Southtrap

CHAPTER TEN

The scrimshawed ivory handle stood out like an obscene white fang below the left point of his chin. His half-open jaw rested on one of its notches. The blade itself was lost in the ginger growth of his beard.

I knelt to examine him. The torch reflected a glimmer of unfocused eyes. Before I put my hand against his heart I knew he was dead. His skin was cool and clammy. He had been dead some time.

I directed the beam into his eyes, then at the knife again. There was surprisingly little blood. On the side away from me the knife handle was engraved. I scanned it more closely. The outline was unmistakable. It was a killer whale. The killer whale is the Southern Ocean's most feared and relentless killer.

'Petersen!'

It was Petersen who had burst into my cabin a few.minutes before — it already seemed like hours — and had stood swaying in the doorway. His face had been blanched and his eyes wide with horror. He had been violently, cruelly sick. I had grabbed hold of him and forced the rest of my nightcap brandy down his throat while he had hung, incoherent and half-fainting, in my grip. He had finally coughed out Holdgate's name and pointed aft. I had left him hanging over a chair and sprinted for the stern, telling him to follow. As I had cleared the superstructure, the cold wind had made me gasp.

'Petersen!'

He wasn't there. I straightened up and swung the flashlight round to find the light switches. Then I thought better of it. The murderer might be lurking somewhere. Even if he were not, to put the lights on would be to attract anyone who might be around. My first instinct was to bar anyone from seeing what lay there on the burial board.

I groped for the door. As I got there, the chilling implications of murder hit me: locks, fingerprints, door handles, keys, clues.

There was a sound on deck outside. I fell back, waited. I snapped the beam suddenly on to the face of the man in the doorway.

It was Petersen. He was swaying. I thought he was about to pass out again.

'Come in!' I ordered.

'Is… is…?' He coughed.

I kept the torch off Holdgate and snapped, 'He's dead. There's nothing we can do about that. But there's lots we can do about finding out who did it.' I found the switches. 'Listen, Petersen, before I put on these lights, get a grip of yourself. You're a ship's officer. Keep your eyes skinned. The killer could be around. No one is to know about this business — understood?'

'I understand.' His answer came from very far away.

I used my handkerchief to grip the key in case of fingerprints. We were still in darkness. Then I remembered something.

'Was this door open or shut when you found him?'

'That's why I came and looked in,' whispered Peter-sen. The door was slatting in the wind. So I came to see and…' In the dimness I could see that he was clamping his teeth into his knuckles to steady his jaw.

'I know what you saw — I've seen it close,' I replied, deliberately roughly. 'It's Holdgate, the volcanologist. He's dead. He's been murdered. That's a knife in his throat. Now I'm going to switch on the lights.'

I did. The place was empty.

Shock had already drawn older lines in Petersen's schoolboy face. He'd be older by years before the night was out.

I wrapped up the key and put it in my pocket. I went over to the body.

How, I asked myself, had Holdgate allowed himself first to be strapped to the board and then murdered? Smit, T-shirt Jannie and the bull-necked man named Pete weren't murderers. They'd all been having fun together when they had strapped Holdgate down that morning. Yet only they and Holdgate had keys to the place. They'd be the first I'd have to question.

Who could possibly have wanted to kill harmless Holdgate, and why?

My mind raced to the sharp exchange between Hold-gate and Wegger in the morning. It had been very heated, but nevertheless you don't murder a man because you disagree about whether or not a cave is a lava tunnel. I pulled myself up. What I was thinking implicated Wegger. But then was there anyone on board who wasn't implicated? I asked myself grimly. Even Petersen. You're going crazy, I told myself roughly, without bothering to turn and see what Peter-sen was doing. Anyway, Wegger had been on watch on the bridge. The unknown who had threatened Reilly in the tunnel shaft?

I tried to defuse my exploding thoughts. I'd be suspecting Linn next if I went on like this.

I rounded on Petersen. He was shaking, partly from shock, and partly, I realized, because the night had turned very cold. He was concentrating his gaze on Bokkie and the balloon.

I checked my watch. 10.45. Time, too, had become a clue.

'I want you to do two things, Petersen — quick,' I said. 'Three, if keeping your mouth shut is included.'

He wouldn't face my way. I positioned myself where he wouldn't have to look in the direction of the body.

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'First, get up to the bridge and tell Mr Wegger I want him here — at the double. Say to bring his gun with him — loaded.'

