Fear is the Key (12 page)

‘You have been successful, no?' Captain Zaimis
called in my ear.

‘No.'

‘So. It is sad. But no matter. We must leave
at once.'

‘Ten minutes, John. Just another ten minutes.
It's terribly important.'

‘No. We must leave at once.' He started to call
the order to cast off to the young Greek sitting in
the bows when I caught his arm.

‘Are you afraid, Captain Zaimis?' Despicable, but
I was desperate.

‘I am beginning to be afraid,' he said with dignity.
‘All wise men know when it is time to be
afraid and I hope I am not a fool, Mr Talbot. There
are times when a man is selfish if he is not afraid.
I have six children, Mr Talbot.'

‘And I have three.' I hadn't even one, not any
more. I wasn't even married, not any more. For
a long moment we stood there, clinging on to the
mast while the
Matapan
pitched and corkscrewed
wickedly in that almost impenetrable darkness
under the cavernous shadow of the oil rig, but
apart from the thin whistling of the rain-laden
wind in the rigging, it was a long silent moment.
I changed my tactics. ‘The lives of men depend
upon this, Captain Zaimis. Do not ask me how I
know but I know. Would you have it said that
men died because Captain Zaimis would not wait
ten minutes?'

There was a long pause, the rain hissed whitely
into the heaving blackness of the sea beneath us,
then he said: ‘Ten minutes. No more.'

I slipped off shoes and outer clothing, made sure
the life-line was securely tied to my waist just
above the weights, slipped on the oxygen mask
and stumbled forward to the bows, again thinking,
for no reason at all, of big Herman Jablonsky
sleeping the sleep of the just in his mahogany
bed. I watched until a particularly big swell came
along, waited until it had passed under and the
bows were deep in the water, stepped off into
the sea and grabbed for the rope that moored the
Matapan
to the pillar.

I went out towards the pillar hand over hand

– it couldn't have been more than twenty feet
away – but even with the rope to help me I
got a pretty severe hammering and without the
oxygen mask I don't know how much water I
would have swallowed. I collided with the pillar
before I realized I was near it, let go the rope and
tried to grab the pillar. Why, I don't know. I might
as well have tried to put my arms round a railway
petrol tanker for the diameter was about the same.
I grabbed the rope again before I was swept away
and worked my way round to the left towards the
seaward side of the massive steel leg. It wasn't easy.
Every time the
Matapan's
bows rose with the swell
the rope tightened and jammed my clutching hand
immovably against the metal, but just so long as I
didn't lose any fingers I was beyond caring.

When my back was squarely to the swell I
released the rope, spread out my arms and legs,
thrust myself below water and started to descend
that pillar something in the fashion of a Sinhalese
boy descending an enormous palm tree, Andrew
paying out the line as skilfully as before. Ten
feet, twenty, nothing: thirty, nothing: thirty-five,
nothing. My heart was starting to pound irregularly
and my head beginning to swim; I was well
below the safe operating limit of that closed oxygen
mask. Quickly I half-swam, half-clawed my way
up and came to rest about fifteen feet below the
surface clinging to that enormous pillar like a cat
halfway up a tree and unable to get down.

Five of Captain Zaimis's ten minutes were gone.
My time was almost run out. And yet it
had
to
be that oil rig, it simply had to be. The general
himself had said so, and there had been no need
to tell anything but the truth to a man with no
chance of escape: and if that weren't enough, the
memory of that stiff, creaking, leaden-footed man
who'd brought the tray of drinks into the general's
room carried with it complete conviction.

But there was nothing on the ship alongside, nor
was there anything under it. I would have sworn
to that. There was nothing on the oil rig itself: I
would have sworn to that too. And if it wasn't on
the platform, then it was under the platform, and if
it was under the platform it was attached to a wire
or chain. And that wire or chain must be attached,
underwater, to one of those supporting legs.

I tried to think as quickly and clearly as I could.
Which of those fourteen legs would they use?
Almost certainly I could eliminate right away the
eight legs that supported the derrick platform. Too
much activity there, too many lights, too many
eyes, too many dangling lines to catch the hundreds
of fish attracted by the powerful overhead
lights, too much danger altogether. So it had to be
the helicopter platform under which the
Matapan
was rolling and plunging at the end of her mooring
rope. To narrow it still farther – I had to narrow it,
to localize the search by gambling on the probable
and ignoring the possible and almost equally probable,
there were only minutes left – it was more
likely that what I sought was on the seaward
side, where I was now, than on the landward
side where there was always danger from ships
mooring there.

