Blame The Dead

So the boys would now know the Mauser had got away and there wasn't any point in trying to lean on me about it any more. That's all I'd been trying to find out, but I had to look interested right to the end.

When he'd finished he half folded the paper and tossed it on to the bed. 'And now the other one, perhaps?'

'No, thanks.' Then I added quickly, 'Not unless it tells me more about Steen.'

He shrugged and reached for the coffee-pot. 'Nothing much.'

'So – how's it going?'

'It is over.'

I spilled coffee into the saucer and the cup wasn't even half full. 'It's w/tat? Have you caught somebody?'

He shrugged again. 'You might say.'

He stared damply at me for a good long time before saying, 'Henrick Lie. We know him. Not a nice person. He knew Steen already, it seems.'

'How d'you know it was him?'

'He has confessed.'

'Do you believe him?'

'The superintendent believes him.'

'He could change his mind.'

'Which? – but it does not matter. Neither of them ever will.'

I suppose I was still a bit dozy from the alcohol and pill and too much of my thinking was concentrated just above my right ear, but it finally sank in. 'You mean Lie's dead?'

'With a nine-millimetre, through the mouth.' – And on through the back of the head, taking a lot of the head and brain with it and the gun often recoiling clear out of the fast-dying hand and ending up several feet away. The classic pistol suicide, as simple and formal as a cheque. And faked about as often.

After a while, I asked, 'And when did all this happen?'

'He was found at perhaps six o'clock this morning in a car near the Nordnesparken.'

'And I suppose all the fingerprints and powder-stains are in the right places and the handwriting on the confession's the real thing?'

He nodded gently. 'The writing we do not know about yet. But I think it will be right.'

'I bet it will.'

'You know a lot about gunshot suicide.'

'I was sixteen years in the Army.'

'Ah, yes.'

'And so? – what did he say? What about Steen?'

He took out a fistful of soggy Kleenex, selected the driest corner, and blew his nose powerfully. 'It is a secret document until thelikskue – the inquest.'

'For Christ's sake.'

'It is not my decision. But have you toldme everything?'

I didn't have an answer to that, so I said, 'But you aren't going to let it lay, are you? He wasn't in it alone.'

'We have a confession. The superintendent has decided. So, now we need not trouble with your mysteries. You are free, you can go at any time, anywhere. You could even go to Hell.'

1 got up slowly and stiffly – I'd pulled a few muscles taking the count last night – and took a shower, a shave, and a look in the mirror. My face looked slack and my eyes bloodshot.but at least the bump above my ear didn't show unless you were looking for it. I'd rather have that than Kavanagh's hand.

Not that it had stopped him doing some fast thinking and ruthless improvisation, if Lie's 'suicide' had been his idea. That certainly couldn't have been planned ahead, not if they originally counted on implicating me in Steen's death. But once that had fallen through, the suicide had done the next best thing: stopped the police investigation cold in the simplest possible way. Ideas that simply scare the hell out of me, and I don't mean the town.

Draper rang at half past ten, mostly to say goodbye; he was catching the afternoon plane. I told him I expected to catch it myself and his lack of enthusiasm was almost tangible. I think he regarded me as a bad influence. So I asked about Maggie and he said she was probably staying on a while, but he didn't know why. Neither did I.

I was out on the street just before eleven. Last night's snow hadn't settled, and for the moment it wasn't even raining, so the town was just damp, not really wet. I drifted towards the north harbour, looking in shop windows until I was certainÌwas alone. Then straight to the Fontenen.

The guns were still safe in the cistern. I dried them as much as I could on the toilet paper but I wasn't going to risk wearing one-or, by implication, firing it – until I'd had a chance to strip them properly. So I just finished my beer and headed back to the Norge. And there was a telephone message waiting: please ring Mrs Smith-Bang at a given number.

'Smith-Bang?'

The desk clerk smiled briefly and nodded. 'Bang is a usual Norwegian name, sir. Some time a Bang married a Smith, I think.'

'Ah, but did Smith bang Bang or Bang bang Smith?' After a single beer? 'I'm sorry. You wouldn't happen to have heard of the lady, would you?'

He'd gone a little stiff and puzzled. But he reached for the message and looked at it – at the telephone number, I suppose, then said, 'Excuse me' and went away and came back with a telephone directory. 'Yes, it is the Mrs Smith Bang who is a -you say "widow", I think, who owns the ship line.'

'Which one?' Not that I'd know it anyway.

'The ADP line, sir.'

'Thanks. I'll call her back.'

But the first thing I did upstairs was to field-strip the Mauser and derringer, wipe them down with more toilet paper, and spread the bits over the radiator to dry. The ammunition should be all right – modern stuff should survive a few hours in water – but how d'you know until you're wrong? So I planned to wear the derringer: if the first one didn't go bang, thumb-cocking was easier than working the slide of the Mauser. And that reminded me.

A man's voice answered the phone – in Norwegian.

I said carefully, 'My name's James Card: I think Mrs Smith-Bang wanted me to call her.'

'Oh, yes, sir. She is out, I am afraid, but I have a message. She asks if youwill please go to have a drink at the Hringhorni.'

'The what?'

'The ship, sir, Hringhorni.'

'Ummm…' How d'you explain that you've learnt to be cagey about accepting invitations in this town and will the lady please swear her intentions are honourable or at least nonviolent? '… well, where is it?'

He told me the berth number. 'Near to the Bergen Line.'

Oh, well, it was a fairly public invitation. 'Okay, but I don't want to make it a long one -1 want to catch the half-past-two. plane.'

So I accepted for twelve noon.

By then I'd packed up, paid my bill, been told insincerely that the Norge could hardly wait to see me back again (you could read in the clerk's eyes what he thought of guests who get called on by police Inspectors [First Class]), carried my own luggage out of the door as usual, and got myself taxied down to the docks.

Twenty-four

The Hringhorni was a smallish, old-fashioned cargo boat with her superstructure stuck in the middle instead of right aft like a lot of modern jobs you see nowadays. The hull was a light grey-green where it wasn't long smears of rust, and the funnel was painted black with a white band that broadened into a stylized snowflake with the letters ADP in red.

The derricks around the foremast (or whatever) were hauling crates into the hold, but when I'd climbed the shaky metal-and-rope gangway there wasn't anybody around. Still, that was normal; every time I've gone aboard a ship in harbour I could have stolen the propellers, the skipper's pyjamas, and half the cargo before anybody noticed I was there. I chose the nearest doorway and ducked in out of the wind.

There wasn't anybody there, either, only a faint buzz of chat from a stairway leading upwards. I followed it up, along a stretch of metal corridor, through an open door and a heavy green curtain – and I was home. Maybe it had been an initiative test.

The inhabitants were a middle-aged square man with four stripes on his uniform sleeve and a big brier pipe – and Mrs Smith-Bang, I presume. She took a couple of long strides and held out a bony brown hand.

'You're Jim Card, are you? Well, hi there. What're you drinking? Scotch suit you? Great. Meet Captain Jensen. Now sid-down, siddown. How d'you like this Bergen weather? This is the only place in the world they talk about the climate more than you English. Now you know why, ha? '