When Eight Bells Toll

TWO

"Calvert?" Hunslett's voice was a barely audible murmur in the darkness.

"Yes." Standing there above me on the Firecrest's deck, he was more imagined than seen against the blackness of the night sky. Heavy clouds had rolled in from the south-west and the last of the stars were gone. Big heavy drops of cold rain were beginning to spatter off the surface of the sea. "Give me a hand to get the dinghy aboard."

"How did it go?"

"Later. This first," I climbed up the accommodation ladder, painter in hand. I had to lift my right leg over the gunwale. Stiff and numb and just beginning to ache again, it could barely take my weight. "And hurry. We can expect company soon."

"So that's the way of it," Hunslett said thoughtfully, "Uncle Arthur will be pleased about this."

I said nothing to that. Our employer, Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason, K.C.B. and most of the rest of the alphabet, wasn't going to be pleased at all. We heaved the dripping dinghy inboard, undamped the outboard and took them both on to the foredeck.

"Get me a couple of waterproof bags," I said. "Then start getting the anchor chain in. Keep it quiet — leave the brake pawl off and use a tarpaulin."

"We're leaving?"

"We would if we had any sense. We're staying. Just get the anchor up and down."

By the time he'd returned with the bags I'd the dinghy deflated and in its canvas cover. I stripped off my aqualung and scuba suit and stuffed them into one of the bags along with the weights, my big-dialled waterproof watch and the combined wrist-compass and depth-gauge. I put the outboard in the other bag, restraining the impulse just to throw the damn thing overboard: an outboard motor was a harmless enough object to have aboard any boat, but we already had one attached to the wooden dinghy hanging from the davits over the stern.

Hunslett had the electric windlass going and the chain coming in steadily. An electric windlass is in itself a pretty noiseless machine: when weighing anchor all the racket comes from four sources — the chain passing through the hawse-pipe, the clacking of the brake pawl over the successive stops, the links passing over the drum itself and the clattering of the chain as it falls into the chain locker. About the first of these we could do nothing: but with the brake pawl off and a heavy tarpaulin smothering the sound from the drum and chain locker, the noise level was surprisingly low. Sound travels far over the surface of the sea, but the nearest anchored boats were almost two hundred yards away — we had no craving for the company of other boats to harbour. At two hundred yards, in Torbay, we felt ourselves uncomfortably close: but the sea-bed shelved fairly steeply away from the little town and our present depth of twenty fathoms was the safe maximum for the sixty fathoms of chain we carried.

I heard the click as Hunslett’s foot stepped on the deck-switch. "She's up and down."

"Put the pawl in for a moment. If that drum slips, I'll have no hands left." I pulled the bags right for'ard, leaned out under the pulpit raft and used lengths of heaving line to secure them to the anchor chain. When the lines were secure I lifted the bags over the side and let them dangle from the chain.

"I'll take the weight," I said. "Lift the chain off the drum — we'll lower it by hand."

Forty fathoms is 240 feet of chain and letting that lot down to the bottom didn't do my back or arms much good at all, and the rest of me was a long way below par before we started. I was pretty close to exhaustion from the night's work, my neck ached fiercely, my leg only badly and I was shivering violently. I know of various ways of achieving a warm rosy glow but wearing only a set of underclothes in the middle of a cold, wet and windy autumn night in the Western Isles is not one of them. But at last the job was done and we were able to go below. If anyone wanted to investigate what lay at the foot of our anchor chain he'd need a steel articulated diving suit.

Hunslett pulled the saloon door to behind us, moved around in the darkness adjusting the heavy velvet curtains then switched on a small table lamp. It didn't give much light but we knew from experience that it didn't show up through the velvet, and advertising the fact that we were up and around in the middle of die night was the last thing I wanted to do.

Hunslett had a dark narrow saturnine face, with a strong jaw, black bushy eyebrows and thick black hair — the kind of face which is so essentially an expression in itself that it rarely shows much else. It was expressionless now and very still.

"You'll have to buy another shirt," he said. "Your collar's too tight. Leaves marks."

I stopped towelling myself and looked in a mirror. Even in that dim light my neck looked a mess. It was badly swollen and discoloured, with four wicked-looking bruises where the thumbs and forefinger joints had sunk deep into the flesh. Blue and green and purple they were, and they looked as if they would be there for a long time to come.

"He got me from behind. He's wasting his time being a criminal, he'd sweep the board at the Olympic weight-lifting. I was lucky. He also wears heavy boots." I twisted around and looked down at my right calf. The bruise was bigger than my fist and if it missed out any of the colours of the rainbow I couldn't offhand think which one. There was a deep red gash across the middle of it and blood was ebbing slowly along its entire length. Hunslett gazed at it with interest.

"If you hadn't been wearing that tight scuba suit, you'd have most like bled to death. I better fix that for you."

"I don't need bandages. What I need is a Scotch. Stop wasting your time. Oh, hell, sorry, yes, you'd better fix it. We can't have our guests sloshing about ankle deep in blood."

"You're very sure we're going to have guests?"

"I half expected to have them waiting on the doorstep when I got back to the Firecrest. We're going to have guests, all right. Whatever our pals aboard the Nantesville may be, they're no fools. They'll have figured out by this time that I could have approached only by dinghy. They'll know damn well that it was no nosey-parker local prowling about the ship -local lads in search of a bit of fun don't go aboard anchored ships in the first place. In the second place the locals wouldn't go near Beul nan Uamh — the mouth of the grave — in daylight, far less at night time. Even the pilot says the place has an evil reputation. And in the third place no local lad would get aboard as I did, behave aboard as I did or leave as I did. The local lad would be dead."

"I shouldn't wonder. And?"

