Theo shivered and swallowed convulsively.

  “As he fell his arms moved and he made sounds. He was not dead. He cried out as he fell, ‘Hilfe mich! Hilfe mich!’ and I dropped the boat key with the shock. He shouted again when he hit the water. I watched him go past struggling in the wake of the ship and followed along the deck. He cried out for help but faintly and struggled in the water. And I thought that was my real revenge, that he should die conscious as she had died and know his death and I was glad.”

  “Glad you had killed him?” demanded Devold.

  “Oh, yes, I am still glad. But it is not right that others should pay for what I did and that is why I am here. These people had nothing to do with his death.”

  “What about the man you put outside last night?” Per asked. “He nearly died and he had done nothing to your mother.”

  Theo stared at him.

  “He came to me and demanded money,” Theo said at last. “I told him I had none to give which was true. Then he said he would tell the police about the quarrel. He heard him shouting at me. He had looked out from his cabin and seen my face under the light. He saw me hit him with the stick. He saw him lying on the deck. He told me he needed money badly to get off the ship before the police caught up with him. He told me I would have to take money from the till or he would tell what he had seen. He was going to leave at Berlevåg. I lied and said I would give him some last night and he waited for me at the doors on Deck 5 while everyone was eating dinner. I had them unlocked and ready to open and when I came I thrust him out into the snow, locked the door on him and left him there. Even if I had money I would not give it to that one. Not to hide what I had done. I was proud of it. Money would have spoiled it.”

  “He will survive,” Per said.

  Theo shrugged.

  “Let him. He is not a good man. He will go to jail like me.”

  “One thing, Theo,” asked Per, “it puzzled me. Why did you not send the stick over with him?”

  “The stick? Oh, I could not haul him and carry the stick. I needed both my hands, he was a heavy man. Heavy like the burden I have carried all my life It was all I could do to drag him. I forgot about it until after he had gone over and then when I remembered and went back to fetch it. Trudi from the kitchen was running back and forth along the deck before she went to bed as she always does and I didn’t want her to see me throw anything overboard so I hid it against me under my coat and went back inside and put it out of sight. Then I went to my cabin. I meant to get it before the morning but I fell deep asleep and by the time I woke, there was a search going on.”

  He turned his head and looked at Devold.

  “So, now you understand. These people had nothing to do with his death.”

  Early next morning, the sea was calm and the Edvard Grieg was making her way slowly intoVadsø. Harriet looked up from her bacon and egg and saw the name on a wall.

  “This is where it happened,” she said.

  “What happened?” asked Susan.

  “It’s where Theo’s mother drowned herself.”

  “I wonder that Theo took a job where he had to pass the place where she died twice a week all the summer long,” said Paul. “It must have kept the wound very raw.”

  “I think it was raw anyway. What else did he have to think about? He seems to have no friends, no wife, nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “From what Svensson said after Theo was taken away, I understand that people like him had a rough time after they left the institutions,” Paul said. “They just had the minimal education and were turned out. They were glad of any job.”

  “Like people coming out of prison these days. Anyway,” Harriet added, “thank heaven there is no death penalty these days. How awful to be hanged or whatever they did here for killing the man who could do that to your mother.”

  “Reluctant as I am to make excuses for my father, I expect he was caught up in something bigger than he was,” Paul said. “The German army was not the sort of organization which gave you compassionate leave to sort out problems of that sort. Especially with the Russians at the gate.”

  “He was an officer and quite an important one,” Susan put in unexpectedly. “He would have known what was going to happen, he could have made arrangements.”

  “But he didn’t,” Harriet said. “You know, I have a feeling that he was trying to scrape them off. What better opportunity than a hurried retreat like that? As Tomas said, it was almost as if he had married a Jew.”

  “Would that really have mattered with Germany and the German army collapsing like a house of cards?” asked Paul

  “In 1944 it might not have looked like that, he might have believed the Allies would have to come in with Germany to counter the Russians,” Harriet said. “A lot of Germans did. He had been promoted at last; he might have hoped that there was more to come. And his infatuation had had time to die.”

  “Anyway, it’s all academic now. He’s dead.”

  “We had better decide what we are going to do. Susan? You are flying back as Harry arranged?”

  Susan nodded.

  “If they’ll let me.”

  “They’ll let you. You may have to come back and give evidence at the trial but they won’t stop you flying back tomorrow. Harriet, are you going with her?”

  “No. Can’t afford two tickets. I’ll stay with the ship and fly back from Bergen on the ticket already booked and paid for. It’s time Mama sorted herself out. She can do it without me and she must. Isn’t that right, Mama?”

  Susan nodded.

  . “And what about you Paul? Aren’t you itching to get home to Gerda and Joshua and the stunning new job?”

  “Yes, I am. But I am staying for a few days.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wish to look after my brother.”

  “Your brother? Oh, of course!”

