Blame The Dead

The cop nodded briskly, handed over the paper and passports, and hopped off.

"There, you see?' I said. 'It wasn't so bad, was it?'

He looked back at me with a sick expression. Half an hour later, we were in Belgium.

They dumped me off outside the Gare Central in Brussels at half past five, with a bloodshot dawn breaking behind the Palais de la Nation and a nagging cold wind scouring the empty streets. The courier didn't even bother to wave, and Harry nearly made the bus stand on its hind legs getting away from me. I knew I must have BO by now, but I didn't think it wasthat bad.

I had a few coffees in the station itself and when I came out, the Aérogare opposite was open, so I booked on the eight-fifteen Sabena flight for Copenhagen and then a Danair connection to Bergen. Out at the airport I found a chemist shop open and bought a razor and blades, and spent most of the flight standing straddle-legged in the toilet of a Caravelle, balancing against the air pockets and trying to shave a face roughly smeared with perfumed airline soap.

At Copenhagen I got my case back just long enough to snatch a fresh shirt out of it and hand it back for the Bergen flight. And to find out that while it had been supposedly shut up in the back of Denniston Tours' bus, somebody had worked open the locks and taken the log of the Skadi.

Thirty-five

I climbed on to the plane in a daze, my jaw waggling loosely as I nodded back to the stewardess's 'Good morning, sir.' I'd've nodded just as willingly if she'd asked 'Are you smuggling a thirty-eight Special copy of the Remington forty-one derringer up your left sleeve, sir?'

But after a time, the numbness wore off. I'd still got the photo-copies; I'd still got Willie as witness to its existence and what it said. And Iwasn't in Arras jail, was I? And it hadn't been BO but guilty conscience that made Denniston Tours leave me at such speed. Which reminded me, so I went back to the toilet and changed my shirt.

Beside the washbasin there was a small bottle of lime-green after-shave lotion and for a moment I wondered what it tasted like, and, if so, I might fill my KGB flask with it. Which must prove something about how I still felt. But at least I was thinking Nygaard. It might help me find him.

The Friendship whistled down into Bergen at a quarter to one, just five minutes behind time – and guess what? – it was raining. I tried to ring Kari, couldn't get her, and left a message to say I'd be lunching at the Norge. So then I caught the airport bus and got myself hauled to the terminal in the hotel itself.

She was there to meet me, and even offered to carry my case, so maybe I looked as bad as I felt. But I decided to leave it at the terminal; I didn't yet know where I'd be for the night anyway.

'Any news?' I asked it just for the record, though her face was as long as an Arctic night.

She shook her head.

'You've tried the hospitals and police stations?'

'Ja, ja.'So it wasn't so likely that he was dead under a bush somewhere, unless he'd gone right out of Bergen – and why should he?

'You asked Mrs Smith-Bang?'

'She is very worried also.'

Til bet. Just when did he go missing?'

'He left the Home on Saturday morning, before midday.'

'Forty-eight hours by now. Well…' It wasn't too long for a practising alcoholic. Amnesia's a normal part of the game at this stage, so he could still be under somebody's table thinking that Saturday was taking a long time to go past. 'Well,' I said again, 'I've got to eat or die. D'you want to lunch here?'

The short answer was No, though she spun it out a bit. I don't know if she really didn't want that size of lunch, whether she was scared of the flossy great dining-dancing room with its thirty-two Japanese lanterns, or whether she thought I was suggesting she pay for it herself. Anyhow, she obviously preferred to go out for a coffee and a sandwich, so I made a date for a quarter past two and gave her a cable to send off to Willie, reassuring him that I wasn't in jail – yet. No mention of the Skadi's log, though.

After lunch I had time to ask at the desk about Maggie Mackwood – but she'd left for London two days before.

Kari's Volkswagen hadn't gone to its Great Reward yet – not quite – so we started down at the Home itself. After a fair bit of ringing and knocking the door was opened by a character who'd sailed as cabin boy on the first Ark. He thought young Herr Ruud was out, and as for Nygaard – who?

I don't think he was hiding anything; it was just that his mind hadn't touched harbour for ten years and Nygaard had only been around for the last four months.

Still, it reminded me to ask Kari, 'Did you try asking any of the other sailors here?'

'Oh, ja. But they did not know where he had gone. He went in the morning and they do not get up so early always.'

'Had Nygaard said he was going away?'

'No.' She seemed pretty definite about that. 'What can we do now?' She just stood there in the rain, wearing her dark blue anorak again, only with its hood up, and looking expectantly at me.

'Well,' I said feebly, 'I suppose we could go and see Mrs Smith-Bang again. And come back here later.'

I was surprised how easily she took the idea. Maybe she really thought I knew what I was doing.

The house was high on a suburban hill north-east of the town and – on that day – barely below cloud level. It was a rambling modern split-level affair in what looked like creosoted wood, backing into a gully of spindly pines. A pale green Volvo 145 station wagon was parked in front; Kari put the Volkswagen in behind it.

An elderly bloke in a grey apron opened the door and listened gravely to Kari's fast spiel. It didn't seem to be doing us any good until a voice yelled, 'Who's there? Jim Card, is it? Come on in, son."

I peered politely at the butler or whatever and we passed on in. Kari seemed to know the way.

It was a big room, a female room, but not a feminine one. All cheery blues and yellows and knotty pine and fluffy bright rugs and colourful plates and vases. I could imagine the cold polite look on Lois Fenwick's face if I'd led her in. Then I shivered and remembered why I was here.

Mrs Smith-Bang was shaking Kari's hand, then mine. 'Howdy, son. Nice to see you again so soon. Glad to see you know young Kari here. Great girl, she's been doing great things for old Nygaard. I guess you heard about him, huh?'

I nodded. 'That's more or less why-'

'You wouldn't have a certain book for me, would you?'

'It's safe in London. I had to leave in a sort of a rush. Sorry.' I wasn't in a truth-telling mood right then. 'Anyway, the bloody thing's no use without Nygaard to swear to it, is it?'

She looked at me rather seriously. T guess. So – sit down, sit down. It's about him, huh? I was getting pretty worried myself. It's two days now, isn't it?'

Kari nodded.

'I guess he could still have gone on a real dinosaur of a toot and he's still shacked up in some bar. Hell, my second husband climbed aboard a bottle one night in Tampico and it wasten days before they-'

Kari said, 'Frau Smith-Bang: you forget it was Saturday. The bars and the Vinmonopolet are closed for Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday he could not have gone out to drink; for that he must have stayed in at home.'

I'd forgotten it myself, since I'd only met it in the guidebook. So he wasn't in the back room of some bar. But also he probably wasn't frozen stiff under some bush.

Mrs Smith-Bang said, 'Hell, yes. You're right, girlie. Don't do much bar-crawling myself nowadays, so I forgot… Well, what do we do now?'

Kari said, 'We could tell the police.'

Mrs Smith-Bang and I both sighed in chorus, glanced at each other, and grinned ruefully. She said, 'You say it, Jim.'

'Well, I'm not an expert on Norwegian law, but in most of the world it's no offence to be missing. Not even if you've a wife and ten starving kids complaining, the cops have got no case to hunt a man down. Not until he's done something really serious like not paying a parking fine. Then he's a criminal and they can haul him back from the hot end of hell at public expense. Mind you-' I looked at Mrs Smith-Bang '-you might invent something along those lines. Can't you create a legal hearing and get a subpoena on him or something?'