"So we're not locals. We're visitors. We -wouldn't be staying at any hotel or boarding-house — too restricted, couldn't move. Almost certainly we'll have a boat. Now, where would our boat be? Not to the north of Loch Houron for with a forecast promising a south-west Force 6 strengthening to Force 7, no boat is going to be daft enough to hang about a lee shore in that lot. The only holding ground and shallow enough sheltered anchorage in the other direction, down the Sound for forty miles, is in Torbay — and that's only four or five miles from where the Nantesville was lying at the mouth of Loch Houron, Where would you look for us?"

"I'd look for a boat anchored in Torbay. Which gun do you want?"

"I don't want any gun. You don't want any gun. People like us don't carry guns."

"Marine biologists don't carry guns," he nodded. "Employees of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries don't carry guns. Civil Servants are above reproach. So we play it clever. You're the boss."

"I don't feel clever any more. And I'll take long odds that I'm not your boss any more. Not after Uncle Arthur hears what I have to tell him."

"You haven't told me anything yet." He finished tying the bandage round my leg and straightened. "How's that feel?"

I tried it. "Better. Thanks. Better still when you've taken the cork from that bottle. Get into pyjamas or something. People found fully dressed in the middle of the night cause eyebrows to go up." I towelled my head as vigorously as my tired arms would let me. One wet hair on my head and eyebrows wouldn't just be lifting, they'd be disappearing into hairlines. "There isn't much to tell and all of it is bad."

He poured me a large drink, a smaller one for himself, and added water to both. It tasted the way Scotch always does after you've swum and rowed for hours and damn near got yourself killed in the process.

"I got there without trouble. I hid behind Carrara Point till it was dusk and then paddled out to the Bogha Nuadh. I left the dinghy there and swam underwater as far as the stern of the ship. It was the Nantesville all right. Name and flag were different, a mast was gone and the white superstructure was now stone — but it was her all right. Near as dammit didn't make it — it was close to the turn of the tide but it took me thirty minutes against that current. Must be wicked at the full flood or ebb."

"They say it's the worst on the West Coast — worse even than Coirebhreachan."

"I'd rather not be the one to find out. I had to hang on to the stern post for ten minutes before I'd got enough strength back to shin up that rope."

"You took a chance."

"It was near enough dark. Besides," I added bitterly, "there are some precautions intelligent people don't think to take about crazy ones. There were only two or three people in the after accommodation. Just a skeleton crew aboard, seven or eight, no more. All the original crew have vanished completely."

"No sign of them anywhere?"

"No sign. Dead or alive, no sign at all. I had a bit of bad luck. I was leaving the after accommodation to go to the bridge when I passed someone a few feet away. I gave a half wave and grunted something and he answered back, I don't know what. I followed him back to the quarters. He picked up a phone in the crew's mess and I heard him talking to someone, quick and urgent. Said that one of the original crew must have been hiding and was trying to get away. I couldn't stop him — he faced the door as he was talking and he had a gun in his hand. I had to move quickly. I walked to the bridge structure — "

"You what? When you knew they were on to you? Mr. Calvert, you want your bloody head examined."

"Uncle Arthur will put it less kindly. It was the only chance I'd ever have. Besides, if they thought it was only a terrified member of the original crew they wouldn't have been so worried: if this guy had seen me walking around dripping wet in a scuba suit he'd have turned me into a colander. He wasn't sure. On the way for'ard I passed another bloke without incident — he'd left the bridge super-structure before the alarm had been given, I suppose. I didn't stop at the bridge. I went right for'ard and hid behind the winchman's shelter. For about ten minutes there was a fair bit of commotion and a lot of flash-light work around the bridge island then I saw and heard them moving aft — must have thought I was still in the after accommodation.

"I went through all the officers' cabins in the bridge island. No one. One cabin, an engineer's, I think, had smashed furniture and a carpet heavily stained with dry blood. Next door, the captain's bunk had been saturated with blood."

"They'd been warned to offer no resistance."

"I know. Then I found Baker and Delmont."

"So you found them. Baker and Delmont." Hunslett's eyes were hooded, gazing down at the glass in his hand. I wished to God he'd show some expression on that dark face of his.

"Delmont must have made a last-second attempt to send a call for help. They'd been warned not to, except in emergency, so they must have been discovered. He'd been stabbed in the back with a half-inch wood chisel and then dragged into the radio officer's cabin which adjoined the radio office. Some time later

Baker had come in. He was wearing an officer's clothes — some desperate attempt to disguise himself, I suppose. He'd a gun in his hand, but he was looking the wrong way and the gun was pointing the wrong way. The same chisel in the back."

Hunslett poured himself another drink. A much larger one. Hunslett hardly ever drank. He swallowed half of it in one gulp. He said: "And they hadn't all gone aft. They'd left a reception committee."

"They're very clever. They're very dangerous. Maybe we've moved out of our class. Or I have. A one-man reception committee, but when that one man was this man, two would have been superfluous. I know he killed Baker and Delmont. I'll never be so lucky again."

"You got away. Your luck hadn't run out."

And Baker's and Delmont's had. I knew he was blaming me. I knew London would blame me. I blamed myself. I hadn't much option. There was no one else to blame.

"Uncle Arthur," Hunslett said. "Don't you think — "

"The hell with Uncle Arthur. Who cares about Uncle Arthur? How in God's name do you think I feel?" I felt savage and I know I sounded it. For the first time a flicker of expression showed on Hunslett's face, I wasn't supposed to have any feelings.

"Not that," he said. "About the Nantesville. Now that she's been identified as the Nantesville, now we know her new name and flag — what were they, by the way?"

"Alta Fjord. Norwegian. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. We radio Uncle Arthur — "

"And have our guests find us in the engine-room with earphones round our heads. Are you mad?"

"You seem damned sure they'll come."

"I am sure. You too. You said so."

"I agreed this is where they would come. If they come."