The middle pillar of the seaward three, the one
to which the
Matapan
was moored, I had already
investigated. Which of the remaining two to try
was settled at once by the fact that my life-line
was passed round the left-hand side of the pillar.
To have worked my way round three-quarters of
the circumference would have taken too long. I
rose to the surface, gave two tugs to indicate that
I would want more slack, placed both feet against
the metal, pushed off hard and struck out for the
corner pillar.

I almost didn't make it. I saw now why Captain
Zaimis was so worried – and he'd a forty-foot boat
and forty horse-power to cope with the power of
the wind and the sea and that steadily growing,
deepening swell that was already breaking white
on the tops. All I had was myself and I could have
done with more. The heavy weights round my
waist didn't help me any, it took me a hundred
yards of frantic thrashing and gasping to cover the
fifteen yards that lay between the two pillars, and
closed oxygen sets aren't designed for the kind of
gasping I was doing. But I made it. Just.

Once more on the seaward side and pinned
against the pillar by the pressure of the swell I
started crabbing my way down below the surface.
This time it was easy, for right away, by chance, my
hand found a broad, deeply-and sharply-cut series
of slightly curved grooves in the metal extending
vertically downwards. I am no engineer, but I knew
this must be the worm that engaged against the big
motor-driven pinion which would be required to
raise and lower those pillars. There must have been
one on the last pillar also, but I'd missed it.

It was like going down a cliff with a series
of rungs cut in the rock-face. I paused every
other foot or so, reaching out on both sides,
but there was nothing, no projection, no wire,
just the smooth rather slimy surface. Steadily,
painstakingly, I forced myself downwards, increasingly
more conscious of the gripping pressure of
the water, the difficulty of breathing. Somewhere
close on forty feet I called it a day. Damaging my
ear-drums or lungs or getting nitrogen into the
bloodstream wasn't going to help anyone. I gave
up. I went up.

Just below the surface I stopped to have a rest
and clear my head. I felt bitterly disappointed, I
had banked more heavily than I knew on this last
chance. Wearily, I laid my head against the pillar
and thought with a bleak hopelessness that I would
have to start all over again. And I had no idea in
the world where to start. I felt tired, dead tired.
And then, in a moment, the tiredness left me as
if it had never been.

That great steel pillar was alive with sound.
There could be no doubt about it, instead of being
silent and dead and full of water, it was alive with
sound.

I ripped off my rubber helmet, coughed and
gagged and spluttered as some water found its
way in under the oxygen mask, then pressed my
ear hard against the cold steel.

The pillar reverberated with a deep resonant
vibration that jarred the side of my head. Water-
filled pillars don't reverberate with sound, not with
sound of any kind. But this one did, beyond all
question. It wasn't water that was in that pillar, it
was air. Air! All at once I identified that peculiar
sound I was hearing; I should have identified it
immediately. That rhythmical rising and falling of
sound as a motor accelerated and slowed, accelerated
and slowed, was a sound that had for many
years been part and parcel of my professional life.
It was an air compressor, and a big one at that, hard
at work inside the pillar. An air compressor deep
down below water level inside one of the support
legs of a mobile rig standing far out in the Gulf of
Mexico. It didn't make sense, it didn't make any
kind of sense at all. I leant my forehead against the
metal, and it seemed as if the shuddering, jarring
vibration was an insistent clamorous voice trying
to tell me something, something of urgency and
vital importance, if only I could listen. I listened.
For half a minute, perhaps a minute, I listened, and
all of a sudden it made the very best kind of sense
there was. It was the answer I would never have
dreamed of, it was the answer to many things. It
took me time to guess this might be the answer,
it took me time to realize this must be the answer,
but when I did realize it I was left with no doubts
in the world.

I gave three sharp tugs on the rope and within a
minute was back aboard the
Matapan
. I was hauled
aboard as quickly and with as little ceremony as if
I had been a sack of coals and I was still stripping
off oxygen cylinder and mask when Captain Zaimis
barked for the mooring rope to be slipped, gunned
the engine, scraped by the mooring pillar and put
the rudder hard over. The
Matapan
yawed and
rolled wickedly as she came broadside on to the
troughs, shipping solid seas and flying clouds of
spray over the starboard side, and then, stern to
the wind and steady on course, headed for shore.

