Circus (12 page)

Wherry found his cigarettes, lit one, resumed his seat, picked up the phones and was about to replace them on his head when Henry pushed the door wide and stepped inside. Wherry swung round, his eyes wide.

Henry said: ‘I'd like to have that recorder if you don't mind, Wherry.'

‘Mr Wrinfield!'

‘Yes, Mr Wrinfield. Surprised? The recorder, Wherry.' Involuntarily, as it seemed, Wherry switched his glance to a spot above Henry's left shoulder and Henry laughed. ‘Sorry, Wherry, but that's been done before.'

Henry heard the last sound he was ever to hear, an almost soundless swish in the air behind him. His ears registered it for the fleeting fraction of a second but his body had no time to react. His legs crumpled and Wherry caught him just as he struck the deck.

‘Didn't you hear me?' Maria's voice was still colourless, without expression. ‘What's prison, what's anything, if you're dead? Can't you think of me? All right, all right, so I'm being selfish, but can't you think of me?'

‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!' He'd intended his voice to be harsh or at least cold but it sounded neither harsh nor cold to him. ‘We arrive in Crau on a Thursday and leave on the following Wednesday – it's the longest stop-over on the tour. We have shows Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.
Sunday is free. So on Sunday we hire a car and have ourselves a little excursion into the country. I don't know how far we'll be allowed to go, I believe restrictions have been relaxed, but it doesn't matter. We can always travel around in ever narrowing circles. What does matter – and this will have to be after dusk – is that on the way back we reconnoitre Lubylan and see if they have guards patrolling outside. If there are, I'll need your help.'

‘
Please
give up this crazy idea, Bruno. Please.'

‘When I'm climbing up the south side of the research building you'll be standing at the corner of the south lane and the main west street. This, I didn't mention, will be after the last show on Tuesday night. The hired car, which I trust will be comprehensively insured, will be parked a few feet away in the main street. The windows will be open and you'll have a small can of gasoline ready on the front seat. If you see a guard approaching, reach for the can, pour some fuel, not too much, on the front and rear upholstery, throw in a lighted match and stand smartly back. This will not only distract all attention but also the blaze will cast such a heavy shadow round the corner that I should be able to climb in almost complete darkness. I'm afraid you could be caught and questioned but the combination of Mr Wrinfield and Dr Harper should secure your release.' He considered this for a moment. ‘On the other hand it may not.'

‘You're quite mad. Quite.'

‘Too late to change my spots.' He stood up and she with him. ‘Must get in touch with Dr Harper now.'

She reached up and locked her fingers round the back of his neck. Her voice reflected the misery in her face.

‘Please. Please, Bruno. Just for me. Please.'

He put his hands on her forearms but not to pull the fingers apart. He said: ‘Look, my ladylove, we're only
supposed
to be falling in love.' His voice was gentle. ‘This way there's a chance.'

She said dully: ‘Either way you're a dead man.'

Halfway to his stateroom Bruno found a phone and called Dr Harper. Harper was eventually located in the dining saloon. Bruno said: ‘My ankle's acting up again.'

‘Ten minutes and I'll be across.'

And in ten minutes' time Harper was in the stateroom as promised. He made free of Bruno's liquor cabinet, made himself at armchair ease and heard out Bruno's account of his conversation with Maria. At the end, and after due thought, he said: ‘I'd say it gives you at least a fighting chance. Better than mine, I must admit. When do you propose to carry this into effect?'

‘The final decision is, of course, yours. I'd thought of making the reconnaissance on Sunday and making the entry on Tuesday night. Late Tuesday night. That seems like the best plan, the best time, for we will be leaving the following
day and that will give the police less time for ques tioning if questioning there will be.'

‘Agreed.'

‘If we have to make a break for it – you have escape plans?'

‘We have. But they're not finalized yet. I'll let you know when they are.'

‘Coming via your little transceiver? Remember you promised to show me that some time.'

‘I shall. I've got to – I told you. I'll do three things at one time, show you the transceiver, give you the guns and give you the escape plans. I'll let you know when. What does Maria think of your idea?'