My words didn't seem to penetrate. 'He's — got — a — gun?'

'You heard me.' Shock demands shock treatment. 'Pull yourself together, man! A gun. Loaded. Is that clear?'

'Yes — I mean, aye, aye, sir.'

'Second, I want you to rout out the TV cameraman who came aboard with the tourists — I don't remember his name. He's doubling up in one of the new cabins next to us here, not the old ones amidships.'

'Which cabin?' asked Petersen.

'How in hell should I know? Look on the purser's list. It'll be on his noticeboard. Whoever his cabin mate is, keep him out of it. Tell him I want him with a camera and flash equipment.' I jerked my head in the direction of the body.

Petersen hung back.

'Well, what is it?' I demanded.

He said in a rush, 'Someone murdered him — I mean, he could still be lurking about. If you're left alone he might… might…'

'I hadn't given it a thought,' I replied. 'Thanks all the same for your concern. I don't think whoever did it will risk a second attack.'

I became still more aware of how cold it was. 'Drop into my cabin and bring me a sweater also, will you? And have yourself a shot more brandy at the same time. Captain's orders.'

He managed the beginnings of a wan smile. I locked the door behind him, still safeguarding the key with my handkerchief.

I felt quite impersonal about the grotesque object strapped to the board. It seemed to have nothing at all to do with the young-old-maidish fuddy-duddy I had known as Holdgate. He was the most unlikely knife-death victim possible. What did I know of his background?

I shivered in the icy air. My mind baulked at the jump ahead of it: murder, with a thousand complications. When Nelson's gunners at Trafalgar were stunned by the thunder of a thousand broadsides their minds shied away from thoughts of victory and took refuge in the trivialities of battle. In the same way my mind leapt to the tiny events of the day which had intervened between the time I had last spoken to Holdgate and now, when he would never speak again. A day of trivialities, of splendid trivialities. Linn and I had stood on deck and watched the dolphins, 'the swallows of the sea'. They had dived and swooped and performed their graceful arabesques both in the air and in the blue water alongside the Quest. The ship was still in blue water — the blue water of the Subtropical Convergence, Toby Trimen had told us. Linn and I had followed — as had most of the tourists — the 'swallows' with delight. Toby had also identified two types for us: the customary Southern white-sided dolphin and the dusky dolphin, He had taught us how to distinguish the two — the common type by its dark area behind the flipper, by its blunter head and broader dorsal fin.

Sea-birds, too, had convoyed the Quest. Dr Kebble had talked — one couldn't call such informality a lecture — about Prince Edward's very own bird, the Pilot Bird. White as an angel, it is unique to the island.

Then, in the afternoon, I had seen ahead a long grey-black line blocking the southern horizon. It had risen, the closer the ship approached, like a tangible physical barrier in the ship's path. It marked the end of the Subtropical Convergence, where the warm seas ended — the end of the dolphins, the Portuguese men-o'-war, the blue water, the yachting weather.

I had pointed the bank out to Linn and warned her of the storms which lay beyond it. It seemed to me now that that funereal range of fog was symbolic of the storm I had run into with Holdgate's death.

With that thought, my mind snapped back to the scientists' sanctuary and the grim reality confronting me. Holdgate's was the second death involving the Quest. Captain Prestrud had been pistol-whipped to death. Holdgate — struck by a sudden suspicion I went over to the body and looked at his throat. I was right. He hadn't been strapped to the board conscious. He had been half-strangled first. There was a hideous bruise round his windpipe. Someone — and it must have been a powerful man — had choked him senseless from behind, strapped him to the plank, and then thrust the knife home. It had been as calculated as a farmer butchering a sheep.

Why?

Who?

Like the Quest late that afternoon, I had crossed into stormy waters. The sea had turned a cold green at evening — in these high latitudes the twilight never seems to end — and ahead of us was the bank of fog, nearer now, and as dark in the approaching night as the thoughts at present in my mind.

I had cut the Quest's speed to half, a night-ice precaution. Deaf, for the radio black-out was total, and blind except for the uncertain radar, the ship had begun to pitch heavily as she felt her way South. I had doubled the look-outs and put the searchlight squad on the alert.

Before we plunged into the fog-bank I had spotted a single patch of white far out on the starboard bow. For a moment I had thought it was a growler or a bergy bit. When I put my glasses on it, however, it turned out to be the white snout of a Southern right whale dolphin. Then it was lost in the green-black water.