Ten minutes later, when I'd peeled off the
diving-suit, dried off, dressed in shore clothes and
was just finishing my second glass of brandy, Captain
Zaimis came down to the cabin. He was smiling,
whether with satisfaction or relief I couldn't
guess, and seemed to regard all danger as being
past: and true enough, riding before the sea, the
Matapan
was now almost rock-steady. He poured
himself a thimble of brandy and spoke for the first
time since I'd been dragged aboard.

‘You were successful, no?'

‘Yes.' I thought the curt affirmative a bit ungracious.
‘Thanks to you, Captain Zaimis.'

He beamed. ‘You are kind, Mr Talbot, and I am
delighted. But not thanks to me but to our good
friend here who watches over us, over all those
who gather sponges, over all who go to sea.' He
struck a match and put a light to a wick in an
oil-filled boat-shaped pottery dish which stood in
front of a glassed-in portrait of St Nicholas.

I looked sourly at him. I respected his piety and
appreciated his sentiments but I thought he was a
bit late in striking the matches.

It was exactly two o'clock in the morning when
Captain Zaimis skilfully eased the
Matapan
alongside
the wooden jetty from which we had left. The
sky was black now, the night so dark that it was
scarcely possible to distinguish land from sea and
the rain was a drumfire of sound on the roof of
the cabin. But I had to go and go at once. I had to
get back inside the house without being observed,
I had to have a long conference with Jablonsky,
and I had to get my clothes dry: my luggage was
still in La Contessa, I'd only the one suit, and I had
to have it dry before morning. I couldn't bank on
not seeing anyone until evening, as I'd done the
previous day. The general had said that he'd let
me know what job it was he had in mind inside
thirty-six hours: the thirty-six hours would be up
at eight o'clock this morning. I borrowed a long
oilskin to keep off the worst of the rain, put it on
over my own raincoat – the oilskin was a couple
of sizes too small, it felt as if I were wearing a
strait-jacket – shook hands all round, thanked
them for what they had done for me and left.

At a quarter past two, after making a brief stop
at a call-box, I parked the Corvette in the side
turning where I'd found it and squelched along
the road in the direction of the drive leading up
to the general's house. There were no sidewalks
on the road, the kind of people who lived on this
exclusive stretch of sea frontage didn't have any
need of sidewalks, and the gutters were swollen
little rivers with the muddy water spilling over the
uppers of my shoes. I wondered how I was going
to get my shoes dry in time for the morning.

I passed the lodge where the chauffeur lived –
or where I presumed he lived – and passed by the
driveway also. The enclosed tunnel was brightly
lit and clambering over the top of that six-barred
gate in that blaze of light wouldn't have been a
very clever thing to do. And for all I knew the top
bar might be set to work some electrically operated
warning bell if sufficient weight were brought to
bear. I wouldn't have put anything beyond the lot
who lived in that house.

Thirty yards beyond the drive I squeezed through
an all but imperceptible gap in the magnificent
eight-foot hedge that fronted the general's estate.
Less than two yards behind the edge was an equally
magnificent eight-foot wall, hospitably topped with
huge chunks of broken glass set in cement. Neither
the hedge concealing the wall, nor the wall designed
to discourage those too shy to enter by the main
driveway was, I had learnt from Jablonsky, peculiar
to the general's estate. All the neighbours
had money enough and importance enough to
make the protection of their privacy a matter of
considerable consequence, and this set-up was
common to most of them. The rope dangling
from the gnarled branch of the big live oak on
the other side of the wall was where I had left
it. Badly hampered by the binding constriction of
the oilskin I waddled rather than walked up that
wall, swung to earth on the other side, clambered
up the oak, unfastened the rope and thrust it under
an exposed root. I didn't expect to have to use that
rope again, but one never knew: what I did know
was that I didn't want any of Vyland's playmates
finding it.

What
was
peculiar to the general's estate was
the fence about twenty feet beyond the wall. It
was a five-stranded affair, and the top three were
barbed. The sensible person, obviously, pushed
up the second lowest plain wire, pushed down
the bottom one, stooped and passed through. But
what I knew, thanks to Jablonsky, and what the
sensible person didn't, was that pressure on either
of the two lower wires operated a warning bell, so I
climbed laboriously over the top three wires, to the
sound of much ripping and tearing, and lowered
myself down on the other side. Andrew wasn't
going to have much farther use for his oilskin by
the time he got it back. If he ever got it back.

