THURSDAY'S ORCHID (22 page)

There were several bags lying on the deck, bags that had fallen out of the slings as the winch-drivers had dragged the loaded slings across the top of
the coaming. I looked down at them and scratched my head, then winced as though touching a tender spot.

Let him think I was still groggy and uncertain of what had happened. I wanted him to believe I hadn’t seen him, hadn’t recognised that darting face
. Let him believe he was safe, that I wasn’t after him in a blinding fury. The fury was there, but it could wait; and I would watch my back, keeping well away from the rising nets and their loads of sugar.

The last of the sugar was unloaded as the sun slipped below the horizon. That final hour had been a misery; slipping and sliding about in the greasy water; our legs and backsides covered in muck; the fumes of bunker oil from the holed double-bottom tank heavy in the air.

I had left the hold several times during the afternoon, and wandered over to the main hold where the wool had been stowed. He watched me from the winch-house. I felt it.

Most of the bales had been removed from the hold and been rolled along the deck to the stern where they were now piled high and covered with huge canvas tarpaulins to keep out the salt spray. The weight had been transferred aft to shift our point of balance and relieve the pressure of the bow upon the reef. The stern was afloat, with the ship aground from midships to the bow.

There were still five or six hundred bales left to be lifted out; enough for my purpose. I peered in to the hold, trying to appear anxious, worried; knowing I would be arousing his curiosity. I had to make him believe that the marijuana was in the bales still remaining in the hold. I looked at my watch and then to the sky.

A torch was lying nearby. I waited until I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and then picked it up, furtively burying it under a pile of rope. If this wouldn’t bring him out onto the deck with me after dark, nothing would.

The whistle blew, sounding the end of a long day. It would be dinner and then rest. They would all be in bed early; all except two, and for one of those – never.

The meal was a blurred affair, with my mind far away on other things. I picked at the food, eating, but not hungry. Killing is best done in the heat of the moment, not something to be planned and rehearsed.

Thirteen

I stayed in the officers
lounge for a couple of hours after dinner, once more giving the impression of getting quietly drunk. There were two portholes in the far bulkhead, looking out on to the boat deck, and I was sure he would be out there, watching me.

On
the stroke of nine-thirty I left the lounge and made my way to my cabin, tripping over one of the chairs on my way out. I didn’t want to appear too drunk, just unsteady; the perfect target for another accident.

I cha
nged back into work clothes and added the turtle-neck sweater. A tin of shoe-polish went into my back pocket, together with a length of strong nylon cord I had found lying on the deck.

It was dark outside, with clouds obscuring the moon, what little there was of it
. I was staking myself out as the goat. But this time the bait had sharpened teeth.

It was deathly quiet on deck as I moved stealthily past the main hold and down into the shadow of the winch-house. The torch was where I had left it. I was shaking, terrified, my palms sweating. What if he had friends? What if there was more than one of them? It was a chance I had to take. If I didn’t get him now, he would probably get me; maybe not tonight, maybe not for days, but he wouldn’t give up.

I took a deep breath and crept over to the main hold, and gazed down into the blackness. There was no sound from below, no movement; but behind me I heard the scuff of a boot on the deck, the noise faint but unmistakable. It was only sheer will-power that kept me from turning my head.

He was there, but still some way back. I could feel his eyes watching me, burning into my back.

Putting the torch into my pocket, I swung down into the ladder-well and moved fast. I didn’t trust him not to try and get it over with quickly. All he had to do was hurl a bag of sugar down after me. It would have sent me tumbling and crashing to the tank-top far below.

It was only luck that kept me on the ladder, my palms greasy and slipping before I was even half-way down. But I reached the bottom after an aeon of time and sped into the cover afforded by the overhang of the hold
, and switched the torch on.

It was a great jumble of bales, piled up like children
’s bricks; huge building blocks; a ruined temple, the stones cast down by some angry god. I closed my hand over the lens of the torch and concealed the turmoil, my presence, and my position.

On hands and knees, over bales and between, I raced to the other side of the hold
– the sweat on my hands cleaned by the sacking. Working with an urgency upon which my survival depended, I began to set the trap. The torch came apart into two sections, as I knew it would. I drew two single bales close to one another, with the gap between them being the same as the length of the torch. Then, with the two halves unscrewed, but not separated, I jammed the torch between the two bales and switched it on. With the lens pressed hard against the flat side of the bale it gave off hardly any glow at all; but it would be enough to bring my friend to me.