"If they come. If they come. Good God, man, for all that they know I was aboard that ship for hours. I may have the names and full descriptions of all of them. As happens I couldn't identify any of them and their names may or may not mean anything. But they're not to know that. For all they know I'm on the blower right now bawling out descriptions to Interpol. The chances are at least even that some of them are on file. They're too good to be little men. Some must be known."

"In that case they'd be too late anyway. The damage would be done."

"Not without the sole witness who could testify against them?"

"I think we'd better have those guns out."

"No."

"You don't blame me for trying?"

"No."

"Baker and Delmont. Think of them."

"I'm thinking of nothing else but them. You don't have to stay."

He set his glass down very carefully. He was really letting himself go to-night, he'd allowed that dark craggy face its second expression in ten minutes and it wasn't a very encouraging one. Then he picked up his glass and grinned.

"You don't know what you're saying," he said kindly. "Your neck — that's what comes from the blood supply to the brain being interrupted. You're not fit to fight off a teddy-bear. Who's going to look after you if they start playing games?"

"I'm sorry,' I said. I meant it. I'd worked with Hunslett maybe ten times in the ten years I'd known him and it had been a stupid thing for me to say. About the only thing Hunslett was incapable of was leaving your side in time of trouble. "You were speaking of Uncle?"

"Yes. We know where the Nantesville is. Uncle could get a Navy boat to shadow her, by radar if — "

"I know where she was. She upped anchor as I left. By dawn she'll be a hundred miles away — in any direction."

"She's gone? We've scared them off? They're going to love this." He sot down heavily, then looked at me. "But we have her new description — "

"I said that didn't matter. By to-morrow she'll have another description. The Hokomaru from Yokohama, with green top-sides, Japanese flag, different masts — "

"An air search. We could — "

"By the time an air search could be organised they'd have twenty thousand square miles of sea to cover. You've heard the forecast. It's bad. Low cloud — and they'd have to fly under the low cloud. Cuts their effectiveness by ninety per cent. And poor visibility and rain. Not a chance in a hundred, not one in a thousand of positive identification. And if they do locate them — if — what then? A friendly wave from the pilot? Not much else he can do."

"The Navy. They could call up the Navy — "

"Call up what Navy? From the Med? Or the Far East? The Navy has very few ships left and practically none in those parts. By the time any naval vessel could get to the scene it would be night again and the Nantesville to hell and gone. Even if a naval ship did catch up with it, what then? Sink it with gunfire — with maybe the twenty-five missing crew members of the Nantesville locked up in the hold?"

"A boarding party?"

"With the same twenty-five ex-crew members lined up on deck with pistols at their backs and Captain Imrie and his thugs politely asking the Navy boys what their next move was going to be?"

"I'll get into my pyjamas," Hunslett said tiredly. At the doorway he paused and turned. "If the Nantesville had gone, her crew — the new crew — have gone too and we'll be having no visitors after all. Had you thought of that?"

"No."

"I don't really believe it either."

They came at twenty past four in the morning. They came in a very calm and orderly and law-abiding and official fashion, they stayed for forty minutes and by the time they had left I still wasn't sure whether they were our men or not.

Hunslett came into my small cabin, starboard side forward, switched on the light and shook me. "Wake up," he said loudly. "Come on. Wake up."

I was wide awake. I hadn't closed an eye since I'd lain down. I groaned and yawned a bit without overdoing it then opened a bleary eye. There was no one behind him.

"What is it? What do you want?" A pause. "What the hell's up? It's just after four in the morning."

"Don't ask me what's up," Hunslett said irritably. "Police. Just come aboard. They say it's urgent."

"Police? Did you say, 'police'?"

"Yes. Come on, now. They're waiting."

"Police? Aboard our boat? What — "

"Oh, for God's sake! How many more night-caps did you have last night after I went to bed? Police. Two of them and two customs. Its urgent, they say."

"It better bloody well be urgent. In the middle of the bloody night. Who do they think we are — escaped train robbers? Haven't you told them who we are? Oh, all right, all right, all right! I'm coming."

Hunslett left, and thirty seconds afterwards I joined him in the saloon. Four men sat there, two police officers and two customs officials. They didn't look a very villainous bunch to me. The older, bigger policeman got to his feet. A tall, burly, brown-faced sergeant in his late forties, he looked me over with a cold eye, looked at the near-empty whisky bottle with the two unwashed glasses on the table, then looked back at me. He didn't like wealthy yachtsmen. He didn't like wealthy yachtsmen who drank too much at night-time and were bleary-eyed, bloodshot and tousle-haired at the following crack of dawn. He didn't like wealthy effete yachtsmen who wore red silk dragon Chinese dressing-gowns with a Paisley scarf to match tied negligently round the neck. I didn't like them very much myself, especially the Paisley scarf, much in favour though it was with the yachting fraternity: but I had to have something to conceal those bruises on my neck.

"Are you the owner of this boat, sir?" the sergeant inquired. An unmistakable West Highland voice and a courteous one, but it took him all his time to get his tongue round the "sir."

"If you would tell me what makes it any of your damn business," I said unpleasantly, "maybe I'll answer that and maybe I won't. A private boat is the same as a private house, Sergeant. You have to have a warrant before you shove your way in. Or don't you know the law?"

"He knows the law," one of the customs men put in. A small dark character, smooth-shaven at four in the morning, with a persuasive voice, not West Highland. "Be reasonable. This is not the sergeant's job. We got him out of bed almost three hours ago. He's just obliging us."

I ignored him. I said to the sergeant: "This is the middle of die night in a lonely Scottish bay. How would you fed if four unidentified men came aboard in the middle of the night?" I was taking a chance on that one, but a fair chance. If they were who I thought they might be and if I were who they thought I might be, then I'd never talk like that. But an innocent man would, "Any means of identifying yourselves?"

