Ben succeeded Demetrios at last, shaking Mariner’s hand. “Hello, Dick,” he said quietly. “Welcome back. No ceremony, I’m afraid. I thought you’d rather not…” His eyes, gentle brown in a mahogany tan and deep-slitted against the murderous glare, searched Richard’s pale face anxiously. Then, as his godfather’s eyes came alive again, he gave a broad grin. They shook hands vigorously and might have embraced, had Demetrios not interrupted. “C’mon. Let’s go. Time’s money.”
Richard looked at him properly, and didn’t much like what he saw. Demetrios was a short man, lean in body but with something self-indulgent, almost de cadent, about his huge dark eyes and full red mouth. His luxuriant black curls just topped Mariner’s square shoulder. As he spoke, sunlight blazed on a gold tooth. And when he spoke, it was with an American accent. Among the most dangerous combinations in the world, mused Richard grimly. Greek pirate’s soul and a Harvard Business School mind. And greed. Demetrios had greedy eyes. But then, which self-made millionaire did not? he wondered. And pushed the bluff, honest gaze of his father-in-law out of his memory.
These thoughts occupied his mind for the walk up to the blessed shade cast by the port bridge wing. He opened the bulkhead door and stepped ahead of the others into the cool of the A deck corridor. There was a distant hum of generators. The lights and the air-conditioning were on. He shivered. Then Ben was by his side. “Good trip out, Dick?” Richard was momentarily distracted. Ben’s cheerful smile, dark tan, and sun-bleached hair seemed to give off energy. He gave a wry smile.
“Fine. How soon can we weigh?”
“As soon as the owner, and…and the others leave.” If Richard closed his eyes he could see the coffins. The three, full no doubt, at the head of the accommodation ladder. Others, older, at the memorial service five years ago: empty every one.
They got under way at 16.35 local time. The interim was taken up with a brief conference between the owner and his new captain, during which Demetrios seemed determined to answer as few questions as possible and to emphasize the overwhelming need for a swift passage. When he left, he took the last three coffins with him.
At 17.00, Richard began his inspection.
He started high in the navigation bridge with Ben Strong at his side. Then they went down to the bridge and chatted briefly to John Higgins on watch there; checked the equipment, chart table, course, logbooks. Looked down the long deck, changing color from green to ocher in the early sunset. Went down to C deck, then B deck, then A; then the crew’s quarters and the rest.
Here Richard met his crew. Vague names, quickly forgotten at first — only Salah Malik and “Twelve Toes” Ho standing out from the crowd because they were so obviously in charge. Salah somewhere between a mullah and a chief petty officer; Ho named “Twelve Toes” because of his uncannily sure footing.
He took the Accident Report Book into the Pump Room and read through the concise notes above the chief engineer’s signature. He tried to reconstruct the sequence of events those bland words described. He walked into the Fire Control Room and looked around, narrow-eyed. The wires above the lintel were all new and meticulously fitted. “Your work?” he asked Ben.
“Chief engineer’s.”
He walked across to the rear wall and looked up at the pipe junction where Kanwar had seen the twist of green wire. There was nothing. “Anything up there?”
“Not that I could see. They were maybe checking the pipe junctions. Some of them are…Well, let’s just say some of the pipework isn’t all it looks.”
Richard looked at his first officer, frowning, then up at the pipes again. “No, no,” said Ben. “Nothing to worry about. It’s fine. I’ve had a good look round. Next time she’s in for maintenance she might need a little work, that’s all.”
They checked that the oxygen cylinders and the carbon dioxide canisters all read full pressure and left.
Then they went deeper into the bowels of the ship, down into the roaring inferno of the Engine Room. And here at last the captain met the chief engineer.
In the air-conditioned relative quiet of the Engine Control Room, overhanging the three-deck-deep hole that contained the huge engine, C. J. Martyr stood with the statue stillness that characterized the man. He must have heard the surge of sound as Ben opened and closed the door, but he did not move until Ben took him by the shoulder. Then he swung round incredibly fast, as though he were going to fight them.
His face was absolutely closed. What lay behind that statuesque mask they might learn in time, little by little, but what struck Richard immediately was the cold hostility. Martyr had tremendously expressive green eyes astride a great beak of a nose that overhung an uncompromising mouth extended by deep lines down to his square, gray chin. Only his ears added a touch of levity, sticking out like jug handles to draw attention to the width of his cheekbones; their size emphasized by the sand-gray stubble of his crew-cut hair. He was six feet four inches tall and as thin as a rake.
He stuck out a massive hand. Richard looked down as he took it. It was as gaunt as the rest of the man — fingers thin between scarred knucklebones, tipped with great square nails.
“How do you do?” In the face of the baseless hostility, Richard spoke stiffly, and then felt very stage-English, as though he were putting on airs to belittle the American. Martyr scanned him from head to toe, able to look down on him — just; the blue-black waves perhaps half an inch below the sand-gray crew cut. He nodded once, coldly, silently.
It was like a declaration of war.
Dinner was held back to 20.00 that evening, waiting until the captain’s inspection was complete. Richard had told Ben to proceed with Pour Out while he showered and changed. Although exhausted, he hurried, knowing that the first social meeting with his officers was of the greatest importance.
At precisely the same moment as Richard stepped out of his cabin door, Martyr stepped out of his a few feet away.
“Evening, Chief,” said Richard guardedly. “You’ve missed Pour Out.”
“Yeah.”
They crossed to the lift, shoulder to shoulder, in silence, while Richard sorted out in his mind the sequence of questions he wanted to ask. Martyr pushed the button.
“What exactly happened in the Pump Room?” asked Richard at once.
Martyr, his face closed, turned. There was something Richard could not read, moving in his glass-green eyes. “Murder,” he said.
“Murder?”
“As good as.”
The lift came. The doors hissed open. They stepped in together.
“What do you mean?”
“Goddamned amateurs,” yelled Martyr, suddenly overcome by the enormity of what had happened. “You’ve never seen anything like it in your life. Rotten wiring. Empty emergency equipment…”
“Did you look at the pipework that Nicoli was checking?”
“Yeah. Nothing wrong with it. The biggest disasters have the smallest causes. That’s always the way.”
They arrived. The doors hissed open. Martyr’s face snapped closed again.
The silence between them still cool, they walked down to the Officer’s Bar and entered together at 20.00 precisely.
Everyone was there, except the third mate and the third engineer, who had just begun their respective watches above and below. They were rowdy and cheerful. Even young Tsirtos looked blearily happy, holding a pint of beer — clearly not his first — very much more at home with this crew than he had been with the other.