I was brought back sharply to Holdgate's murder by a rap at the door of metal against metal. I remembered to hold the key in my handkerchief when I opened it. It was Wegger. He had used the Luger as a knocker.

I indicated the body. 'What do you make of that, Number One?'

He came in. I watched him closely. From now on, everyone was under suspicion.

He stopped, raised the Luger muzzle to his lips, and blew into it. The low whistle it gave was a macabre sound, a death-watch sound.

His face had its iron-hard look in it. All expression was expunged from his eyes.

'Is he dead?' he asked.

'Yes.'

The Quest gave a deep roll as the south-westerly run of the sea lifted her keel. Holdgate's head rolled with it. First it went leftwards. On the return roll it only got halfway. The weight of the knife kept it pinned left.

Wegger went over to the corpse. Before I could stop him he had reached down and tested the knife with his hand.

'It's firm — into his neck vertebrae, I'd say.'

'Take your bloody hands off that knife!' I rapped out. 'What in hell d'you think you're doing?'

He swung round on me and appeared to go into a half-crouch, as if ready to jump me. Then I realized that he'd stooped to the body. His eyes were burning in the shadow of his cap-peak.

When he spoke his voice was completely at odds with the rest of him. It was like that first time on the dockside when I suspected him of sucking up to me.

'I'm sorry, sir. I never gave it a thought. I only wanted to see…'

Handling the knife was the sort of thoughtless action one could take in the stress of the moment. Outwardly, he'd shown no nerve-reaction to the sight of the body.

But I'd learned already that Wegger was more complex than he appeared on the surface.

'Forget it,' I retorted brusquely. 'Where's Petersen?'

Petersen asked me to give you this.' Wegger handed me my thick off-white sweater with a fisherman's collar. 'He's cleaning up the mess he made in your cabin.'

'What did he tell you?'

'Nothing — except that you wanted me urgently, and there was a dead man.'

'No one else hear?'

'No,' Wegger answered. 'But you can't keep anything like this dark for long. It'll be all over the ship by morning.'

He was right, of course.

'What are you going to do about him?'

That was the hurdle my mind had jibbed at a little while back. What I decided about Holdgate would also determine the fate of the Quest's cruise. Linn had come to me to make her decision after her father's death; now, deep down, I wanted to be with her when I made mine over Holdgate. It was a captain's decision — and there are times when a captain can be more alone than an albatross riding the West Wind Drift.

'I sent Petersen to wake the TV cameraman and bring his flash gear,' I replied obliquely. 'I want the body photographed as I found it.'

'I thought Petersen found it,' he remarked in an odd voice.

'A manner of speaking. He called me immediately.'

Wegger went on. 'How do you know that, sir? I mean, with murder one has to look at every aspect.'

'Petersen was in no state to do anything but what he did,' I answered. 'It was purely a reflex action. He called me. I sent him for you.'

'You didn't question him?' he persisted. 'I mean, did he see anyone around? In here, perhaps?'

It didn't need Wegger's remarks to tell me that I had to be suspicious of Petersen, and of his apparent concern for my safety.

'He was in no shape to be cross-questioned,' I said. 'That will come.'

'Have you searched the place, sir? The murderer could still be close by.'

The place is as bare as a nude show,' I replied. Try the body, if you care to. He's been dead some time, I'd guess.'

'Good.'

'What the devil do you mean, good?'

He patted the Luger and said levelly, 'I mean, then we don't have to start fine-combing the ship.'

I've done that once today — with you and MacFie.'

Wegger gave a slight shrug. 'How long would you estimate he's been dead?'

'An hour — two hours, maybe. I can't say. I'm not a doctor. He's scarcely warm.'

That would make it after I'd taken over the bridge at eight,' he said.

Was he talking his way into an alibi? There wasn't any need. The bridge men could prove or disprove of anything he said! If I could not trust even my own first officer… I jerked my thoughts together. I wasn't a detective. My function was the safety of the ship.

And all those who travel in her.

The way Holdgate's head rolled from side to side reminded me that there was at least one person whom I had failed.

The thought goaded me. 'What's keeping Petersen, for Chrissake?'

Wegger remained collected. 'He was very ashamed of what he did to your cabin.'

'Blast my cabin. I want the photographer.'

'He said he wouldn't be long.'

A silence fell between us. But the ship wasn't silent.