"Identifying myself?" The sergeant stared coldly at me. "I don't have to identify myself. Sergeant MacDonald. I've been in charge of the Torbay police station for eight years. Ask any man in Torbay. They all know me." If he was who he claimed to be this was probably the first time in his life that anyone had asked him for identification. He nodded to the seated policeman. "Police-Constable MacDonald."

"Your son?" The resemblance was unmistakable. "Nothing like keeping it in the family, eh, Sergeant?" I didn't know whether to believe him or not, but I felt I'd been an irate householder long enough. A degree less truculence was in order. "And customs, eh? I know the law about you, too. No search warrants for you boys. I believe the police would like your powers. Go anywhere you like and ask no one's permission beforehand. That's it, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir." It was the younger customs man who answered. Medium height, fair hair, running a little to fat, Belfast accent, dressed like the other in blue overcoat, peaked hat, brown gloves, smartly creased trousers. "We hardly ever do, though. We prefer co-operation. We like to ask."

"And you'd like to ask to search this boat, is that it?" Hunslett said.

"Yes, sir."

"Why?" I asked. Puzzlement now in my voice. And in my mind. I just didn't know what I had on my hands. "If we're all going to be so courteous and co-operative, could we have any explanation?"

"No reason in the world why not, sir." The older customs man was almost apologetic. "A truck with contents valued at £12,000 was hi-jacked on the Ayrshire coast last night -night before last, that is, now. In the news this evening. From information received, we know it was transferred to a small boat. We think it came north."

"Why?"

"Sorry, sir. Confidential. This is the third port we've visited and the thirteenth boat — the fourth in Torbay — that we've been on an the past fifteen hours. We've been kept on the run, I can tell you." An easy friendly voice, a voice that said: "You don't really think we suspect you. We've a job to do, that's all."

"And you're searching all boats that have come up from the south. Or you think have come from there. Fresh arrivals, anyway. Has it occurred to you that any boat with hi-jacked goods on board wouldn't dare pass through the Crinan canal? Once you're in there, you're trapped. For four hours. So he'd have to come round the Mull of Kintyre. We've been here since this afternoon. It would take a pretty fast boat to get up here in that time."

"You've got a pretty fast boat here, sir," Sergeant MacDonald said. I wondered how the hell they managed it, from the Western Isles to the East London docks every sergeant in the country had the same wooden voice, the same wooden face, the same cold eye. Must be something to do with the uniform, I ignored him."

"What are we — um — supposed to have stolen?"

"Chemicals. It was an I.C.I, truck."

"Chemicals?" I looked at Hunslett, grinned, then turned back to the customs officer. "Chemicals, eh? We're loaded with them. But not £12,000 worth, I'm afraid."

There was a brief silence. MacDonald said: "Would you mind explaining, sir?"

"Not at all." I lit a cigarette, the little mind enjoying its big moment, and smiled. "This is a government boat, Sergeant MacDonald. I thought you would have seen the flag. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. We're marine biologists. Our after cabin is a floating laboratory. Look at our library here." Two shelves loaded with technical tomes. "And if you've still any doubt left I can give you two numbers, one in Glasgow, one in London, that will establish our bona fides. Or phone the lock-master in the Crinan sea-basin. We spent last night there."

"Yes, sir." The lack of impression I had made on the sergeant was total. "Where did you go in your dinghy this evening?"

"I beg your pardon, Sergeant?"

"You were seen to leave this boat in a black rubber dinghy about five o'clock this evening." I'd heard of icy fingers playing up and down one's spine but it wasn't fingers I felt then it was a centipede with a hundred icy boots on. "You went out into the Sound. Mr. Mcllroy, the postmaster, saw you."

"I hate to impugn the character of a fellow civil servant but he must have been drunk." Funny how an icy feeling could make you sweat. "I haven't got a black rubber dinghy, I've never owned a black rubber dinghy. You just get out your little magnifying glass, Sergeant, and if you can find a black rubber dinghy I'll make you a present of the brown wooden dinghy, which is the only one we have on the Firecrest."

The wooden expression cracked a little. He wasn't so certain now. "So you weren't out?"

"I was out. In our own dinghy. I was just round the comer of Garve Island there, collecting some marine samples from the Sound. I can show them to you in the after cabin. We're not here on holiday, you know."

"No offence, no offence." I was a member of the working classes now, not a plutocrat, and he could afford to thaw a little. "Mr. Mcllroy's eyesight isn't what it was and everything looks black against the setting sun. You don't look the type, I must say, who'd land on the shores of the Sound and bring down the telephone wires to the mainland."

The centipede started up again and broke into a fast gallop. Cut off from the mainland. How very convenient for somebody. I didn't spend any time wondering who had brought the wires down — it had been no act of God, I was sure of that.

"Did you mean what I thought you to mean, Sergeant?" I said slowly. "That you suspected me — "

"We can't take chances, sir." He was almost apologetic now. Not only was I a working man, I was a man working for the Government. All men working for the Government are ipso facto respectable and trustworthy citizens.

"But you won't mind,if we take a little look round?" The dark-haired customs officer was even more apologetic. "The lines are down and, well, you know…" His voice trailed off and he smiled. "If you were the hijackers — I appreciate now that it's a chance in a million, but still — and if we didn't search — well, we'd be out of a job to-morrow. Just a formality."

"I wouldn't want to see that happen, Mr. -ah-"

"Thomas. Thank you. Your ship's papers? Ah, thank you," He handed them to the younger man. "Let's see now. Ah, the wheelhouse. Could Mr. Durran here use the wheelhouse to make copies? Won't take five minutes."

"Certainly. Wouldn't he be more comfortable here?"

"We're modernised now, sir. Portable photo-copier. Standard on the job. Has to be dark. Won't take five minutes. Can we begin in this laboratory of yours?"