‘A marked lack of enthusiasm. But then she was hardly over the moon about yours either. But, however unwillingly, she'll co-operate.' Bruno stopped and looked around him in some puzzlement.

Harper said: ‘Something's wrong?'

‘Not necessarily wrong. But the ship's slowing down. Can't you hear it? Can't you feel it? The engine revolutions have dropped right away. Why should a ship stop – well, anyway, slow down – in the middle of the Mediterranean? Well, I suppose we'll find out in good enough time.'

They found out immediately. The door was unceremoniously thrown open, with a force sufficient to send it juddering on its hinges. Tesco Wrinfield almost ran into the room.

His face was grey, his breathing heavy and short at the same time. He said: ‘Henry's missing. He's missing! We can't find him anywhere.'

Bruno said: ‘Is that why the
Carpentaria
is slowing down?'

‘We've been searching everywhere.' He gulped down the glass of brandy which Harper had handed to him. ‘The crew has searched, is still searching everywhere. There's just no trace of him. Vanished, just vanished.'

Harper was soothing. He glanced at his watch. ‘Come on, now, Mr Wrinfield, that couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes ago. And this is a very big ship.'

‘With a very big crew,' Bruno said. ‘They have a standardized routine for this sort of thing – searching for a missing passenger, that is. From the lifeboats to the hold they can cover every conceivable area in less time than you would believe possible.' He turned to the distraught Wrinfield. ‘Sorry I can't offer you any comfort, sir – but is the captain slowing down so as not to get too far away from the place where your nephew
may
have fallen overboard?'

‘I think so.' Wrinfield listened. ‘We're picking up speed, aren't we?'

‘And turning,' Bruno said. ‘I'm afraid that means, sir, that the captain is pretty sure that Henry is not aboard. He'll be taking the
Carpentaria
through a hundred and eighty degrees and tracking back the way we came. If Henry
is
overboard he may well be swimming or afloat. This sort of thing has happened before: there's always a chance, Mr Wrinfield.'

Wrinfield looked at him with distraught disbelief on his face and Bruno did not blame him: he didn't believe it himself either.

They went on deck. The
Carpentaria
, retracing the course it had come, was making perhaps ten knots, no more. A motorized lifeboat, already manned, was swung out on its davits. Two powerful searchlights, one on either wing of the bridge, shone straight ahead. In the bows two seamen directed the beams of their portable searchlights almost vertically downwards. A little farther aft two seamen on either side waited with rope-attached and illuminated lifebelts. Beyond them still, rope-ladders, picked out in the beams of torches, hung over the side.

Twenty minutes of steadily mounting tension and dwindling hope passed. Wrinfield abruptly left his two companions and made his way to the bridge. He found the master on the starboard wing, binoculars to his eyes. He lowered them as Wrinfield came by his side and shook his head slowly.

He said: ‘Your nephew is not on the ship, Mr Wrinfield. That is for certain.' The captain looked at his watch. ‘It is now thirty-eight minutes since your nephew was last seen. We are now at the precise spot where we were thirty-eight minutes ago. If he is alive – I'm sorry to be so blunt, sir – he cannot be beyond this point.'

‘We could have missed him?'

‘Most unlikely. Calm sea, windless night, no currents hereabouts worth speaking of and the Mediterranean, as you know, is virtually tideless. He would have been on the line we have taken.' He spoke to an officer by his side: the man disappeared inside the bridge.

Wrinfield said: ‘And what now?'

‘We'll take her round in a tight circle. Then in widening concentric circles, three, maybe four. Then, if we turn up nothing, we go back at the same speed to the spot where we turned.'

‘And that will be it?'

‘That, I'm afraid, will be it.'

‘You are not very hopeful, Captain.'

‘I am not very hopeful.'

It took the
Carpentaria
forty minutes to complete the search pattern and return to the position where she had turned round. Maria, standing with Bruno in the shadow of a lifeboat, shivered as the throb of the engines deepened and the
Carpentaria
began to pick up speed.