  “Yes,” Paul said. “Theo is my brother. I am not the only one suddenly to discover he has a family. Like me, Theo is going to find out he has scads of relations and that this one, at least, is interested in what becomes of him. Once I have identified the old man and arranged for him to be buried or cremated up here I will go to Tromsø and make sure that Theo has all he needs and the best lawyer Per can recommend. Per says that he may get a light sentence if the defence stresses the circumstances. Also he must know he has a place to come when he gets out of jail.”

  “That’s my boy!” exclaimed Harriet.

  “I hesitate to ask,” said Susan. “But what about Farman?”

  “Ugh!” observed Harriet.

  “I know, dear. But here he is and probably stranded and something will have to be done.”

  “He is not stranded,” Paul said. “He has his ticket home and probably considerably more than that. He was due to fly home from Kirkenes anyway. From what Farman told me, my father expected us all to have come to heel by this time.”

  “I wonder,” Harriet said. “Even if he hadn’t been drowned I’d say he might have had a set-back. I wouldn’t have married you with a fortune in each shoe and I certainly wouldn’t have sold my father down the river even for your sake, Mama, and I don’t suppose you’d really have minded if he disinherited you.”

  “The old Will stands,” said Paul. “What are you going to do with your share?”

  “She’s going to hang on to it like grim death,” said Harriet. “She’s earned every penny and a little bit of real independence will do her the world of good, won’t it Mama? It’ll keep Dad in order if he thinks you can snap your fingers in his face.”

  “But I can’t,” Susan began. “For one thing, I don’t want to....”

  “You are incorrigible, Mama. Yes, you can and you will.”

  “I don’t know anything about handling money.”

  “Then learn,” Harriet said.

  Susan stared at her and Harriet nodded.

  “And you Paul, what will you do? Even if you have landed this wonderful job.”

  “Set about spending some of it. I’ve Gerda and Joshua to think of. But I could have done without it and that’s important, for me anyhow.”

  “You know something,” Harriet said, smiling, “I think the old brute was in for a shock. He was not going to get his own way, no matter how he bullied and blustered. Perhaps Theo did him a favour letting him die thinking he was still invincible.”

  “He could hardly think that knowing his own first-born son had dropped him in!”

  “No, I suppose not. On the other hand I don’t suppose he was thinking at all clearly just at that point. Being dropped from a great height into icy water must come as something of a shock.”

  “It isn’t really something to joke about,” suggested Susan gently.

  “Alive, he was no joke, I agree,” Paul said. “Dead.... well, one can’t actually mourn him so why not do the other thing. The only mourner he is going to have is Farman because as soon as the little shit gets back to England he can look for a new job. At the moment he has found a soul mate in that Devold person and is no doubt blackening our characters as hard as he can go. Whatever happens to my father’s business, he is having no part in it. I am going to have a hell of time finding someone to run things before I head off to Paris.”

  “I expect Dad would help,” Harriet suggested. “He’s picked up a working knowledge of the old man’s affairs trying to bring him down. I expect he wouldn’t mind using it for your benefit if Mama asked nicely. And you would, wouldn’t you, darling?”

  “Of course,” Susan said. “But what about you, Harry? You know quite as much as your father.”

  Harriet went pink.

  “Actually,” she said. “I’ve had the offer of a temporary job and I think I may take it. Besides, I’m not much interested in business and money and that sort of thing. I can cope with them but find it boring on the whole. It’s getting to grips with making things I like. Paul’s just the same about music. Money’s just something you have to have enough of, like food, so that you can do what you like doing. And if you can earn it by doing what you like doing, that’s a real bonus.”

  Paul chuckled.

  “If your father truly expected us all to come to heel as soon as he threatened us with Theo,” asked Susan, “what was going to happen to Theo? Was he to be acknowledged, brought back to England taken into the household and set up as a constant threat?”

  “We’ll never know, but it wouldn’t surprise me,” said Paul. “My father revelled in playing people off against one another. I imagine he regarded Theo as a useful ‘piece’ on his chessboard not as a son. He never saw me as a son, more an irritating reminder of a folly, I suppose. I wonder when he discovered I could not remember what had happened in Buenos Aires and started to wish he had left me behind. Per says that I could probably access that memory through hypnosis. I don’t know that I want to.”

  “Do you think he knew what had happened to Theo’s mother?” asked Susan.

  “No. I doubt if he bothered to enquire and even if he had he would not have seen it as being his fault and certainly wouldn’t understand how Theo might have nursed a hatred for him for years and years.”

  “Poor Theo,” said Susan. “What sort of a life has he had?”

  “Per says that with the right defence he might get off fairly lightly. He hit him in self-defence, after all. I made sure that cut under his eye was photographed. And after that I will do whatever I can to make things good for him. He seems to have had a bloody awful life. I mean, mine wasn’t a bed of roses but compared to his it was easy, comfortable, even.”

  “No one,” said Harriet, “would think that Theo had killed your father.”

  “Fathers,” Paul said wryly, “come in a variety of shapes. Yours is a good shape. Ours wasn’t.”

