on his left hand?'

Something in my voice must have communicated itself to her, for she stopped sobbing and turned her head towards me. ‘Why do you want to know?' she asked.

‘Because I want to know if this is, in fact, the body of George Farnell.' I had spoken slowly, and as I finished she straightened up and came towards the coffin.

I pulled the shroud over the corpse. ‘No,' I said. ‘It's not a – a very pretty sight. Just tell me – will you? Anything by which I can identify him?'

‘Yes,' she said. Her voice was quite clear now. ‘He had marks on the soles of his feet. The Nazis caught him once here in Norway. They beat the soles of his feet. But he wouldn't talk and they released him.'

I looked down at the coffin. Both feet were intact – one was twisted round where the ankle had been broken, that was all. I forced the stiffened right leg out of the coffin and shone my torch on to the sole of the foot. It was unmarked. So was the other. I looked up at Jill. Her eyes were bright with excitement. ‘Are you certain about that?' I asked.

‘Yes. Yes, of course, I'm certain. They were like white scars. Are they there?'

‘No,' I said.

‘And there was the mark of a bullet under the right armpit.'

I forced up the right arm. There was no mark under the armpit.

I stood up then and crossed over to her. ‘Jill,' I said. ‘You're quite certain about those identification marks?'

‘Yes,' she answered. She clutched my arm. ‘That's not George then – is it? That can't be George if those marks aren't there.'

‘No,' I said. ‘That is not the body of George Farnell. It's somebody else's body.'

‘But – but how did it get there?' Curtis asked.

I looked at him. Life had been such a very straightforward business for him. ‘That man has been murdered,' I said.

‘But Farnell's – papers were found on the body.'

‘Exactly,' I said and glanced at Jill. Her eyes met mine and I saw that she had understood the point. I turned to Curtis. ‘The body has been mutilated in such a way that it would be identified as Farnell's if the necessary papers were found on it.'

‘But why?' he asked.

‘What's it matter why?' Jill said. ‘He's alive. That's all that matters.'

I looked at her and felt a deep pity. That was all that mattered, was it? For the moment, perhaps. But later …

‘Where do you think he'll have gone?' she asked.

‘That we must find out from Sunde,' I said.

‘Sunde?' Her face looked blank for a moment and then she stared. ‘You mean the man that jumped overboard from the catcher—'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘That was Farnell.' I nodded to the body at my feet. ‘This is Schreuder.'

‘Then Farnell—' Curtis checked himself.

I nodded. ‘Looks like it,' I said. ‘Now let's put the body back and then we'll go and talk to Sunde.'

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE SAETER HUT

The shock of discovering that the body was Schreuder's and that Farnell was alive seemed to leave Jill completely stunned. She stood quite still, with a dazed expression on her face, as we put the coffin back and filled in the grave. The frozen slabs of earth rattled on the thin pine lid with a hollow sound. We replaced the sods and the little wooden cross with Bernt Olsen's name on it and then went down to the boat. Nobody spoke as we rowed back to the ship. Occasionally I glanced at Jill seated on the thwart opposite me. Her face was set and expressionless. I wondered what was going on in her mind. That it had been a shock was understandable. But there was something in her eyes and in the set expression of her face that puzzled me. There should have been excitement and happiness. But there wasn't. Only that dazed look that stirred something deep inside me. It hurt me to see her like that.

That I think was the first intimation I had that I was in love with her. I didn't consciously realise it at the time. That came later. But I felt disturbed and unhappy. She was so tense and strained. She ought to have been happy – happy at the thought that he was alive. But she wasn't happy. I remembered the urgency in her when she had first met me in that Thames-side pub. She had wanted so much to get to Norway and see his grave. And now … I didn't know what to make of it. Schreuder had been murdered – and by Farnell. Was that what hurt her so? Or was it the knowledge that he would do anything – lie, cheat, desert, even murder, for the thing that had driven him all his life? I suddenly realised how little she could have meant to him. She was just a side show – a pleasurable moment in a man's hard struggle to achieve what he had set his heart on. There was that conversation we had had coming up the Sognefjord. What was it she had asked me?
What makes a man throw away love for something a woman can't understand
?

I looked at her again. She was gazing out across the bows to where
Diviner
's spars showed against the black background of the pines shadowed by the mountainside. There was a stony, withdrawn look in her face. It was no longer the face of a girl. It was the face of a woman, tired and somehow forlorn. And I realised then that perhaps Farnell dead was more attractive to her than Farnell alive.

Jill wasn't the only one who was affected curiously by the discovery that Farnell was alive. Dahler sat in the stern, his sound hand gripping the gunn'l so that the knuckles showed white. He was excited. I could see it in his eyes, which glinted strangely in the moonlight. His face was taut, his whole body tense. He sat in the boat as though he were riding a horse in the Grand National. The lines at the corners of his mouth were etched deep and his lips were drawn back so that his teeth showed. His face looked cruel – cruel and excited.

As soon as we were on board I had the engine started and cast off. I got Wilson and Carter on deck and, leaving them to run the boat down the fjord, I went below to the saloon. The others were already there. Dick was pouring whisky into tumblers. Jill was seated on one of the settees, very still and silent, her face quite white against the dark red of the mahogany panelling. Dahler was standing in the doorway of his cabin, his hand plucking at his jacket and his eyes bright. ‘Get Sunde,' I said to Curtis. ‘I want to talk to him.'

