The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (67 page)

Of them all, Mark was watching me. ‘Hello, Mike,’ he said soberly.

I said, ‘Mark, for God’s sake – I –’

He was urbane where I was dumbfounded. He lifted the notebook and some papers in his hand. ‘I’ve been rooting about in your laboratory. So kind of you to have done the preliminary survey for me. I couldn’t have done it better myself.’

He dropped the papers on the table.

Ian looked at him with black anger in his eyes. ‘I wish that I’d hit you a bit harder,’ he said harshly.

Mark smiled at him but said nothing. He picked up my notebook again and flicked the pages with one hand. ‘We seem to have struck it rich, Mike. There may be billions in all this, don’t you agree? A pity you wasted your time but never mind, you saved me a bit of work.’

I spoke through a dry throat. ‘You’re a bastard, Mark.’

‘Oh, come on, Mike. Aren’t you maligning mother?’

He looked around. ‘And who else have we? Yes, Wilkins, isn’t it? What’s it like on Tyneside these days, Geordie?’

Geordie showed his disgust. ‘A bit cleaner than this saloon.’

‘We will have our little jokes,’ said Mark lightly. ‘And my dear old boss, Mr Campbell, the fallen warrior – and Clare. I’m sorry you had to be here, Clare.’

She refused to look at him and said nothing. It irked Mark and he shrugged petulantly, turned away and peered behind Geordie. ‘And who’s the young lady sitting in the shadow?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t know you were such a one for the ladies, Mike.’

He moved round the table and stopped suddenly. His face went very pale. ‘Paula!’ he whispered. He turned his head quickly to Ramirez. ‘You didn’t tell me she was aboard.’

Ramirez shrugged. ‘Just another woman,’ he said casually. For an instant they glared at one another and I had an insight into their relationship.

Paula stood up. ‘Mark – oh Mark! I thought you were dead. Why didn’t you come to me, Mark? Why didn’t you trust me?’

Ramirez laughed softly.

Mark actually looked troubled. ‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry you had to be on this ship.’ He made a curious gesture as though wiping her away, and a prickle ran up my spine. In that one sudden movement he had rejected us all – wiped us out of his world.

Paula took a step forward. ‘But Mark, I …’

Ramirez snapped out a curt phrase in Spanish and one of the guards lifted his rifle. The meaning was unmistakable.

Paula stopped dead and looked at Mark with the comprehension of horror. His eyes flickered and he looked away from her and she slowly fell back into a chair and buried her face in her hands. I heard the racking sobs that shook her, and saw Clare move to put her arms round her shoulders.

I had to force myself to speak calmly. ‘We all thought you were dead. Why did you do it?’

‘I had to die,’ he said. He perked up – the change of subject took his mind off Paula. ‘The police were after me and getting a little too close, so I conveniently killed myself.’

I suddenly knew another black truth. ‘You did kill Sven Norgaard, didn’t you.’

He turned on me. ‘What else could I do?’ he said defensively. ‘The bloody fool wanted to
publish.
Him and his bloody scientific integrity – he wanted to give it all away, billions of dollars that belonged to me – to
me
, do you hear that? I made the discovery, didn’t I?’ His voice tailed off, and then he added softly, ‘I
had
to kill him.’

The silence was murderous and we all stared at the egomaniacal horror that was my brother. He straightened up and said, ‘And then I killed myself. The police would never look for a dead murderer. Wasn’t that pretty clever of me, Mike?’

‘It was stupid,’ I said flatly. ‘But then you always were a stupid man.’

His hand crashed on the table and we all jerked at the sudden violence. Only Ramirez watched him unmoved and
dispassionate. ‘It wasn’t stupid!’ he yelled. ‘It was a damn good idea! But I’m surrounded by bungling idiots.’

‘Like Kane and Hadley,’ I said.

‘That’s right, them,’ he agreed, suddenly calm again. ‘Those damn fools gave me appendicitis, of all things. I could have killed that madman, Hadley – there was no need to invent extra details.’

‘I’m sure you could,’ I said. ‘But it was you who bungled it. You should have told them precisely what to say.’