  POSTLUDE

  The Edvard Grieg moved slowly away from the quay at Tromsø. The wind bit, snow-motes danced in it and the hills behind the town were white against a low grey sky. Down on the quay Paul waved and Harriet bundled into a new blanket coat and a thick woolly cap waved back. There had been time to visit Theo in prison, laugh a little at his bewilderment and feel small and humble in the face of his incredulous gratitude. They had left him books and other presents and painted a picture of life after his troubles should all be over which left him silent. Harriet wept a little as they left and Theo was taken away. However, the young lawyer Per recommended and who had arranged for them to see Theo said that there was a very good chance that any judge might take a fairly lenient view. Public opinion about what had been done with the German-born youngsters after 1945, he said, had changed markedly in recent years and psychological evidence would almost certainly show up Theo’s obsession with his mother’s death as a result of that treatment. That, he said, would have its effect. So would the blow from Penman’s stick and he commended Per’s foresight in having photographed the injury and getting Sigurd to swear to having seen it the morning after Penman’s death. He hoped to have good news for them before too long and would be in touch by E mail.

  Devold they had not seen since Theo’s confession. He had left the ship at Berlevåg with both Theo and the stretcher-bound Manson in custody and left for Tromsø without any apology to the family or the slightest acknowledgement of Per’s role in discovering who had done the killing. Since then, nothing had been heard from him, barring a long-winded letter saying that they must all hold themselves in readiness to be called as witnesses at the hearing. He had taken with him the folders which held Per’s reports. Perhaps, Harriet thought, he might read them, in time.

  Paul meant to fly back from Tromsø. In the three days since Theo’s confession Harriet’s father had descended upon Penman Enterprises in much the same fashion as an osprey swoops on a salmon and had taken it in charge. He had bombarded Paul with E mails explaining what he was doing and what needed to be done and, more importantly perhaps, what should no longer be done and demanded Paul’s presence, if only, as he had said in the latest E mail, to sign the salary cheques and the redundancy notices. Farman had left the ship at Kirkenes having already received his dismissal from Paul. He had argued that Paul would find it hard to run Penman Enterprises without his expert knowledge to which Paul had replied that he was not even going to attempt it. It had been put into new management entirely under which blackmail and chicanery would have no part to play. Farman sneered at this and asked him how long he expected the business to survive and that he, Farman, didn’t give twopence for its chances. Paul had then requested Sigurd, the large Norwegian steward, to relieve Farman of the laptop, which was, he said, the property of the company. Which, as he had taken pains to discover, was true. Farman’s furious protests went unheeded and he had boarded the plane without it, threatening legal action. Harriet with some glee had discovered what lay hidden behind SUZIE and passed it all on to her father. In return she got an E mail to say he had taken out a special licence but things were a bit too fraught to have a wedding right away, at which Harriet had giggled.

  Harriet watched Paul give a final wave and turn away to the waiting taxi. She shivered and shoved her hands into her pockets. The wind was not strong but it bit, mercilessly. Also, her tummy was reminding her that in visiting Theo in prison she had missed lunch. She turned back the cuff of her new coat to see how long remained before dinner,

  “Half past five,” said a voice behind her. “Come in and have a cup of something hot. You look frozen to the marrow and a blue nose does not become you.”

  Per escorted her to the snack bar on Deck 4 and they both had a bowl of hot strong coffee. Per added a plate of cakes to this order and Harriet ate them gratefully.

  “Now,” he said in a business-like fashion, “perhaps we will have time to attend to our own affairs. The Captain tells me he has offered you a job.”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that. He told me that Bormann, the IT man, doesn’t want to go to South America this year because he means to get married at Christmas.”

  “True.”

  “And he suggested that he might mention my name to the Company as a temporary replacement.”

  “And what did you reply?”

  “That I would consider the idea and let him know before we reached Bergen.”

  “And what have you decided?”

  “Truthfully, I can’t think of anything better than skipping beastly winter and coming home in spring and being paid for it.”

  Per looked solemn.

  “I have had a word with Captain Svensson as well. He tells me that extra staff will be taken on for this cruise. Americans expect more pampering than Europeans. I’m afraid staff accommodation is going to be at a premium. Even on this ship.”

  “He didn’t mention that to me.”

  “I said I had a proposal to make which might ease the situation.”

  “Must I sleep in the lifeboat?” asked Harriet anxiously.

  “Not unless you wish to. No, my suggestion was that we get married so that we may share a cabin.”

  He said this just as Harriet was swallowing the last of her coffee. She choked and spluttered and he thumped her on the back.

  “Does it seem so unlikely a proposition?”

  “No, no. Not at all. With the Hurtigrüten, company loyalty is everything, I understand. Personal sacrifice is expected of loyal employees.”

  “Of course. However, in this instance.... company loyalty and personal inclination coincide. In fact I wish very much you might consider it. Entirely in the interest of the company, of course.”

  “How long do I get to consider it?”

  “How long do you need?”

  She shrugged.

  “Perhaps thirty seconds?”

  He regarded his watch till the second hand had made half a revolution. He looked up enquiringly.

  “Well?”

 

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