Under the closely packed trees the darkness was
almost absolute. I had a pencil flash but I didn't
dare use it, I had to trust to luck and instinct to
circle the big kitchen garden that lay to the left of
the house and so reach the fire-escape at the back.
I had about two hundred yards to go and I didn't
expect to make it in under a quarter of an hour.

I walked as old Broken-nose, the butler, had
fancied he walked when he crept away from our
bedroom door after leaving Jablonsky and myself
there. I had the advantages of normal arches to
my feet and no adenoids worth talking about. I
walked with both arms outstretched before me,
and it wasn't until my face collided with a tree
trunk that I learned not to walk with my arms
outspread as well as outstretched. I couldn't do
anything about the dripping clammy Spanish moss
that kept wrapping itself about my face but I could
do something about the hundreds of twigs and
broken branches that littered the ground. I didn't
walk, I shuffled. I didn't lift my feet, I slid each
one forward slowly and carefully, brushing aside
whatever lay in my path, and not allowing any
weight to come on the leading foot until I had
made good and certain that there was nothing
under that foot that would snap or creak when
my weight was transferred to it. Although I do say
it, I was pretty silent.

It was as well that I was. Ten minutes after
leaving the fence, when I was seriously beginning
to wonder whether I had angled off in the wrong
direction, suddenly, through the trees and the
curtain of rain dripping steadily from the oaks, I
thought I saw a tiny glimmer of light. A flicker,
then gone. I might have imagined it, but I don't
have that kind of imagination. I knew I didn't,
so I slowed down still more, pulling my hat-brim
down and coat collar up so that no faintest sheen
of paleness might betray my face. You couldn't
have heard the rustle of my heavy oilskin three
feet away.

I cursed the Spanish moss. It wrapped its long
clammy tendrils round my face, it made me blink
and shut my eyes at the very moments when
shutting my eyes might have been the last thing
I ever did, and it obscured my vision to a degree
where I felt like dropping to my hands and knees
and crawling forward on all fours. I might even
have done that, but I knew the crackling of the
oilskin would give me away.

Then I saw the glimmer of light again. It was
thirty feet away, no more, and it wasn't pointing
in my direction, it was illuminating something on
the ground. I took a couple of quick smooth steps
forward, wanting to pinpoint the light source, and
see the reason for its use, and then I discovered
that my navigational sense in the darkness had
been completely accurate. The kitchen garden was
surrounded by a wire-netted wooden fence and
halfway through my second step I walked right
into it. The top rail cracked like the door to an
abandoned dungeon.

There came a sudden exclamation, the dousing
of the light, a brief silence and then the torch
flicked on again, the beam no longer pointing at
the ground but reaching out for and searching the
perimeter of the kitchen garden. Whoever held the
torch was as nervous as a kitten, because whoever
held the torch had more than a vague idea where
the sound had come from and a steady careful
sweep would have picked me up in three seconds.
As it was the search consisted of a series of jittery
probings and jerkings of the beam and I'd time
to take a long smooth step backwards. Just one:
there was no time for more. As far as it is possible
to melt into a neighbouring oak tree, I melted into
a neighbouring oak tree, I pressed against it as if
I were trying to push it over and wished as I had
never wished before: I wished I had a gun.

‘Give me that flash.' The cold quiet voice was
unmistakably Royale's. The torch beam wavered,
steadied, then shone down on the ground again.
‘Get on with it. Now!'

‘But I heard something, Mr Royale!' It was Larry,
his voice a high-pitched jittery whisper. ‘Over
there! I know I did.'

‘Yeah, me too. It's all right.' With a voice like
Royale's, with a voice with as much warmth in it
as a champagne bucket, it was difficult to sound
soothing, but he was doing his best. ‘Woods are
full of those noises in the dark. Hot day, cold rain
at night, contraction, then all sorts of noises. Now
hurry it up. Want to stay out in this damned rain
all night?'

‘Look, Mr Royale.' The whisper was more than
earnest now, it was desperate. ‘I didn't make a
mistake, honest, I didn't! I heard –'

‘Missed out on your shot of the white stuff,
tonight?' Royale interrupted cruelly. The strain
of even a moment's kindness had been too much
for him. ‘God, why did I have to be saddled with
a junky like you. Shut up and work.'