A formality, he'd said. Well, he was right there, as a search it was the least informal thing I'd ever come across. Five minutes after he'd gone to the wheelhouse Durran came aft to join us and he and Thomas went through the Firecrest as if they were looking for the Kohinoor. To begin with, at least. Every piece of mechanical and electrical equipment in the after cabin had to be explained to them. They looked in every locker and cupboard. They rummaged through the ropes and fenders in the large stem locker aft of the laboratory and I thanked God I hadn't followed my original idea of stowing the dinghy, motor and scuba gear in there. They even examined the after toilet. As if I'd be careless enough to drop the Kohinoor in there.

They spent most time of all in the engine-room. It was worth examining. Everything looked brand new, and gleamed. Two big 100h.p. diesels, diesel generator, radio generator, hot and cold water pumps, central heating plant; big oil and water tanks and the two long rows of lead-acid batteries. Thomas seemed especially interested in the batteries.

"You carry a lot of reserve there, Mr. Petersen," he said. He'd learnt my name by now, even though it wasn't the one I'd been christened with. "Why all the power?"

"We haven't even got enough. Care to start those two engines by hand? We have eight electric motors in the lab — and the only time they're used, in harbour, we can't run either the engines or generators to supply juice. Too much interference. A constant drain." I was ticking off my fingers. "Then there's the central heating, hot and cold water pumps, radar, radio, automatic steering, windlass, power winch for the dinghy, echo-sounder, navigation lights — "

"You win, you win." He'd become quite friendly by this time. "Boats aren't really in my line. Let's move forward, shall we?"

The remainder of the inspection, curiously, didn't take long.

In the saloon I found that Hunslett had persuaded the Torbay police force to accept the hospitality of the Firecrest. Sergeant MacDonald hadn't exactly become jovial. But he was much more human than when he'd come on board. Constable MacDonald, I noticed, didn't seem so relaxed. He looked positively glum. Maybe he didn't approve of his old man consorting with potential criminals.

If the examination of the saloon was cursory, that of the two forward cabins was positively perfunctory. Back in the saloon, I said: "Sorry I was a bit short, gentlemen. I like my sleep. A drink before you go?"

"Well." Thomas smiled. "We don't want to be rude either. Thank you."

Five minutes and they were gone. Thomas didn't even glance at the wheelhouse — Durran had been there, of course. He had a quick look at one of the deck lockers but didn't bother about the others. We were in the clear. A civil good-bye on both sides and they were gone. Their boat, a big indeterminate shape in the darkness, seemed to have, plenty of power.

"Odd," I said.

"What's odd?"

"That boat. Any idea what it was like?"

"How could I?" Hunslett was testy. He was as short of sleep as I was. "It was pitch dark."

"That's just the point. A gentle glow in their wheelhouse — you couldn't even see what that was like — and no more. No deck lights, no interior lights, no navigation lights even."

"Sergeant MacDonald has been looking out over this harbour for eight years. Do you need light to find your way about your own living-room after dark?"

"I haven't got twenty yachts and cruisers in my living-room swinging all over the place with wind and tide. And wind and tide doesn't alter my own course when I'm crossing my living-room. There are only three boats in the harbour carrying anchor lights. He'll have to use something to see where he's going."

And he did. From the direction of the receding sound of engines a light stabbed out into the darkness. A five-inch searchlight, I would have guessed. It picked up a small yacht riding at anchor less than a hundred yards ahead of it, altered to starboard, picked up another, altered to port, then swung back on course again.

"'Odd ' was the word you used," Hunslett murmured, "Quite a good word, too, in the circumstances. And what are we to think of the alleged Torbay police force?''

"You talked to the sergeant longer than I did. When I was aft with Thomas and Durran."

"I'd like to think otherwise," Hunslett said inconsequentially. "It would make things easier, in a way. But I can't. He's a genuine old-fashioned cop and a good one, too. I've met too many. So have you."

"A good cop and an honest one," I agreed. "This is not his line of country and he was fooled. It is our line of country and we were fooled. Until now, that is."

"Speak for yourself."

"Thomas made one careless remark. An off-beat remark. You didn't hear it — we were in the engine-room." I shivered, maybe it was the cold night wind. "It meant nothing — not until I saw that they didn't want their boat recognised again. He said: 'Boats aren't really in my line' Probably thought he'd been asking too many questions and wanted to reassure me. Boats not in his line — a customs officer and boats not in his line. They only spend their lives aboard boats, examining boats, that's all. They spend their lives looking and poking in so many odd corners and quarters that they know more about boats than the designers themselves. Another thing, did you notice how sharply dressed they were? A credit to Carnaby Street."

"Customs officers don't usually go around in oil-stained overalls."

"They've been living in those clothes for twenty-four hours. This is the what — the thirteenth boat they've searched in that time. Would you still have knife-edged creases to your pants after that lot? Or would you say they'd only just taken them from the hangers and put them on?"

"What else did they say? What else did they do?" Hunslett spoke so quietly that I could hear the note of the engines of the customs' boat fall away sharply as their searchlight lit up the low-water stone pier, half a mile away. "Take an undue interest in anything?"

"They took an undue interest in everything. Wait a minute, though, wait a minute, Thomas seemed particularly intrigued by the batteries, by the large amount of reserve electrical power we had."

"Did he now? Did he Indeed? And did you notice how lightly our two customs friends swung aboard their launch. when leaving?"

"They'll have done it a thousand times."

"Both of them had their hand a free. They weren't carrying anything. They should have been carrying something."

"The photo-copier. I'm getting old."

"The photo-copier. Standard equipment my ruddy foot. So if our fair-haired pal wasn't busy photo-copying he was busy doing something else."