A matter of seconds was all it took to unravel several strands from the nylon cord and tie them together to form a single line. I fastened one end to the torch and took the other with me as I withdrew back into the darkness to cover my face with
the black shoe-polish; and waited.

He hadn’t wasted any time. The smell of curry and sweat – too strong to be smothered by the lanolin – reached my nostrils. He was there, but exactly where I couldn’t tell. There had been no more scraping of boots. I crouched down and held my breath, waiting for him to come. A black shadow reached the corner of my vision. Slowly and yet solemnly he moved towards the faint torchlight, following the path I had laid
out for him.

The knife in his hand glinted once in the weak light, the blade wicked and sharp.

He passed me and stopped, separated from me by a single pack of bales. I sensed that he was gathering his strength for the attack, that now was the moment he would launch himself forward, stabbing out with the knife. I took up the slack in the line and tugged gently. The torch fell from between the bales, the two halves falling apart and clattering to the floor and the batteries rolling away.

It was pitch dark.

Neither of us moved. I could smell the garlic every time he breathed, and hoped my whisky wasn’t as pungent.

Slowly the darkness cleared as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Would he still make his move? Or would he freeze, believing that I couldn’t stir without him seeing me?

Then he spoke. It was eerie; like a cat toying with a mouse; the executioner making peace with the condemned. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled.

“Mr. Rider,” the two words soft and clear; terror at heari
ng him call my name. “Mr. Rider,” a trembling, faint, but audible in the closeness - the sound of fear.

“Mr. Rider. We make arrangement.”

There was no way I was going to answer him. He knew I was there where the torch had dropped; or thought he knew. Was he trying to make sure, or did he really have a proposition?

I kept silent, letting the air rise slowly from my lungs, pushing it down towards the floor. There was no way I was going to give my position away to this bastard. One word and he would have been over the bales and on to me. I was no knife-fighter; no fighter at all.

We were no more than two metres apart.

“Mr. Rider. I not
want to kill you. All we want is share of heroin.”

Heroin!

The stupid son of a bitch thought I had a shipment of heroin on the ship! He probably thought there were a couple of bales of the stuff, and that was why he was prepared to put the ship on the reef; so he could search for it. He had gone through my cabin in Cairns looking for papers, probably for details of bale markings, and found nothing. No wonder he wanted me out of the way. With me dead he would have had a free hand and plenty of time. Bastard!

He had some information, that much was certain. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Pete had been killed because of it, and we were stuck on the reef; all because this bastard believed I was carrying heroin.

He had mentioned others. Was he alone, or was there more than one out there – waiting for me? I stayed still.

“We know you have partner in Australia, Mr. Rider. We know about
Mr. Cheh. We do a deal. They not know a thing about it. You take your share and disappear.”

Yes, I thought, to the bottom of the ocean.

“Your partner never know. We want Mr. Cheh’s share, the share of the lion.” Naturally he did. “Take your life and many dollars, Mr. Rider. More better than death and nothing.”

So he knew Tek’s name, but he didn’t know Nick’s, which meant the leak must have been in Singapore. But how?

“Please, Mr. Rider. There is no other way for you. Come with me. We launch one lifeboat. No-one hear us. We take one lifeboat and be on other side of island before sun come up. We go to Samarai, hide heroin on beach and sink lifeboat. I have money. We can hire one aeroplane to take us Port Moresby. They never find us. They not even look for us.”

It sounded convincing, except for one point; he couldn’t keep the strain out of his voice.
That, and the fact that we couldn’t transport four thousand bales of wool in a lifeboat.

“Mr. Rider. You like see your little orchid again? My boss say she lo
oking more beautiful.”

Mee Ling! The bastard knew about Mee Ling. But how? The leak had to come from Tek. It had to come from his house. It must have been bugged, even with all his electronics. But if the house had been bugged, why didn’t they have the story right? Why did they think it was heroin?

“We not got much time, Mr. Rider. It take more than one hour to load lifeboat. We must be on other side of island before sun come up.”

Then I realised that he was alone; t
hat there was no-one behind him ready to join in the attack. No wonder he was nervous. His previous attacks had been from behind, against unsuspecting victims, but this time it was to be face to face.

There was no way this villain was going to do a deal. I was for the high jump as soon as he had the opportunity. But right now I was vital to him. He believed I was the only way he was going to find the heroin. He must have searched and searched, and found nothing. He still needed me to point it out to him. Or did he?

