The borrowing days, p.5
The Borrowing Days, page 5
“That stick bothers me,” he said bluntly.
“Why?”
“You heard what Miss Hamilton said about his stick He is never without it, she said. And she is right. I have never seen him without it. Have you?”
The Captain shook his head.
“If he fell overboard by accident the stick would have been in his hand and would either be near the place where he fell or in the sea. Why should it be found in a ladies’ lavatory, as nearly hidden as makes no difference? And what is more, wiped clean of prints. I looked.”
“To fall overboard from this ship by accident,” said the Captain emphatically, “you would need to be able to climb over the rail. The company takes great care that no one can slip under it or wriggle through it. In fact, you’d need to be fairly young and athletic. Penman was not. Unless the gate to the inflatable lifeboat was left unlocked? Or any of the other lifeboat gates.”
Per shook his head.
“I tried them all myself before I went on duty because of that business yesterday afternoon with the trawler. The inflatable station was locked fast and the key in place. So were the others. I checked them all. Port and starboard. It’s in the log.”
“Good. That would be just before midnight?”
“Yes, about ten to, I suppose.”
“I suppose he could have been taken ill, found by some female passenger and brought to her cabin, after helping him into the bathroom. That would account for the stick.”
“Then why did this female not alert Reception?” asked Per, “We have medical help available, it’s in all the brochures. The number to call is on the telephone card.”
Svensson sighed.
“It’s beginning to look as if we have a drowning on our hands.”
“And I’m afraid, sir, we just could have something worse.
“Why?”
“That damned stick. It shouldn’t have been where it was found. And, from the look of it, there are no fingerprints left at all. Not even Penman’s.”
“Is that significant?”
“Why clean the stick before hiding it?”
“Why not just hurl it overboard?” asked the Captain.
“As you say. And, sir, I’m afraid I have to tell you the family argument young Penman mentioned was in fact a vicious family quarrel. I heard them at it, hammer and tongs, as I passed the cabin on my way to the bridge. A real shouting match. And have you seen the latest weather forecast?”
“That’s why I ordered the search to start right away. In six hours we could be weather-bound. And not a chance of reaching Berlevåg before the storm hits. What a bloody business.”
He turned into the lift beckoning Per to follow.
“There’s another thing. If he’s not found it’s a police matter. They have to be informed in any event. I’d best do it right away. You’ll know better than most how they’ll bellyache if we delay. And there’s something else, which is worrying me. If this storm is as bad as they forecast, access is going to be a problem. I’ve worked out that if we can’t make Berlevåg before it starts, we’ll probably have to hole up in Gamvik...”
“Gamvik!”
“I know.... nothing but a single-track road and if there’s snow it’ll be blocked. If that happens and they can’t get a helicopter aboard, you’ll need to take charge, Per. You’re the only one aboard with any experience of these things. And as you’d say yourself the sooner the better.”
“I sincerely hope it won’t be necessary.”
“You can’t be more sincere in hoping so than I am.”
He pressed the button. The lift dinged and started upwards.
Ten minutes later the Captain was on the ‘ship-to-shore’ telephone and connected to Police Headquarters in Tromsø. He reported the problem and was silent for some time as the telephone quacked.
“Of course we have made a thorough search,” he said. “There are procedures laid down for this....”
He listened and his brown face reddened a little.
“Every possible area has been searched. Of course I am. Do you think I don’t know my own ship?”
Per and Angerström glanced at one another.
“At present we are doing a reverse course search, the lifeboats are on standby and the shore Rescue people have been alerted. According to my standing orders.”
“My position at this moment...”
He looked at the display.
“Fifteen nautical miles north, north east of Omgangstauren, heading almost due west at two knots.”
He was drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair which, as they all knew, was a storm signal.
“No. We are doing a search. No. Not in the ship. A search of the sea. No, I will not be able to make Mehamn. Haven’t you heard the weather forecast? No. It may be a slight snowfall for you, for us it is a severe storm. Storm force winds and a blizzard. Imminent. Which is to say any time within the next six hours. No. One cannot conduct a proper search for a man overboard at speed. Because, Superintendent, in the time a ship of this size take to slow and launch a boat he could drown. Yes. It looks as if I will have to shelter from this storm in Gamvik. Yes, Gamvik. It provides enough depth for a ship of our draught and the holding-ground is good. In a blow the ship will not drag and be stranded. No, I cannot risk trying to make Berlevåg. No, the passengers have to be considered. Many of them are elderly. No.”
His colour was rising and he rose from his chair.
“I am in command of this ship and I will act as I see fit for the safety of her passengers and her crew. If I receive orders from you to that effect I will, of course, ignore them.”
Per and Angerström looked at one another in astonishment.
“And furthermore my company is unlikely to override my decisions. I rang you.... what is your name, sir?”
He made a note on the pad beside the chair.