The creaks a vessel gives when the seas start to work up and tax her fabric were all around. The Quest was flexing her sea muscles after their flaccid stay in port, although the swells weren't really anything yet. A squall with a spatter of rain brought new noises from seams and beams. If the wind veered south-west from its present quarter, which was west with a touch of north in it, those squalls would throw themselves at the Quest with relentless savagery, armed with hail, ice and snow and the knock-down punch of a Force 10 gale.

There was a ragged clatter against the door. Petersen knocking. Wegger jerked round, more nervously than his outward appearance would have led me to expect.

I held the door before admitting Petersen and the photographer. The latter's hair was tousled and he wore a leather jacket with a fur collar, shortie pyjama pants and furry ankle-length slippers.

I addressed him. 'Before you come in, I must warn you that there's something very unpleasant in here. That's why I sent for you. It's an emergency and I require pictures for the record. What's your name?'

'Brunton. John Brunton.'

His brown eyes were bright and alive with no trace of sleep in them.

'I was a press photographer before I went ecological,' he replied. 'I once saw a stiff they'd found in a river. He'd been there two weeks. He'd been strangled with a length of barbed wire. That cured my stomach for keeps.'

This isn't all that bad.'

I let them in. Petersen still kept his eyes averted.

Brunton's eyes — like those of Miss Auchinleck's penguins — seemed to work independently on either side of his head. One took in the body, and the other the rest of the scientific gear. They appeared to be assessing camera angles and the situation all at once.

'I want pictures for the record and the police,' I told him. 'I'll also require a sworn statement from you later.'

'Any particular angle?'

'If you've done police work you'll know better than I do.' Brunton licked the connection of his electric flash, plugged it in, and got to work. The place sparkled with quick flashes.

He half-knelt, half-crouched by the corpse and called back to me, 'Close-ups of the knife too?'

Wegger said unnecessarily, 'It's very hard in — right through his neck, I'd say.'

Brunton rolled the eye not focusing the viewfinder at me. The glance was a mixture of query and surprise.

My mind was already leaping on ahead — postmortem, court processes, being put through the hoop by some smart-alec lawyer. Brunton's questions smacked home a pressing problem which I'd thrust to the back of my mind. What did I intend to do with the body? Take it back to land? Bury it at sea?

The thought rattled me and I retorted. 'He didn't put it there himself. The whole lot of us on this ship are going to be put through the mill of a murder hearing. There'll be thousands of questions asked.'

Brunton pushed his lens within inches of the dead face.

'Odd sort of design on the knife,' he said.

'Killer whale,' I replied.

Brunton went on working the trigger. 'Could narrow the field of suspects considerably. Not everyone packs a Weapon like that.'

I hadn't thought of that one — yet.

'What about his hands?' asked Brunton.

'What about them?'

'Want me to take 'em close-up also?'

'Why?'

'Right one's clenched. You may want to open the fingers.'

Petersen made a gurgling noise and walked over to the opposite side. Wegger stood watching, completely expressionless.

'I'll log that fact later,' I said. 'Will you help me, Number One?'

Wegger started, as if his thoughts had been elsewhere. 'Of course.'

He used his left hand — his sound working hand, his gun-hand — to assist me. We prised open the fingers. The palm was empty.

Brunton's flash blinded me. Then, for the first time, I felt a surge of nausea. The muscles that had contracted those fingers had done so from the agony of the knife taking his life.

'Now a couple of general shots of the environment.' Brunton rose and began shooting again. When he had finished, he remarked, 'That should tell the story.'

'It's a story I don't want told to anyone,' I said. That's not a request but an order. In a situation like this the captain is the law. He has unlimited authority. I could even put you in irons if I wanted to.'

Brunton replied with a peculiar half-grin, 'I believe you would, too.'

Thanks,' I said. 'I wasn't meaning to pull my rank, but it's a good thing to know where you stand. This is a serious situation.'

'I'll say. I'll keep this roll of film safer than fine gold. Ten million dollars' worth.'

It was as if an electric shock had passed through Wegger. The muscles of his neck corded and bulged and his hand went to his gun pocket as if it had a life of its own.

Brunton's keen eye didn't miss it. 'Have I said something wrong?'

Wegger laughed it off, not very convincingly. 'That's a lot of gold to compare it to.'

Brunton eyed him for a long moment. Then he said to me. 'If you don't want me for anything more, I'll be getting back to bed. With these shorties I'll land myself a severe dose of Antartic testicle.'