‘There is no need.' Dahler's voice was tense.

Curtis stopped and turned. We all looked at Dahler.

‘I can tell you all you wish to know,' Dahler said. He sat down with a quick movement and leaned his weight on his withered arm. ‘Sit down, please,' he said. ‘Mr Sunde will not talk to you. He will do nothing without his partner. But today I have spoken with him. I used some persuasion – a little smuggling he has been engaged in with a man I know.'

‘Was that why you telephoned from the hotel at Fjaerland?' I asked.

‘Max Bakke? No.'

‘Who did you telephone then?'

He smiled. ‘That is my business, you know. Come, sit down – all of you, please.' He was leaning forward and there was that same strange glint in his eyes that I'd noticed in the boat. It was a savage, triumphant expression. I felt a shiver run down my spine. This cripple was suddenly in charge of the situation, dominating us all.

I sat down. ‘You know where Farnell is?' I asked.

‘That is better,' he said. ‘Yes. I know where Farnell is.'

‘Where?'

‘He will be up in the mountains by now,' he replied. ‘He is trying to escape. There is a warrant issued for his arrest.'

I looked at Jill. She was sitting motionless, staring at Dahler. ‘How do you know?' I asked.

‘What did you expect Jorgensen to do?' he demanded. ‘He must find Farnell. So, he uses the police.'

‘But what is he to be arrested for?' Curtis asked.

‘For murder,' Dahler answered.

‘But nobody but ourselves knows that the body in that grave isn't Farnell's,' I pointed out.

He laughed. It was a quick, sharp sound and it grated in the expectant silence. ‘You do not quite understand. Farnell is Schreuder now. It is Schreuder who is being arrested – he is to be arrested for the murder of Farnell.'

‘But—' I hesitated. The irony of it! ‘Does Jorgensen know that it is Farnell who is alive?'

‘But, of course. As soon as Kaptein Lovaas describes the man who escapes from his ship, Jorgensen knows it is Farnell. The little finger, you remember? No man can hide that. You did not know it was Farnell, eh?' He smiled as though it amused him.

‘No,' I said. ‘And nor did you.'

‘Oh, but I did,' he answered. ‘I knew as soon as Mr Sunde admitted that his partner and Einar Sandven had helped the man.'

‘But how?' I asked.

‘How?' His voice became suddenly harsh. ‘Because Schreuder was an Austrian Jew and had worked for the Germans. You forgot that Sunde and Storjohann were of the Kompani Linge. Old Einar Sandven was also in the resistance. It had to be Farnell – Bernt Olsen, as they knew him. Listen. You wish to know how the message was placed in the whale meat. Well, I will tell you. Farnell came by boat from Fjaerland to Bovaagen after he had killed Schreuder. He came to Bovaagen because he had friends there who had hidden him during the war. He stayed at Nordhanger with Einar Sandven and his wife. It was Sandven who placed the package in the whale meat. It was Sandven who approached Kaptein Lovaas and got Farnell shipped as a hand on
Hval Ti
.'

I stared at him. I had no doubts about the truth of what he said. It all fitted in so easily with what I knew. It couldn't have happened any other way. Farnell had probably met Sunde or Storjohann at the whaling station when he was reporting for duty on board the catcher. Then, when his plan to get to the Shetlands failed, he had remembered the divers. He had probably known where they would be working and had planned his desperate escape from the catcher with that fact in his mind. Yes, it all fitted in. And I cursed under my breath to think that I had been talking to Lovaas on board his catcher and the man, locked up in the cabin below decks, had been Farnell himself. If I'd made Lovaas a high enough offer … But I hadn't. And now Farnell was up in the mountains, on the run with the police after him for murder – for murdering himself. It was a ridiculous situation. ‘Where is he now?' I asked.

‘I tell you – in the mountains.'

‘Yes, but where?'

Again that crooked smile of his. ‘First we go to Aurland.'

‘And then?'

‘Then we will see.'

I watched him, wondering what he was after. His eyes were black in the glare of the lights. His withered hand was crooked like a claw. In some peculiar way he was enjoying the situation. ‘Get Sunde,' I told Dick.

When the diver came in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes I said, ‘Where's Farnell – Bernt Olsen? Is he at Aurland?'

Sunde's eyes opened wide with surprise. ‘Ehe, who's bin tellin' yer—' Then he broke off, staring at Dahler. ‘Oi told yer not ter tell 'em nuffink,' he muttered angrily.

‘Then he is at Aurland?'

The diver's expression became obstinate.

I caught Dick's arm. ‘Fetch the chart, will you?' I said.

When he returned I spread the sheet on the table. Aurland was farther up the Sogne – the next fjord to the south. I looked up at Sunde. ‘Have you any relations at Aurland?' I asked.

‘No.' His voice was sullen.

‘Has Sandven or Storjohann?'

He didn't answer.

‘All right,' I said. ‘We go to Aurland.' I looked at the chart again. Dahler had said Farnell would be up in the mountains. From Aurlandsvangen a valley ran up to Vassbygden and from there he could go on up the Stenbergdal to … My eyes followed the possible route with sudden excitement, for the Stenberg valley led up into the mountains towards Finse and the Jökulen. I looked across at Dahler. ‘Farnell would know people up at Finse, wouldn't he?'