“I telephoned you, Superintendent, because it is laid down in the procedures I am constrained to follow in the event of such an occurrence. I am not bound to follow either your advice or your instructions if they contradict what I consider essential for the safety of the ship and her passengers and crew. If Mr. Penman is not to be found aboard or is found drowned I will turn about and head for Gamvik and anchor off the western shore, where we will be in comparative shelter. Yes, I suppose there must be a road. No, I do not know what condition it may be in. I do not take my vessel overland. You have a map, I suppose? Good. Doubtless it will indicate the condition of the road. If you can reach us there, good. If not, you must wait till the storm is over.”
He listened in silence to a prolonged harangue.
“The name of this ship is the Edvard Grieg. Yes.”
He turned about and looked at Per and grinned.
“Very well. If, as seems very likely, you are weatherbound I will ask him. Goodbye.”
He slammed down the receiver.
“I have just had the privilege of speaking with one Superintendent Devold,” he began.
“Who?” demanded Per and went scarlet.
“ Superintendent Roald Devold. You evidently know him.”
Per’s mouth thinned.
“Yes, I know him.”
“He has just informed me that there is aboard this ship one Per Berg who was at one time a policeman. He was over-confident, not particularly efficient, and will be unaware of recent developments in the forensic sciences but may just remember enough of standard procedure to set an investigation in train. Time, as I must understand, is of the essence. Who is this pompous bastard?”
“I think he’s in Tromsø now. He used to be Deputy Commissioner in Oslo.”
“Why has he got it in for you?”
“Well, you know my father used to be...”
“Your father is well-known to me. He was the Police Commissioner in Oslo until a couple of years ago.”
“I wanted to go into the Police from the time I realized what he did. I never thought of anything else. So I did.”
“Did well, I understand.”
“Everything was fine until Devold was made Deputy Commissioner. He was sure my promotion was due to my father and he told everyone how useless I really was. I got nothing but the dirty jobs and he watched me like a buzzard to catch me out.”
“Did you complain?”
“No.”
“Did your father know?”
“Not from me.”
“What happened?”
“He accused me of giving away a major search which he had set up. It was obvious someone had, the birds and the booty were long gone. He suspended me and there was an enquiry. It turned out someone in his office was on the take. He was reprimanded for negligence, the culprit was jailed and I was reinstated. You can imagine how things went after that.”
“You could have asked for a transfer.”
Per looked a little sheepish.
“I didn’t want a transfer. Apart from Devold I was perfectly happy. I had a job I enjoyed, I had a good flat, a girl friend and I could visit my parents whenever I wanted. I didn’t see why I should let this bastard louse it all up.”
“So what happened?”
“He bitched about me once too often and to the wrong person.”
“Ah. Now I begin to understand.”
“So he was sent to Tromsø. He kept the same rank but it seemed to him it was demotion and I suppose it was, in a sense. And he blamed me for it. He thought I’d pulled strings to get rid of him.”
“And had you?”
“No. But I had a lot of friends. And my father was popular, people were indignant about the way I had been treated. You can’t always prevent...”
“I get the picture.”
“After that he got really vicious. He went to the papers and told them that the debâcle over the raid was really my fault and I had used my father to save my skin and made his man the scapegoat and sent an innocent man to jail. It was all rather unpleasant. My girl friend believed what the papers were saying and left me.”
The Captain looked at him quizzically.
Per laughed.
“Well, I don’t say we hadn’t come to the parting of the ways, whatever happened. But she went around saying to everyone she knew she could not possibly stay with someone who had behaved as I had. My father had a wretched time and lost his temper publicly on television with one of the members of the Government who thought that Devold was being given a hard time by some sort of ruling clique in the Force. Father demanded another independent enquiry and got it. I was cleared for the second time and so was Father. But we’d both had enough. He decided to retire and I decided to go to sea.”
“Our good luck,” said the Captain and grinned evilly. “I note that even with your father retired, the man Devold is still in Tromsø.”
Per chuckled.
“Oslo wouldn’t have him back with Munch’s Scream under his arm. And not just because of the way he treated me. He is not a very likeable man and though I am certainly prejudiced he is not, in my view, particularly good at his job. He doesn’t study people. That’s a policeman’s real job. And people don’t much like working with him...for him, rather.”
“Wouldn’t it be truly gratifying to present this pompous spiteful ass’s arse with the case all tied up with a bow on the top?”
Per smiled a little.
“It would make not the slightest difference to Devold. I will always be the enemy as far as he is concerned. But, yes, I would like very much to be able to do that.”
“I have been at sea for thirty five years and dislike being harangued as if I were an incompetent,” said Captain Svensson. “Is he always like that?”
“Always,” Per said and he was remembering the screaming headlines in the paper and going home to an empty flat and other things; conversations cut short when he came into a room, snide comments from strangers who recognized him in the street; the helpless anger he had felt about such a persecution. “ I still find it difficult to forgive the man. My mother was dying while all this was going on and he made her last weeks hideous. And my father had to cope with his attack on him at the same time he was helping to nurse her because she didn’t want to go to hospital and we wouldn’t let her go. In those days I’d have watched Devold die in torment and never lifted a finger to save him.”