'Thanks,' I said. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

When he had gone, I said to Wegger, 'We'll lock the body in the sick-bay. 'We'll leave him strapped. This plank is the best thing to carry him on anyway. Petersen, go and find a blanket, will you?'

Petersen was only too glad to leave.

Wegger asked, 'Burial at sea?'

That was going too fast for me. I fobbed off the question. 'He's halfway prepared already.'

'We'd better unstrap his arms,' Wegger went on. 'Easier later for sewing him into canvas. Rigor mortis and all that.'

I didn't like Wegger's tacit assumption of what would be done. I felt he was subtly pressuring me.

'Leave him how he is,' I ordered. 'I'll decide all that later.'

When Petersen, returned with a couple of blankets it was Wegger and I who carried the deadweight board after we had covered and wrapped the body. Petersen led, with instructions not to use my torch in the unlighted section between the stern and amidships deck-houses. I didn't want any stray passengers to witness our passage. Perhaps my caution was a mistake. Shortly after leaving the locked door behind us Wegger tripped on something on deck. The body's weight transferred to his damaged right hand. I did a quick snatch to save the board from falling. I sensed him fumbling near the head for a moment or two to find a grip. Then he regained his balance.

We hurried from the deck into the lighted corridor where the luxury accommodation was situated. The sick-bay was at its forward end. I glanced at Number 3 as we hastened past. Linn's cabin.

The key was in the sick-bay door. I locked it and pocketed the key after we had stowed Holdgate safely inside.

I dismissed Wegger and Petersen. 'See you on the bridge. I take over at midnight.'

'I'll stand your watch if you like, sir,' suggested Wegger. 'I won't sleep much anyway.'

No more would I, I thought grimly. 'Thanks,' I said, 'but it won't be necessary.'

The more I saw of Wegger, the less I understood the man. There had been times during the photographing of the body when he'd been all screwed up with tension. Now he seemed completely relaxed, in spite of what he said about not sleeping. But Petersen was different. If I hadn't thought it bad for his morale I would have ordered him to bed. He looked ghastly.

When they had gone I made my way to my cabin. I sat down at the desk and started to frame a radio signal. I didn't get far. How do you convey in a few crisp sentences that a man has been murdered? I didn't address it either. To whom? The police? The port authorities? The Weather Bureau? I crumpled the paper and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. The Quest's radio wasn't working anyway because of the radio black-out, but I'd have to try to get through to someone.

I hurried to Persson's cabin in the officers' quarters and hammered on his door. I would have to tell him the truth. A radio operator is to a captain as his own thoughts. Persson answered, full of sleep and surprise.

'See here,' I told him. 'There's been an emergency. Can you raise Cape Town on the radio?'

He shook his head. 'No. Reception's been getting worse all day, the further South we go. It was hopeless when I packed up a few hours ago. No sferics, even.'

I recalled Smit's remarks about the black-out. I didn't want to try and teach Persson his job. On the other hand if I put an expert like Smit on his back it would only cause friction.

'Can I come in?' I asked. 'What I have to say is confidential.'

'Sorry, sir. I must be half-asleep still.'

I went in. The cabin was warm and smelt of cigarettes and the indefinable odour of male-aloneness. A pin-up whose breasts ballooned close to the pillow hung above his bunk.

'What are sferics?'

'Bits and pieces of noises, sir. They used to be called static. They don't mean anything. Or, rather, they do if…'

I cut him short. 'You mean the radio's stone dead?'

'Yes, sir. Both receiving and transmitting. I've heard about this sort of thing but never experienced it.'

'What about the radio-telephone?'

'It's got no range at all, sir. I couldn't reach the mainland that way.'

I glanced at the door to make sure we could not be overheard. 'Listen, Persson. A man was killed aboard tonight. I've got to get a signal out somehow.'

He said quietly, as if only a part of him were listening while the rest was wrestling with the insoluble technical problem, 'I see, sir. Then the R/T's our only hope. Maybe…'

'Yes?'

The US Navy works the KC-4 USV station from McMurdo at certain times as a ham station for direct voice talks with the men's relatives back home. It's a powerful transmission. Maybe — only maybe — I could patch a signal from us into it.'

'What would that mean, if you did?'

'It would mean someone talking from America to a guy in McMurdo would get the message. Or vice versa.'

'Where — I mean, what station in the United States?'

'An ordinary telephone sir. That's the way it works?'

'I don't follow the ins and outs of this, but if you think you can establish contact with the outside world, go ahead right away,' I replied. 'If you can't, I want you to stand a round-the-clock radio watch until you do. Got that?'