We moved inside the wheelhouse. Hunslett selected the larger screw-driver from the tool-rack beside the echo-sounder and had the face-plate off our R.T.D./D.F. set inside sixty seconds. He looked at the interior for five seconds, looked at me for the same length of time, then started screwing the face-plate back into position. One thing was certain, we wouldn't be using that transmitter for a long time to come.

I turned away and stared out through the wheelhouse windows into the darkness. The wind was still rising, the black sea gleamed palely as the whitecaps came marching in from the south-west, the Firecrest snubbed sharply on her anchor chain and, with the wind and the tide at variance, she was beginning to corkscrew quite noticeably now. I felt desperately tired. But my eyes were stilt working. Hunslett offered me a cigarette. I didn't -want one, but I took one. Who knew, it might even help me to think. And then I had caught his wrist and was staring down at his palm.

"Well, well," I said. "The cobbler should stick to his last."

"He what?"

"Wrong proverb. Can't think of the right one. A good workman uses only his own tools. Our pal with the penchant for smashing valves and condensers should have remembered that. No wonder my neck was twitching when Durran was around. How did you cut yourself?"

"I didn't cut myself."

"I know. But there's a smear of blood on your paten. He's been taking lessons from Peter Sellers, I shouldn't wonder. Standard southern English on the Nantesville, northern Irish on the Firecrest. I wonder how many other accents he has up his sleeve — behind his Larynx. I should say. And I thought he was running to a little fat. He's running to a great deal of muscle. You noticed he never took his gloves off, even when he had that drink?"

"I'm the best noticer you ever saw. Beat me over the head with a club and I'll notice anything." He sounded bitter. "Why didn't they clobber us? You, anyway? The star witness?"

"Maybe we have moved out of our class. Two reasons. They couldn't do anything with the cops there, genuine cops as we've both agreed, not unless they attended to the cops too. Only a madman would deliberately kill a cop and whatever those boys may lack it isn't sanity."

"But why cops in the first place?"

"Aura of respectability. Cops are above suspicion. When a uniformed policeman shoves his uniformed cap above your gunwale in the dark watches of the night, you don't whack him over the head with a marline-spike. You invite him aboard. All others you might whack, especially if we had the bad consciences we might have been supposed to have."

"Maybe. It's arguable. And the second point?"

"They took a big chance, a desperate chance, almost, with Durran. He was thrown to the wolves to see what the reaction would be, whether either of us recognised him."

"Why Durran?"

"I didn't tell you. I shone a torch in his face. The face didn't register, just a white blur with screwed-up eyes half-hidden behind an upflung hand. I was really looking lower down, picking the right spot to kick him. But they weren't to know that. They wanted to find out if we would recognise him. We didn't. If we had done we'd either have started throwing the crockery at him or yelped for the cops to arrest them — if we're against them then we're with the cops. But we didn't. Not a nicker of recognition. Nobody's as good as that. I defy any man in the world to meet up again in the same night with a man who has murdered two other people and nearly murdered himself without at least twitching an eyebrow. So the immediate heat is off, the urgent necessity to do us in has become less urgent. It's a safe bet that if we didn't recognise Durran, then we recognised nobody on the Nantesville and so we won't be burning up the lines to Interpol"

"We're in the clear?"

"I wish to God we were. They're on to us."

"But you said — "

"I don't know how I know," I said irritably. "I know. They went through the after end of the Firecrest like a Treble Chance winner hunting for -the coupon he's afraid he's forgotten to post. Then half-way through the engine-room search -click! — Just like that and they weren't interested any more. At least Thomas wasn't. He'd found out something. You saw him afterwards in the saloon, the fore cabins and the upper deck. He couldn't have cared less."

"The batteries?"

"No. He was satisfied with my explanation. I could tell. I don't know why, I only know I'm sure."

"So they'll be back."

"They'll be back."

"I get the guns out now?"

"There's no hurry. Our friends will be sure we can't communicate with anyone. The mainland boat calls here only twice a week. It came to-day and won't be back for four days. The lines to the mainland are down and if I thought for a moment they would stay down. I should be back in kinder-garten. Our transmitter is out. Assuming there are no carrier pigeons in Torbay, what's the only remaining means of communication with the mainland?"

"There's the Shangri-la." The Shangri-la, the nearest craft to ours, was white, gleaming, a hundred and twenty feet long and wouldn't have left her owner a handful of change from a quarter of a million pounds when he'd bought her, "She'll have a couple of thousand quid's worth of radio equipment aboard. Then there are two maybe three yachts big enough to carry transmitters. The rest will carry only receivers, if that."

"And how many transmitters in Torbay harbour will still be in operating condition to-morrow?"

"One."

"One. Our friends will attend to the rest. They'll have to. We can't warn anyone. We can't give ourselves away."

"The insurance companies can stand it." He glanced at his watch. "This would be a nice time to wake up Uncle Arthur."

"I can't put it off any longer." I wasn't looking forward to talking to Uncle Arthur.

Hunslett reached for a heavy coat, pulled it on, made for the door and stopped, "I thought I'd take a walk on the upper deck. While you're talking. Just in case. A second thought — I'd better have that gun now. Thomas said they'd already checked three boats in the harbour. MacDonald didn't contradict him, so it was probably true. Maybe there are no serviceable transmitters left in Torbay now. Maybe our friends just dumped the cops ashore and are corning straight back for us."

"Maybe. But those yachts are smaller than the Firecrest. Apart from us, there's only one with a separate wheel-house. The others will carry transmitters in the saloon cabin. Lots of them sleep in their saloon cabins. The owners would have to be banged on the head first before the radios could be attended to. They couldn't do that with MacDonald around."

"You'd bet your pension on that? Maybe MacDonald didn't always go aboard."

"I'll never live to collect my pension. But maybe you'd better have that gun."