He turned away.
“Nowadays I feel a bit ashamed of the way I felt.”
“Envy,” said Angerström unexpectedly, “is one of the seven deadly sins and for a good reason. It begets hatred and hatred destroys.”
Per stared at him and then he laughed.
“Why should he envy me?”
Angerström chuckled.
“If you really don’t know, then why should I enlighten you? You were your father’s son and you were you. That would be enough.”
“Do you know why I decided to leave the Police and go to sea?”
“According to your CV it was because you wanted a change and wished to be more out-of-doors,” said the Captain. “I remember thinking it sounded a bit thin.”
“It was because I found myself constantly trying to think of some way I could get revenged on him, not for my sake, for my mother’s, and my father’s. It was getting to be an obsession. It was.... oh, I don’t know.... unhealthy. And I knew the longer I stayed where I was the worse it would get. So, I got out.”
“You were wise,” said Angerström. “And now you meet again. Perhaps it is meant so. There should be a resolution.”
Silence fell as Angerström made a slight course correction.
“At this speed she steers like a cow in a bog,” he said.
“From now on, Per,” said Svensson briskly, “you are excused all duty, unless there is an emergency.”
“You want me to find out how Penman died?”
“You are sure he is dead?”
Per nodded.
“It’s that stick. It sticks in my throat, if you’ll excuse the pun.”
“How will you set about it?”
“First, we will see if anyone among the crew or the passengers has anything to tell us.”
“How?”
“Call everyone together after breakfast in the forward saloon on 7 and tell them what has happened and ask for their help. I’ll get plenty,” he grinned. “It’ll be a question of sorting the wheat from the chaff. After that I can probably find out when it happened and work from that.”
“What about finger-prints and records and all that sort of thing?”
“I can deal with finger prints. I am not an expert to go into court and swear but I can tell one from another or if there are none at all. The galley or the shop will have what I need. In any event, there are none of any kind on the stick. I have looked.”
“None? None at all?
“None whatsoever. It must have been very thoroughly wiped. That’s what made me wonder in the first place.”
“I see.”
“As for information,” Per went on, “we have a radio, a telephone and a computer with E mail and the Web. Friends in Oslo will do any legwork I may need and give me access to records.... especially if they know Devold is involved....”
The Captain chuckled.
“Also,” Per went on, “the range of suspects is necessarily limited to people on board. Of those, I expect we can eliminate most. And if we are aboard a ship in a storm the suspects cannot vanish. In fact we have a classic mystery....”
“Murder on the Boreal Express?”
“I am very much afraid so.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Gin ye’ll lend me dayes three.....”
The passengers and most of the crew were summoned to the great forward saloon on Deck 7. All the passengers were there. Rumour had been flying ever since the search of the cabins. Even those who disliked being regimented were spurred to come by a fierce curiosity. Once there and seated and the noise of speculation silenced, the Captain told them briefly what had happened; a passenger, one Mr. Henry Penman of England, had disappeared during the night and though, as they knew, a thorough search had been conducted he was not to be found on board. Therefore, unhappily, it seemed that he had gone overboard. The waters in these latitudes were never warm but at this time of the year they were at their warmest and there was a chance, very slim chance, that he might have survived. As they must have realized, the ship was retracing her route of the night before and a search was being made. He regretted that passengers already delayed by the collision in the Magerøysundet would be still further delayed. The NSSR and shore rescue services had been alerted
However, he continued, questions had to be asked about how this accident could have happened for, as they probably realized, it was all but impossible to fall overboard by accident. There was a low murmur of agreement. Consequently, an enquiry would have to be made and he, the Captain, had put the matter into the capable hands of the Third Officer, Per Berg, who had experience in such matters. He requested that they search their memories for anything which might have a bearing on Mr. Penman’s disappearance and inform Mr. Berg should they remember something, no matter how trivial, that they thought might be useful. The important time would appear to be between a quarter past midnight when he left his cabin and quarter past four in the morning when his absence was first noticed.
There was a rustle and a murmuring. Most people there caught the implications of this. The Captain went on;
“In normal circumstances the police would conduct enquiries into such a disappearance but we are at some considerable distance from the nearest police office and to complicate matters even further the weather is turning awkward. Winter has come early, this year. You will already have been warned that we are expecting storm-force winds, heavy seas and a blizzard any time within the next six hours.”
The murmuring became apprehensive and heads turned toward the windows where low dark cloud and an almost black sea liberally flecked with whitecaps bore out his words.
“Because of the delay yesterday and the further delay of the search we cannot make Berlevåg before the storm breaks. In order to take shelter from the worst of this bad weather we must anchor in Gamvik where, unfortunately, there is only a small police post and where access is difficult because there is no harbour for a ship of this size. The main link with the authorities is a single-track road which can be blocked for days after a blizzard and, of course, helicopters will not be able to fly in such conditions. We must wait for the police until after the weather has moderated and that could be thirty six to forty eight hours.”