Larry shut up. I wondered about what Royale
had said, because I'd been wondering about it
ever since I saw Larry. His behaviour, the fact
that he was allowed to associate with Vyland and
the general, the liberties he was permitted, above
all his very presence there. Big criminal organizations
working for big stakes – and if this bunch
weren't working for big stakes I couldn't imagine
who were – usually picked the members of their
organization with as much care and forethought
as a big corporation picks its top executives. More.
A careless slip-up, a moment's indiscretion on the
part of an executive won't ruin a big corporation
but it can destroy a criminal set-up. Big crime is big
business, and big criminals are big businessmen,
running their illegal activities with all the meticulous
care and administrative precision of their
more law-abiding colleagues. If, most reluctantly,
it was found necessary to remove rivals or such as
offered menace to their security, the removal was
entrusted to quiet polite people like Royale. But
Larry was about as much use to them as a match
in a powder magazine.

There were three of them in that corner of
the kitchen garden, Royale, Larry and the butler,
whose range of duties appeared to be wider than
that normally expected of his profession in the
better class English country houses. Larry and the
butler were busy with spades. Digging, I thought
at first, because Royale had the light hooded and
even at ten yards in that rain it was difficult to
see anything, but by and by, judging more by
ear than by eye, I knew that they were filling in
a hole in the ground. I grinned to myself in the
darkness. I would have taken long odds that they
were burying something very valuable indeed,
something that would not be remaining there
very long. A kitchen garden was hardly the ideal
permanent hiding place for treasure trove.

Three minutes later they were finished. Someone
drew a rake to and fro across the filled-in hole
– I assumed that they must have been digging in
a freshly turned vegetable patch and wanted to
conceal the signs of their work – and then they
all went off together to the gardening shed a few
yards away and left their spades and rake there.

They came out again, talking softly, Royale in
the lead with the torch in his hand. They passed
through a wicker gate not fifteen feet from me,
but by this time I'd withdrawn some yards into the
wood and had the thick bole of an oak for cover.
They went off together up the path that led to the
front of the house and by and by the low murmur
of voices faded and vanished. A bar of light fell
across the porch as the front door opened, then
there came the solid click of a heavy door closing
on its latch. Then silence.

I didn't move. I stayed exactly where I was,
breathing lightly and shallowly, not stirring an
inch. The rain redoubled in violence, the thick
foliage of the oak might have been a wisp of
gauze for all the protection it afforded, but I didn't
move. The rain trickled down inside oilskin and
overcoat and ran down my back and legs. But I
didn't move. It trickled down my front and into my
shoes, but I didn't move. I could feel the tide rising
up to my ankles, but I didn't move. I just stayed
where I was, a human figure carved from ice, but
colder. My hands were numb, my feet frozen and
uncontrollable shivers shook my entire body every
few seconds. I would have given the earth to move.
But I didn't. Only my eyes moved.

Hearing was of little value to me now. With the
high moan of the steadily increasing wind through
the topmost swaying branches of the trees and the
loud frenetic rustling of the rain driving through
the leaves, you couldn't have heard a careless
footfall ten feet away. But after three-quarters of
an hour standing there motionless, eyes became
perfectly accustomed to the dark and you could
have spotted a careless movement ten yards away.
And I spotted it.

A movement, that is, but not careless. Deliberate.
I think it must have been a sudden furious
flurry of wind and rain that finally broke the
patience of the shadow that now detached itself
from the shelter of a nearby tree and moved away
silently up towards the house. If I hadn't been
watching, staring into the darkness with eyes sore
and strained from staring, I would have missed it,
for I certainly would have heard nothing. But I
didn't miss it. A shadow moving with the soundlessness
of a shadow. A quiet deadly man. Royale.
His words to Larry had been so much bluff for
the benefit of any listener. Royale had heard a
noise, all right, and the noise must have been
just sufficiently off-beat to make him wonder if
someone were there. Only enough to make him
wonder. If Royale had been certain he'd have
remained there all night waiting to strike. The
strike of a fer-de-lance. I thought of myself going
into that kitchen garden immediately after the
three had left, getting a spade and starting to
investigate, and I felt colder than ever. I could see
myself bending over the hole, the unseen, unheard
approach of Royale, and then the bullet, just one, a
cupro-nickel jacketed .22 at the base of the skull.