'I'll be up in the radio shack in about five minutes.'

'Good. If you make a contact, let me know at once. I'll be on the bridge after midnight. In my cabin until then.'

I went from Persson direct to the engine-room. As I clattered down the ladder into the oil-warm comfort and racket of the place, MacFie's assistant started up in astonishment from a nudey magazine and a cup of coffee. A captain doesn't usually pay social calls to the engine-room in the middle of the night.

'I want to see Reilly,' I told him. 'He's on duty?'

The man pointed. His attitude asked, 'More trouble?' but he didn't speak.

Reilly. was dripping oil out of an outsize oil-can with the fixed zombie-like look machine-men develop in the presence of continual noise. His brown overall was open to a stained singlet. It was as warm down here as all that.

I tapped him on the shoulder. He started as if he'd been shot. I gestured to a corner away from the other men. Not that they could have overheard with all that noise going on.

When we were there, I said, 'Reilly, I want you to tell me something.'

His eyes were bitter under their pale lashes. 'I said all I had to say to the Chief. You can't get anything more out of me.'

I wasn't in the mood for this prima donna stuff. 'That business is finished.'

Then why come and try to twist my arm?'

I bit back my retort. 'Reilly — what did the ghost look like? the one who held the gun on you?'

There wasn't a ghost. You searched the ship. You said there wasn't.'

I went on, jumping the credibility gap. 'You said he was big.'

'Aye, his hands were big. He was a big man.'

'A man, not a ghost?'

Reilly looked shiftier, if that were possible. 'You searched the ship. You said there wasn't.'

Next he'll be talking leprechauns, I told myself savagely. I hid my fury as best I could.

'Bigger than — Mr Wegger, say?'

'I dunno who Mr Wegger is.'

Than me, then?'

'Aye, bigger.'

'His hands — was there anything wrong with either or them?'

He looked stupid. 'Naw. Big hands, that's all. Very big. The gun looked small.'

'You're sure it was a machine-pistol? Not a Luger?'

'I seen plenty of machine-pistols. In Belfast, like I said. You shot all over me for saying it, remember?'

Reilly would "Store up grievances all his life like a computer. A computer never forgets.

'What about his ringers? Did he have all his fingers?'

'His hands were big like I said.'

'For Chrissake — his fingers! Did he have all his fingers?'

He replied sullenly/It was dark down there. I dunno.'

I had to steel myself to say. Thanks, Reilly. That's all I want to know.'

He watched me suspiciously as I rejoined MacFie's assistant.

'Can you spare a couple of cups of coffee?'

'Sure, a pleasure.'

He went over to the sort of cubby-hole you find in all engine-rooms, where there is a spout of steam, a tin of coffee and condensed milk and some off-white mugs. He brought two back. They looked good.

'Thanks,' I said. 'I'll return the cups.'

He nodded. He, like the rest of the engine-room crew, was wary of my visit.

I retraced my steps to my cabin, balancing the cups against the roll and pitch of the ship. I put the bottle of brandy under my arm and headed in the direction of the sick-bay.

"I stopped at Number 3.

I put down one cup in order to leave me a free hand to knock on Linn's door. My pulses raced. I didn't give myself time to think. I knocked sharply.

Again.

I was about to knock a third time when the door opened and Linn stood blinking at me in the light of the corridor. She had on a blue quilted dressing-gown, and her eyes looked soft and sleepy.

'John…!' Her eyes went from the cup in my hand to the brandy bottle under my arm. The misty expression vanished from her eyes and gave way to coolness. And to disappointment. Brandy — the crude Panzer spearhead of the midnight assignation.

Then she saw what was in my face, and her expression changed again.

'John! What's wrong? What's happened?'

I picked up the second steaming cup from the floor. 'You may need this when I tell you. The brandy's there for medicinal reasons.'

'Come in. It's perishing out here.'

I moved into the cabin. She was fumbling for the light switch, so that we were very close. She was all woman-sleep and warmth.

I said a little unsteadily, 'You'd better take the bottle before I let it fall.'

She had the light on now. She eased the bottle out from between my arm and my side.

I scarcely heard her whisper, it was so soft. 'Sorry. I should have known you better than that.'

'Thank you, Linn.' I put her cup down. She sat on her bunk and I took the chair that stood at a small desk. 'That's genuine engine-room brew,' I said, 'guaranteed to keep the patient awake.'