He had seen me peering down at the remaining bales during the afternoon and looking worried; which could only mean that his imaginary heroin was still there. And now here I was, down in the hold, examining one particular bale of wool. He would think I was checking on the shipment, making certain that the bale hadn’t been damaged; and he might believe that he didn’t have to search any further. He wouldn’t need me to help him carry it up to a lifeboat. All he would have to do would be to split the bale open and carry the stuff up bag by bag. He could hide it in one of the lifeboats overnight and make his getaway later.

Perhaps the line about the lifeboat was just that, a ruse to get me to show myself. With me out of the way he would be able to take charge of the imaginary bale of heroin, or bales, if he thought there were more than one, then change the marks and quietly off-load them in Singapore.

He didn’t need me at all. The bastard was out to kill me, just as soon as he could stick the knife in.

I could see him clearly now. He had moved up from his crouching position, the crown of his head just showing over the top of a bale a metre to my left. I gave the string a gentle tug, stirring the barrel of the torch, and he ducked down again. He thought he had me fixed. His head slowly came into sight once more.

My limbs were aching, stiff, crying out for movement. Any second now and cramp would knot the muscles.

He edged closer and then closer still, his shoulders now above the level of the bale. My throat was choking, gagging. I couldn’t breathe, the smell of him overpowering – the stink of sweat and chillies and garlic. Then I felt the bale in front of me shift backwards, only a fraction, but it moved.

I dropped the string tied to the torch and tightened my grip on the cord stretched between my hands. He slid backwards up on to the bale, peering towards the sound the torch had made, and then drew his legs up so as to slide along the bale, and to pass in front of me.

At the instant of raising his legs he was off balance. I stood up and threw the cord around his neck, and, with the backs of my fists against his shoulder blades, thrust him forward – down over
the edge of the bale; then pulled tight against the cord as his shoulders slid below the top of the bale; pulling with all the force I could raise, my rage bursting forth, the adrenalin pumping wildly. His feet bashed and slid against the floor of the hold as he tried to gain a foothold. All I could see was the back of his head, and the rope, taut to my straining wrists; his body dangling over the other side of the pile of bales, held there by the power of the nylon cord pulling him back into the wall of wool.

The knife appeared above his head, stabbing at my hands; but they were too far back. He realised too late that he should have tried for the cord. The slashing grew weaker, and at last he was still. But I kept my grip, my arms aching, until I could hold no longer and let him fall, reaching for the knife as he slid away. It came easily out of his hand and I let it follow him down.

He was dead.

There was no revulsion, only a feeling of steely calm.

What was I to do with the body? I couldn’t fake an accident. The weal around his neck couldn’t be concealed like the blow to Pete’s head had been. I couldn’t take him up on to the deck and push him over the side of the hatch, hoping the fall to the bottom of the hold would smash his head to pulp; as had happened to George; for the mark around his neck would still be visible.

Pushing him over the side
of the ship wasn’t a good idea. I couldn’t risk the tide. If it was going out – well and good; but if it was an incoming tide his body would be floating on the reef by morning and the natives would be sure to find him.

Then it hit me. I could put him in one of Pete’
s freezers. There should be room to hide him down in the back of one of the containers. They weren’t going to shift them for a couple of days, and I could wait and pick the right tide, one that would take him far out to sea.

It was hard work hauling him up the ladder. The period of waiting in the dark for him to creep up had drained my hate, the reserve of adrenalin gone. I didn’t dare use one of the winches for fear that the sound of the electric motor would bring somebody. I carried him up the ladder-well across my shoulders. At every rung of the ladder I paused and rested, and at every deck level I laid him down and waited for my strength to return. It must have taken me thirty minutes to reach the top; and by then I was exhausted, on the point of collapse.

By the time I managed to drag him along to the containers I had lost control of my legs and fell to the deck, almost past caring. There was no time to rest; rest would come later.

The containers weren’t locked. I turned the levers and pulled the door
of the first one open.

The foul stench slammed into my nostrils. The meat was rotten – putrid. I slammed the door
shut against the rubber seals and waited for the breeze to blow the smell away. The others were all the same: warm and packed with stinking rancid flesh. There was no way I was going to haul the body through that foul mass of fetid meat. I sat down on the deck and he stared up at me, unblinking, as Pete had done. I turned his head away with my foot. Bastard. If I hadn’t been so exhausted maybe I could have come up with a plan, but I couldn’t. There was nothing to do but heave him over the side of the ship and trust to luck.