Blame The Dead

Still, whatever he felt hadn't transferred itself to the lobster. It was just firm and white, with little golden trickles of melted butter, as simple as a million dollars. Usually when I feel up to affording lobster I overdo it and ask for itàla everything on the menu and curried cheese besides. Under all that, what I get for lobster is left over from last summer's staff tennis dance.

I must have looked the way I was feeling, because Draper asked, 'D'you usually eat lobster in these pads? '

'Only when there's an expense account in the month.' I looked back to Maggie, nibbling her filleted sole. 'I forgot to ask – how did Fenwick get this… evidence? Who did you say sent it?'

'I didn't…' but she was trying to remember what shehad said, and Draper was glaring sideways at her. 'From Norway, anyway. Bergen, I think.'

'You mean Steen?'

'I… er…' and both Draper and I knew she meant Steen. Suddenly she realised this. 'Well, youknow, don't you? Isn't he the man you came to see? What did he tell you?'

'Him? – nothing. Somebody shot him just before I got there.'

Her surprise was real. The piece of fish on her fork went slowly on into her mouth and got chewed up and swallowed and her eyes were looking at me but they were listening to something over the hills and gone.

I looked back at Draper. He put his knife and fork gently back together on the plate and asked, slow and careful, 'Dead? – why?'

'Basically because of a couple of twenty-two bullets. After that I'm guessing. I guess it was because of something he was going to tell me, but that could be just pure conceit.'

Draper picked up the worn cigar from the ashtray and took out a lighter and – finally – tried to light it. It took time, since it was mostly Havana Saliva by now, but he wasn't in any hurry. Finally he said, 'You've told the police and done all the unsporting things like that, eh, Major?'

'Oh, yes. I imagine it's in the evening paper and on the radio and so on. You could ask the waiter.' Was I really going to scrape the inside of the lobster's tail completely clean? No – let it rest in peace. 'What I was thinking was – I think I've got a date with the blokes that did it, later on this evening. Could be the same ones that killed Fenwick, as well. I just wondered if you'd like to come along and help out? '

Twenty-one

Ireached Willie soon after ten, and I didn't waste any of his money on idle chat. 'Steen was murdered before I reached him.'

'Good God! How did it-'

'Never mind. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow – if the police let me leave.'

'I say – you haven't got yourself-'

'No, I haven't. Just routine. Now: have you found out anything about him?'

'Oh, yes. Well, something. He's a sort of Lloyd's sub-agent, done quite a lot of survey work on claims for us when the usual chap there isn't available."

'Specifically for your syndicate? '

'It doesn't work quite that way… but I did a list of the ships he surveyed where we were involved. Over the last three years that was the Gefjon, Bergen Wayfarer, Skadi, Runic Queen, Idun. Those five.'

'Is any one of them special? I've found out that Steen sent Fenwick some sort of evidence about a shipping claim – that's the book-thing he was supposed to be taking to France.'

The line hummed and crackled to itself for a time. Then Willie said slowly, 'Well, each one's special in its own way. Insurance deals with the exceptional – that's what it's all about, what?'

'I suppose so.' I wanted to tell him about Maggie Mackwood and Draper, and about my appointment for later on – but if I were Inspector (First Class) Vik I'd have a copper with a tape-recorder down in the switchboard keeping an ear on James Card.

But at least I could ask, 'Does the name Gulbrandsen or Gulbrandsens mean anything to you?'

He automatically corrected my pronunciation, but he couldn't do any more.

'H and Thornton – doesthat mean anything?'

'What is it?'

'Don't know. Could be two blokes or a firm or what."

'I haven't heard of it. Sorry, old boy.'

'Never mind. Just keep the great brain bent on it and ring me if anything occurs to you. But with a bit of luck I'll learn a bit more tonight. I'll probably be home tomorrow – okay?'

And now it was time to go and meet Draper.

He'd been a pretty reluctant conscript – but wars are won by them. Probably it was only a feeling of guilt about the cock-up he'd made of following me plus the promise of a gun that had recruited him. Either way, it was far safer for him to go snooping in the Fontenen's cistern; it could still have a blight of policemen who might know me by sight.

We met in the Norge's basement lavatory – just in case. He took a careful look over my shoulder, just to make sure, and hissed, 'You bleeding git! The bleeding place shut a bleeding hour ago!'

No guns.

'Hold on.' I grabbed his arm as he started around me for the door.

'Get away,' he snarled. 'I'm not going out to play funny-buggers in the park without some protection, and you can tell Herb and the ABD and the House of bleeding Lords, too.'

'Stop panicking, you're making yourself conspicuous.' That hushed him – although there wasn't anybody else there to be conspicuous to. 'Look – you don't have to be involved, you can be an innocent bystander as long as you like. I just want you there as a witness… for if I don't get back.'

'Sing it again-I only cried out of one eye that time.'

I took a deep breath. 'So screw you, Draper. You're only hired; I really want to know about these people. For once they've stuck their necks out, made a date. I'm keeping it.'

'Oh my God,' he said slowly. 'How did the First World War ever get on without you?' Long pause. 'All right, then.'

But that didn't solve the weapons problem; Draper might be mug enough to walk into trouble stark naked, but I certainly wasn't. Room Service had just closed down and the Grill was shut – so I couldn't get myself issued with a steak knife. There wouldn't be any shops open at this time – or would there?

I asked at the desk. The clerk looked politely surprised, thought about it, shrugged. 'I think only the tourist shop, sir.'

'Where's that?'

He pointed at the corner. 'By the air terminal, sir.'

'What do they sell there?'

'Souvenirs, sir. Sweaters for skiing, beer mugs, little figures of trolls, paper knives-'

'Thankyou.'

I was round there three seconds later. The shop-girl was just closing up, but didn't mind waiting an extra couple of minutes. I pretended to take my time, but there was really only a choice between a longish stiletto-shaped paper-knife and a short, sharp reindeer-horn-handle 'hunting' knife in a cute little fur sheath. In the end I took the sheath job; for all its fancy looks, it was four inches of real sharp steel – and lungs aren't four inches behind your ribs.

I was ready for a stroll in the Park.

Twenty-two

Outside, the night was full of thick, soggy snowflakes that drifted prettily in the lamplight and splattered into ice water the moment they touched you. I turned up my fur collar, shoved my chin down into it, and headed for the Park.

According to the map, it was at the end of the street, the street itself being the Ole Bull's Plass, and Ole himself – to judge from the statue – had been a violinist or maybe composer. I mean, how do you do a statue of a composer anyway? Have him looking soulfully upwards and he could have been the man who discovered meteorology or the eighth deadly sin, and we all know they composed on pianos anyhow. But show me a town council that can afford a statue of that.

It was a good, wide street lined with big student cafés that looked warm and safe behind the steamed-up windows, and only me outside. A couple of motor-cycle cops, with little green lamps besides their headlights, paused to give me suspicious glances, and then zoomed away ahead. I slowed down so as not to lose Draper. He was supposed to be following me to make sure nobody else did.