She eyed me. 'You haven't been asleep, John.'

I took a drink of coffee and filled the space up with brandy.

'I'm afraid I've some bad news, Linn,' I said.

I could see the skin round her cheekbones tighten as she waited to hear.

There's no point in beating about the bush. Doctor Holdgate, the volcanologist, was murdered tonight.'

She reached for her cup, slopped it unsteadily, and put it down again without tasting.

She said slowly, 'I can't believe it. That's what people always say, isn't it? I can't believe it. But I suppose I must try to believe it.'

She managed her coffee cup this time. She held it out to me before drinking. 'A medicinal measure from the bottle, please. I feel as if I'd been kicked in the stomach.'

She leaned towards me. The weight of her breasts pushed the lapel of her gown partly aside. She'd been sleeping in the nude. Her pyjamas lay on her bunk among the blankets she had thrown back.

'Go on.'

My thoughts yawed like a ship with a bugged gyro. I replied, 'Young Petersen was doing his rounds when he saw Holdgate's door open. He went in and found him with a knife in his throat. He called me. Holdgate had been dead for some time.'

'It's incredible! Holdgate!'

'Yes, Holdate — bumbling, inconsequential Hold-gate,' I answered.

'He wouldn't have hurt a fly.'

That's what I thought.' I recounted the night's events: my discovery of the body, the photographic record, and, finally, the radio black-out and the very faint hope that Persson had of transmitting a signal. I left Reilly out of it. I let her think my visit to the engine-room was to fetch our coffee.

Then I asked, 'What do you know about Holdgate's background?'

She seemed grateful to steer away from the details of the killing. 'Not much. I think he must have had quite a brilliant academic record. I seem to remember from his application to join the cruise that he'd been a lecturer at the Australian National University at Canberra and had been given some big geological award by the Rijksmuseum in Holland.'

'Where was he from?'

'British-born, I think.'

'I don't mean that. Where did he come from to join the ship?'

'Geological Survey, Pretoria. He was an expert on palaeomagnetism. That's why the rocks at Prince Edward fascinated him so. There's very little work being done on them.'

'No cause of murder in any of that,' I said. 'Married?'

'No. Confirmed bachelor type, I'd say.'

I poured a trickle more brandy into my coffee. 'Linn,' I went on, 'whoever killed Holdgate for whatever reason is not really my affair — that's a police job. What does concern me greatly, however, is that at this moment there's a killer loose in the ship. And because of that, the fate of the Quest's voyage is at stake.'

She shivered. It wasn't cold in her cabin. It was snug. Somewhere there was a lingering trace of the perfume she'd worn when we'd danced together earlier in the evening. I tried to think whether I had seen Holdgate at the dance. Probably not. He wasn't the sort to socialize with tourists. Perhaps his absence had been the cause of his downfall, being alone with his work when everyone else had been enjoying themselves.

'Explain please, John.'

'This voyage is jinxed. There've been two killings.'

'I can scarcely credit it, even now.'

'Your father was killed,' I went on. 'He was savagely beaten to death. Now Holdgate. His death was just as brutal, in its way. There's a connection between the two.'

'What possible connection could my father have had with Doctor Holdgate? They never even knew each other.'

I answered slowly, 'Linn, my mind feels like those fancy modern navigational systems they call SINS — ships inertial navigational system. They're marvels — providing your initial fix is spot-on. That's what I am lacking now — a reference point from which to begin.'

'And failing that?'

I looked at her squarely. She looked very lovely. Because of the crisis, we had already moved closer to each other and I knew instinctively that she was glad I had turned to her.

'It's nearly midnight,' I said. The Quest is now just over the halfway mark to the launching-point for the buoy. I could put the ship about and land Holdgate's body in Cape Town on Monday, at roughly the same time the launching is scheduled. Then I could turn the whole matter over to the authorities.'

She looked away and found an imaginary thread on her quilted sleeve.

'And then?'

'I would have discharged my responsibility as captain.'

'But not your conscience, John.'

'On the other hand, I could carry on. I could bury Holdgate at sea tomorrow. In that event, the case against the killer might break down for lack of evidence. Both police and medical evidence. There would be no body, no clues. It would all be at the bottom of the sea.'

There must be a doctor somewhere, John!'

There is. In the Crozet Islands. That's about two days' steaming east of Prince Edward, as you know.'

'You'd do that?'

'I couldn't keep a body on board that long.'