She said: ‘That's it, then, isn't it?'

‘The searchlights have gone out.'

‘And it's my fault. It's my fault.' Her voice was husky.

‘Don't be silly.' He put his arm round her. ‘There's no way this could have been prevented.'

‘It could! It could! I didn't take him seriously enough. I – well, I didn't quite laugh at him – but,
well, I didn't listen to him either. I should have told you two days ago.' She was openly weeping now. ‘Or Dr Harper. He was
such
a nice person.'

Bruno heard the word ‘was' and knew she had finally accepted what he himself had accepted an hour ago. He said gently: ‘It would be nice if you spoke to Mr Wrinfield.'

‘Yes. Yes, of course. But – well, I don't want to see people. Couldn't we – I don't like asking, but if he could come here – if you could bring him and – '

‘Not on your sweet life, Maria. You're not staying here alone.'

He sensed her staring at him in the darkness. She whispered: ‘Do you think that someone – '

‘I don't know what to think because I don't know how or why Henry died. All I'm certain of is it was no accident: he died because he found out that someone was too interested in you and because he must have made the mistake of finding out too much. I've been asking one or two questions. Apparently he left the dining saloon just after we did. He left by another door but I suppose he wanted to avoid any obvious connection. I'm sure he wasn't directly following us – he may have taken a dim view of my association with you, but he was straight, honest and the last peeping Tom one could imagine. I think he was acting in his self-appointed guardian role. I think he was checking to see if anyone was following or watching us – Henry had a romantic streak and
this sort of thing would have appealed to him. I can only assume that he did indeed find some such person, and that that person – or another person, God only knows how many unpleasant characters there may be aboard – found Henry in a highly compromising situation. Compromising to the villains, I mean. But that doesn't alter the fact that the primary object of attention was you. Just bear in mind that you can't swim very far if the back of your head has been knocked in in advance.' He produced a handkerchief and carried out running repairs to the tear-stained face. ‘You come along with me.'

As they walked along the boat-deck they passed and greeted Roebuck. Bruno made an unobtrusive follow-me gesture with his hand. Roebuck stopped, turned and sauntered along about ten paces behind them.

Wrinfield was finally located in the radio office, arranging for the dispatch of cablegrams to Henry's parents and relatives. Now that the initial shock was over Wrinfield was calm and self-composed and in the event had to spend considerably more time in comforting Maria than she him. They left him there and found Roebuck waiting outside.

Bruno said: ‘Where's Kan Dahn?'

‘In the lounge. You'd think there's a seven-year famine of beer just round the corner.'

‘Would you take this young lady down to her cabin, please?'

‘Why?' Maria wasn't annoyed, just puzzled. ‘Am I not capable – '

Roebuck took a firm grip on her arm. ‘Mutineers walk the plank, young lady.'

Bruno said: ‘And you lock your door. How long will it take you to get to bed?'

‘Ten minutes.'

‘I'll be along in fifteen.'

Maria unlocked the door at the sound of Bruno's voice. He entered, followed by Kan Dahn, who was carrying a couple of blankets under his arm. Kan Dahn smiled genially at her, then wedged his massive bulk into the armchair and carefully arranged the blankets over his knees.

Bruno said: ‘Kan Dahn finds his own quarters a bit cramped. He thought he'd take a rest down here.'

Maria looked at them, first in protest, then in perplexity, then shook her head helplessly, smiled and said nothing. Bruno said his good night and left.

Kan Dahn reached out, turned down the rheostat on the flexible bedside light and angled the remaining dim glow so that it was away from the girl's face and leaving him in deep shadow. He took her hand in his massive paw.

‘Sleep well, my little one. I don't want to make a thing out of this but Kan Dahn is here.'

‘You can't sleep in that awful chair?'

‘Not can't. Won't. I'll sleep tomorrow.'

‘You haven't locked the door.'

‘No,' he said happily. ‘I haven't, have I?'

She was asleep in minutes and no one, most fortunately for the state of his continued good health, came calling on her that night.