He betrayed for the first time his lack of authority. ‘It had nothing to do with me,’ he said sullenly. ‘Ernesto fixed it.’

I shot a sidelong glance at Ramirez. ‘So he’s a bungler too?’

Ramirez smiled sardonically and Mark said nothing. I went on, ‘You bungled again when Hadley let your papers and the nodules go. You should have taken them with you – that was bad planning.’

‘They got them back though.’

‘Not quite, Mark. I had a nodule still – and I had your diary.’

He reacted to that with white-faced fury, then subsided and nodded thoughtfully. ‘You were lucky. You read it?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said casually. ‘A simple code, really.’ And watched him swallow his ire yet again as item by item I did my best to undermine his self-confidence. Then he suddenly laughed.

‘That lunatic, Hadley. But you all thought I was dead anyway. And poor old Ernesto here was getting all the blame. That was really funny.’

Ramirez, who had been leaning negligently against the bulkhead, suddenly straightened, his face cold. ‘This is a pointless conversation,’ he said shortly.

Mark said, ‘Let me have my fun, old boy. It isn’t often a corpse can hold an inquest on himself. I’m getting a kick out of it.’

Ramirez looked at him contemptuously. ‘All right. It won’t make any difference,’ he said dismissively. I knew that he was only waiting for word that his crew had separated the two ships before he did what he was going to do – and I had a good idea what that was.

I rubbed my ear – there seemed to be something getting in the way of my hearing, and Ramirez’s voice had seemed to vibrate in a curious way. The ship creaked and rocked uneasily, and I wondered what was really happening outside. But it was also important to me to hear what my brother had to say, and I pushed the thoughts that were bothering me to the background.

‘My inquest,’ Mark said again. ‘Let’s develop this interesting theme.’

‘Yes, let’s do that,’ said Campbell suddenly.

I turned to find him sitting up on the settee, waving away Clare and Ian. ‘Let’s do that,’ he repeated, and I noticed that his voice was stronger and his speech clearer. ‘Let’s consider the burning of a hospital and the murder of a doctor and fourteen of his patients.’

Mark flinched. ‘I didn’t do that. It was Hadley again.’

‘Hadley again,’ I said caustically. ‘You sound as pure as Hadley’s pal Kane.’

‘You condoned it,’ said Campbell relentlessly.

‘It was
nothing
to do with me. I didn’t even know about it until afterwards. That man’s beyond controlling.’

Ramirez had picked up my injudicious reference to Kane and was looking at me enquiringly. He was very acute.

‘You have spoken to Kane again, Mr Trevelyan? He was supposed to come to me in Nuku’alofa, but I didn’t see him there.’

I tried to make the best of my slip. ‘Yes, we’ve spoken to him. He’s told us a great deal too – enough to condemn the lot of you, so think carefully about what you’re planning, Ramirez.’

‘Might one ask where he is?’

‘Where you won’t find him, and all ready to sing like a bird.’

He looked thoughtful and did not speak again for a moment, and Campbell, sensing a faint opening, was quick to take advantage.

‘What were you planning to do with us? It won’t work now, you know.’

‘You speak stupidly,’ Ramirez said. Mark watched us fascinated, all his boasting silenced. He’d shocked us but he’d failed to impress us, and now things were taking a turn that he didn’t like. It was slowly becoming obvious to me that in spite of Mark’s almost insane posturing, it was Ramirez who was the more powerful of the two, and possibly the more dangerous.

Campbell said, ‘You’ve decided that you can’t leave us alive, haven’t you? That would be too much to expect. You’ve already killed some seventeen people – another dozen or so won’t make any difference. But you won’t get away with it. We have covered our tracks, Ramirez, and for another thing your own crew will talk about all this, sooner or later.’

It was a bold try and I had never admired Campbell more.

Ramirez threw back his head and laughed. ‘My crew – those morons?’ He gestured to the stolid guards. ‘Those oafs? They do what I tell them and nothing else. They have no mind of their own – I am the only brain they have. And who would believe them if they talked? They have never understood what it is all about, not one of them. Besides, that can be taken care of too.’