The Firecrest was just over three years old. The Southampton boatyard and marine-radio firm that had combined to build her had done so under conditions of sworn secrecy to a design provided by Uncle Arthur. Uncle Arthur had not designed her himself although he had never said so to the few people who knew of the existence of the boat. He'd pinched the idea from a Japanese-designed Indonesian-owned fishing craft that had been picked up with engine failure off the Malaysian coast. Only one engine had failed though two were installed, but still she had been not under command, an odd circumstance that had led the alert Engineer Lieutenant on the frigate that had picked her up to look pretty closely at her: the net result of his investigation, apart from giving this splendid inspiration to Uncle Arthur, was that the crew still languished in a Singapore prisoner of war camp.

The Firecrest's career had been chequered and inglorious. She had cruised around the Eastern Baltic for some time, without achieving anything, until the authorities in Memel and Leningrad, getting tired of the sight of her, had declared the Firecrest persona non grata and sent her back to England. Uncle Arthur had been furious, especially as he had to account to a parsimonious Under-Secretary for the considerable expense involved. The Waterguard had tried their hand with it at catching smugglers and returned it without thanks. No smugglers. Now for the first time ever it was going to justify its existence and in other circumstances Uncle Arthur would have been delighted. When he heard what I had to tell him he would have no difficulty in restraining his joy.

What made the Firecrest unique was that while she had two screws and two propeller shafts, she had only one engine. Two engine casings, but only one engine, even although that one engine was a special job fitted with an underwater by-pass exhaust valve. A simple matter of disengaging the fuel pump coupling and unscrewing four bolts on top — the rest were dummies — enabled the entire head of the diesel starboard engine to be lifted clear away, together with the fuel lines and injectors. With the assistance of the seventy foot telescopic radio mast housed inside our aluminium foremast, the huge gleaming transmitter that took up eighty per cent of the space inside the starboard engine casing could have sent a signal to the moon, if need be: as Thomas had observed, we had power and to spare. As it happened I didn't want to send a signal to the moon, just to Uncle Arthur's combinex office and home in Knightsbridge.

The other twenty per cent of space was taken up with a motley collection of material that even the Assistant Commissioner in New Scotland Yard wouldn't have regarded without a thoughtful expression on his face. There were some packages of prefabricated explosives with amatol, primer and chemical detonator combined in one neat unit with a miniature timing device that ranged from five seconds to five minutes, complete with sucker clamps. There was a fine range of burglar's house-breaking tools, bunches of skeleton keys, several highly sophisticated listening devices, including one that could be shot from a Very-type pistol, several tubes of various harmless-looking tablets which were alleged, when dropped in some unsuspecting character's drink, to induce unconsciousness for varying periods, four pistols and a box of ammunition. Anyone who was going to use that lot in one operation was in for a busy time indeed. Two of the pistols were Lugers, two were 4.25 German Lilliputs, the smallest really effective automatic pistol on the market The Lilliput had the great advantage that it could be concealed practically anywhere on your person, even upside down in a spring-loaded clip in your lower left sleeve — if, that was, you didn't get your suits cut in Carnaby Street.

Hunslett lifted one of the Lugers from its clamp, checked the loading indicator and left at once. It wasn't that he was imagining that he could already hear stealthy footsteps on the upper deck, he just didn't want to be around when Uncle Arthur came on the air. I didn't blame him. I didn't really want to be around then either.

I pulled out the two insulated rubber cables, fitted the powerfully spring-loaded saw-toothed metal clamps on to the battery terminals, hung on a pair of earphones, turned on the set, pulled another switch that actuated the call-up and waited. I didn't have to tune in, the transmitter was permanently pre-set, and pre-set on a V.H.F. frequency that would have cost the licence of any ham operator who dared wander anywhere near it for transmission purposes.

The red receiver warning light came on. I reached down and adjusted the magic eye control until the green fans met in the middle.

"This is station SPFX," a voice came, "Station SPFX."

"Good morning. This is Caroline. May I speak to the manager, please?"

"Will you wait, please?" This meant that Uncle Arthur was in bed. Uncle Arthur was never at his best on rising. Three minutes passed and the earphones came to life again.

"Good morning, Caroline. This is Annabelle."

"Good morning. Location 481, 281." You wouldn't find those references in any Ordnance Survey Map, there weren't a dozen maps in existence with them. But Uncle Arthur had one. And so had I.

There was a pause, then: "I have you, Caroline. Proceed."

"I located the missing vessel this afternoon. Four or five miles north-west of here. I went on board to-night."

"You did what, Caroline?"

"Went on board. The old crew has gone home. There's a new crew aboard. A smaller crew."

"You located Betty and Dorothy?" Despite the fact that we both had scramblers fitted to our radio phones, making intelligible eavesdropping impossible, Uncle Arthur always insisted that we spoke in a roundabout riddle fashion and used code names for his employees and himself. Girls' names for our surnames, initials to match. An irritating foible, but one that we had to observe. He was Annabelle, I was Caroline, Baker was Betty, Delmont, Dorothy and Hunslett, Harriet. It sounded like a series of Caribbean hurricane warnings.

"I found them." I took a deep breath. "They won't be coming home again, Annabelle."

"They won't be coming home again," he repeated mechanically. He was silent for so long that I began to think that he had gone off the air. Then he came again, his voice empty, remote. "I warned you of this, Caroline."

"Yes, Annabelle, you warned me of this."

"And the vessel?"

"Gone."

"Gone where?"

"I don't know. Just gone. North, I suppose."

"North, you suppose." Uncle Arthur never raised his voice, when he went on it was as calm and impersonal as ever, but the sudden disregard of his own rules about circumlocution betrayed the savage anger in his mind. "North where? Iceland? A Norwegian fjord? To effect a trans-shipment of cargo anywhere in a 'million square miles between the mid-Atlantic and the Barents Sea? And you lost her. After all the time, the trouble, the planning, the expense, you've lost her!" He might have spared me that bit about the planning, it had been mine all the way. "And Betty and Dorothy." The last words showed he'd taken control of himself again.