'What… what… have you done with… it… him?'

I gestured with my head. 'In the sick-bay. Just up the corridor.'

She started to her feet. 'John — it's all a nightmare! It's too horrible to think about…!'

I reached out to her and she came fiercely to me for a moment. Her lips were hard against mine. Then she pulled away.

'We mustn't, John! I don't want you this way if it's just because… because…'

'Because what, Linn?'

'People who are under threat are driven into one another's arms — like in a bombing raid — and then when the danger's gone they find they have nothing left for each other.'

She moved away and stood between the edge of her bunk and the door of the built-in clothes cabinet. Her head was held back in her characteristic way.

'Do you think I regard this danger as big as that?'

In answer, she spread her arms wide across the corner where she stood so that I could see the deep cleavage of her breasts.

I went to her. Her tongue was warm and soft and seeking against my palate.

Light years passed.

It was she who ended it, breathless, sobbing, pulling her elbows down over her breasts like a boxer covering up from an attack which could have only one outcome.

'Now's not the time, my darling! I need you, I want you, but we've got this horror to attend to…'

I found my voice. 'Sometime?'

'Any other time you want, my darling. You don't have to have an excuse to bring coffee next time.'

A roll of the ship brought us together again. We let the sweet electricity flow between us until both of us had sense enough left to throw the trip-switch.

We found our previous places and our half-cold coffee. As I looked into her green-grey eyes, I felt I was talking on two levels — outwardly about Holdgate and inwardly in a silent exchange about ourselves.

I tried to marshal my thoughts. 'Listen, Linn. I believe the key to both murders lies in what your father tried to tell me in hospital. I can't forget those words of his — stay away from Dina's Island. It was like a command. I can't help feeling it was tied up with what he did in the war when he escaped the German raider. But it was all so disconnected and rambling.'

'We're right back to where we started, John.'

'Not quite. We have Captain Jacobsen aboard. I'm going to interview him in the morning. There's a lot I want to ask him.'

'Mrs Jacobsen's a big obstacle. She's very protective about him and his heart condition.'

'Maybe. But Jacobsen is the only one left of those three catcher skippers who escaped. Both the others died violently. I've got to know more about the circumstances because of what's happening now, right here aboard this ship.'

'But Holdgate can't possibly have had anything to do with them.'

'I said earlier I felt like that fancy navigational device,' I replied. 'I still do. A feature of the instrument is that it accumulates errors and gradually and imperceptibly one strays further from the original true position.'

'So whether or not you carry on with the cruise depends on what Captain Jacobsen says?'

I finished my laced coffee and lit a cigarette. I needed both.

'I also intend to show Captain Jacobsen the knife that killed Holdgate. That killer whale on it has some significance.'

'John, this is a Norwegian ship. Dad recruited the crew from whalermen he'd known in his whaling days. That knife could belong to any of them. What do you intend to do, John!'

Her face was very strained now.

I still temporized. 'You're the owner of the Quest, Linn. Don't forget that.'

'But you're the captain, John.'

I stood up and looked down at her. 'Linn, when I knocked at your door, I had finally decided. As you say, it's my decision, and my decision alone. If I call off the cruise it would be a deathblow to a large part of one of the most ambitious international scientific projects ever planned. Maybe the project is big enough to outweigh the death of one man, even of two men. I wouldn't know about that. I only know that by pushing on I am somehow honouring the memory of a man whom I respected and liked beyond anyone I have met in my life. This cruise was his dream.' I leaned down and kissed her gently. 'And also the dream of someone I love.'

She held me, until at last I looked at my watch and said, 'I'm overdue on the bridge already.'

'Do you have to go, my darling?' she whispered.

My mind was already racing to the cold hard realities beyond her closed door. Tomorrow's burial at sea. All the questions to be asked and to be answered. Captain Jacobsen.

I kissed her again in reply. She said, 'I'm going to dress. No point in trying to go to sleep.'

'When you're up, use the day cabin if you like. You can reach me on the bridge any time you want.'

I shut the door behind me. But I hadn't yet finished with the corridor. There was something I wanted to check in the sick-bay. I wanted to examine the knife in Holdgate's throat more closely in case I couldn't risk Captain Jacobsen's health by showing him the body.

I took the sick-bay key from my pocket where I had put it after Wegger, Petersen and I had stowed the body inside.

I rolled back Holdgate's blanket. I need not have been concerned for Captain Jacobsen.

The knife was gone.