‘A series of unfortunate accidents?’ asked Campbell sardonically.

‘Regrettable, isn’t it?’

I listened to this ghastly conversation with a feeling of unreality. Ramirez was prepared to kill us without compunction. What was more, he was equally prepared to kill
his own crew as well. I could just imagine how it would be arranged. The men would be well paid, split up and dispersed and then there would be, as Campbell foresaw, a series of accidents. A man found dead in a harbour here, a fatal car smash there, until the whole crew was disposed of.

‘All right,’ Campbell was saying. ‘You still won’t get away with it. Quite apart from Kane’s evidence, you don’t suppose I haven’t made my own arrangements, do you? My agents have sealed letters which will be handed to the police if I don’t turn up somewhere soon. There’s going to be one hell of an investigation if I go missing.’

‘You’re an old fool,’ said Ramirez brutally, the gloves off at last. ‘The barometer has dropped three points in the last hour, there’s a storm coming up and that thing out there is going crazy. You’re going to be lost at sea – the lot of you. We will not be anywhere near here. There will be no proof – no proof of anything.’

Campbell shuddered and Clare pulled a little closer to him. Watching Ramirez, I was fascinated by a movement outside the port light behind his head. Nobody else had seemed to see it, too appalled and horror-stricken by the finality in Ramirez’s voice. I saw Taffy, crouched at the end of the settee, fumble again with that curious gesture at the back of his neck, but his eyes never left Ramirez.

Campbell said slowly, ‘Ramirez, you’re a bloody-minded butcher.’

Ramirez spread his hands. ‘I don’t like killing for killing’s sake. I’m no Jim Hadley – he was stupid back on Tanakabu and I abhore that, putting pleasure before business. I kill only from necessity. But when I do, whether it’s seventeen or seventy lives doesn’t make much difference. Lives are cheap, my friend, when there are large stakes. I consider my measures necessary.’ He was as cold as a snake.

I switched my gaze back to the port and caught my breath. There was a face out there. An eye winked.

Bill Hunter was back on board.

He was a hidden ace that Ramirez must not become aware of. I cautiously lifted my hand to my mouth, coughed, and then made a slow downward movement, being careful not to jerk. I didn’t want to catch anyone’s attention. The eye winked again and the face disappeared.

Campbell was still speaking, desperately searching for arguments to persuade Ramirez not to go ahead with whatever plans he had for us. Again there was that vibrancy in my ears, a curious beat in Campbell’s voice as though there were some sort of aural interference, some note so low as to be inaudible. Not far away there was a sound as though an engine were letting off steam.
Esmerelda
shuddered and the noises on deck increased suddenly.

Ramirez interrupted Campbell, turned and to my horror strode over to look out of a porthole. I tensed but then he turned back and spoke again, and I realized he’d not seen anything untoward.

‘Whatever is going on out there will serve its purpose,’ he said coolly. ‘As soon as these idiots of mine have parted the two ships we go our separate ways. You won’t have far to go – a mile or so straight down. We will tow you into deep water – or point your nose into that thing out there.’ He turned on Geordie. ‘We have borrowed an idea from you, Captain. We will set an explosive charge against your hull, and that storm out there will do the rest.’

Geordie ground his teeth together but said nothing.

Somebody ran across the deck over our heads and a voice called out. Ramirez cocked his head and glanced upwards. ‘It sounds as though they are about ready.’

I heard a clatter of heavy boots on the companion steps and there was a thump on the door. At a gesture from Ramirez one of the guards opened it and Hadley came in. He looked at us with an oafish grin that didn’t reach his pale, cold eyes and bent to whisper to Ramirez, who imme
diately turned to look out of the porthole again. I thanked God that Bill had kept out of sight. Or had he?

Ramirez turned back. ‘Which would you choose? Deep water or Falcon Island? There seems to be increased activity over there.’ He smiled and said to Mark, ‘This is lucky, you know. Where else should a survey ship be wrecked but in investigating Falcon Island a little too closely at the wrong time? Keep our friends happy for a little while.’

He turned on his heel and left the saloon, followed by Hadley.