"Yes, Annabelle, I've lost her." I could feel the slow anger in myself. "And there's worse than that, if you want to listen to it."

"I'm listening."

I told him the rest and at the end of the he said: "I see. You've lost the vessel. You've lost Betty and Dorothy. And now our friends know about you, the one vital element of secrecy is gone for ever and every usefulness and effectiveness you might ever have had is completely negated." A pause. "I shall expect you in my office at nine p.m. to-night. Instruct Harriet to take the boat back to base."

"Yes, sir." The hell with his Annabelle. "I had expected that. I've failed. I've let you down. I'm being pulled off."

"Nine o'clock to-night, Caroline. I'll be waiting."

"You'll have a long wait, Annabelle."

"And what might you mean by that?" If Uncle Arthur had had a low silky menacing voice then he'd have spoken those words in a low silky menacing voice. But he hadn't, he'd only this flat level monotone and it carried infinitely more weight and authority than any carefully modulated theatrical voice that had ever graced a stage.

"There are no planes to this place, Annabelle. The mail-boat doesn't call for another four days. The weather's breaking down and I wouldn't risk our boat to try to get to the mainland. I'm stuck here for the time being, I'm afraid."

"Do you take me for a nincompoop, sir?" Now he was at it. "Go ashore this morning. An air-sea rescue helicopter will pick you up at noon. Nine p-m. At my office. Don't keep me waiting."

This, then, was it. But one last try. "Couldn't you give me another twenty-four hours, Annabelle?"

"Now you're being ridiculous. And wasting my time. Good-bye."

"I beg of you, sir."

"I'd thought better of you than that. Good-bye."

"Good-bye. We may meet again sometime. It's not likely. Good-bye."

I switched the radio off, lit a cigarette and waited. The call-up came through in half a minute. I waited another half-minute and switched on. I was very calm. The die was cast and I didn't give a damn.

"Caroline? Is that you, Caroline?" I could have sworn to a note of agitation in his voice. This was something for the record books.

"Yes."

"What did you say? At the end there?"

"Good-bye. You said good-bye. I said good-bye."

"Don't quibble with me, sir! You said — "

"If you want me aboard that helicopter," I said, "you'll have to send a guard with the pilot. An armed guard. I hope they're good. I've got a Luger, and you know

I'm good. And if I have to kill anyone and go into court, then you'll have to stand there beside me because there's no single civil action or criminal charge that even you, with all your connections, can bring against me that would justify the sending of armed men to apprehend me, an innocent man. Further, I am no longer in your employment. The terms of my civil service contract state clearly that I can resign at any moment, provided that I am not actively engaged on an operation at that moment. You've pulled me off, you've recalled me to London. My resignation will be on your desk as soon as the mail can get through. Baker and Delmont weren't your friends. They were my friends. They were my friends ever since I joined the service. You have the temerity to sit there and lay all the blame for their deaths on my shoulders when you know damn well that every operation must have your final approval, and now you have the final temerity to deny me a one last chance to square accounts. I'm sick of your damned soulless service. Good-bye."

"Now wait a moment, Caroline." There was a cautious, almost placatory note to his voice. "No need to go off half-cocked." I was sure that no one had ever talked to Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason like that before but he didn't seem particularly upset about it. He had the cunning of a fox, that infinitely agile and shrewd mind would be examining and discarding possibilities with the speed of a computer, he'd be wondering whether I was playing a game and if so how far he could play it with me without making it impossible for me to retreat from the edge of the precipice. Finally he said quietly: "You wouldn't want to hang around there just to shed tears. You're on to something."

"Yes, sir, I'm on to something." I wondered what in the name of God I was on to.

"I'll give you twenty-four hours, Caroline."

"Forty-eight."

"Forty-eight. And then you return to London. I have your word?"

"I promise."

"And Caroline?"

"Sir?"

"I didn't care for your way of talking there. I trust we never have a repetition of it"

"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

"Forty-eight hours. Report to me at noon and midnight." A click. Uncle Arthur was gone.

The false dawn was in the sky when I went on deck. Cold heavy slanting driving rain was churning up the foam-flecked sea. The Firecrest, pulling heavily on her anchor chain, was swinging slowly through an arc of forty degrees, corkscrewing quite heavily now on the outer arc of the swing, pitching in the centre of them. She was snubbing very heavily on the anchor and I wondered uneasily how long the lengths of heaving line securing the dinghy, outboard and scuba gear to the chain could stand up to this sort of treatment.

Hunslett was abaft the saloon, huddling in what little shelter it afforded. He looked up at my approach and said: "What do you make of that?" He pointed to the palely gleaming shape of the Shangri-la, one moment on our quarter, the next dead astern as we swung on our anchor. Lights were burning brightly in the fore part of her superstructure, where the wheelhouse would be.

"Someone with insomnia," I said. "Or checking to see if the anchor is dragging. What do you think it is — our recent guests laying about the Shangri-la radio installation with crow-bars? Maybe they leave lights on all night."

"Came on just ten minutes ago. And look, now — they're out. Funny. How did you get on with Uncle?"

"Badly. Fired me, then changed his mind. We have forty-eight hours."

"'Forty-eight hours? What are you going to do in forty-eight hours?"

"God knows. Have some sleep first. You too. Too much light in the sky for callers now."

Passing through the saloon, Hunslett said, apropos of nothing: "I've been wondering. What did you make of P.C. MacDonald? The young one."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, glum, downcast. Heavy weight on his shoulders."

"Maybe he's like me. Maybe he doesn't like getting up in the middle of the night. Maybe he has girl trouble and if he has I can tell you that P.C. MacDonald's love-life is the least of my concerns. Good night."

I should have listened to Hunslett more. For Hunslett's sake.