‘No thanks,’ mutters Jónas, standing up without tasting his coffee.
‘Up to you, pal,’ says Ási, removing the last of the plates and cutlery from the table in the officers’ mess. ‘But there’s lemon cheesecake in the fridge that’s looking for hot coffee with a view to a lasting relationship.’
‘Thanks for the meal,’ says Jónas. He leaves the mess and sets off up the stairs with heavy steps, his back bent by worry and anxiety.
When he’s about halfway up the steps from D-deck to E-deck he hears movement on the port side on the deck below him. He stops on the third step from the top, holds on to the railings either side and listens. He hears a number of men who walk in a row to the stair and then march like soldiers down to C-deck without laughing, swearing or talking to each other.
Jónas feels that something is not as it should be – seamen don’t often walk around in silent groups. He creeps back down to D-deck and peers through the stairwell. There he sees Big John and Rúnar disappearing round a corner on C-deck, straight backed and with serious expressions, and clutching shotguns to their chests.
What’s going on?
He jogs along behind them and manages to see the whole group before they disappear down to B-deck, which will take them outside. At the head is Satan with his hands in the air, and behind him Methúsalem, handling his rifle as if it were equipped with a bayonet.
Good God!
‘Easy,’ Jónas says to himself, drawing a deep breath and rubbing his cold hands together.
They’ve arrested Satan, which means they think he cut the wires – which is good. But what if this criminal talks? What if he tells them he isn’t Jónas’s brother-in-law? Then what will they think of Jónas, who’s been keeping it secret that he isn’t? Why should he keep such a thing secret? What if Satan tells them that Jónas paid him five million to keep quiet? What if he shows them the cheque?
What can Jónas say then? That Satan had threatened him? That he had paid Satan to keep silent? To save his life?
Jónas runs up to D-deck and straight into Satan’s cabin. The air smells of burnt gunpowder, there’s a bullet hole on the wall above the bed and a pool of vomit by the bathroom door.
Jónas searches everywhere for his cheque. If he can find it, lying his way out of all this will be easier. Then he’ll just say that Satan threatened him – that he threatened to kill Jónas if he told the others about him.
Jónas finds the duffel bag in the closet and empties it.
He digs around in the clothes and finds the passports, the bankbooks and the share certificates – but not the cheque. He shoves the clothes back in the bag and pockets the papers.
There’s nothing in the bathroom cupboard but cigarettes. Jónas steals one pack and continues the hunt for the cheque. He can’t find it anywhere. It’s not under the mattress, not on the couch, not under the bed; not behind, inside or under anything. It isn’t in the cabin.
The bastard’s got it on him, of course!
‘Damn!’ Jónas mutters, then sits on the couch and lights a cigarette.
He has to do something. He has to think of something. Something brilliant. Something dramatic. Something that will draw his shipmates’ attention away from obvious facts and logical conclusions.
It’s now or never.
Jónas puts out his cigarette, turns off the lights as he leaves the cabin and closes the door behind him. He listens for movement, hears nothing, and opens the door to the platform behind the wheelhouse. The storm has approached the ship again, dimming the daylight and raising the wind so the sea is grey and choppy. Jónas holds onto the railing with one hand
and throws Satan’s papers overboard with the other. The wind grabs the ruined passports, the bankbooks and the share certificates, stirs its catch round in midair, lifts it high above the ship and then scatters it over the churning sea.
The less there is available about Satan, the better. No ID, no family, no papers, nothing.
Who’s going to believe the word of a man who can’t prove his identity?
Jónas smiles crookedly, but not for long. He still has to carry out the most difficult part of his plan; he has undermined Satan’s credibility but he still has to prove his merciless cruelty. Once the crew sees what this man did to Jónas when he threatened to expose him, they won’t doubt the evil of his character. Then they won’t doubt his guilt. Then the cheque won’t make any difference, whether it’s found or not.
Jónas clambers over the railing behind the wheelhouse and climbs down on the outside until his feet are hanging free. The ship is rising and plunging deeply by turns so Jónas is either slammed against the cold metal or swung out over the wake that roils behind the stern fifteen metres below him.
After only thirty seconds his hands ache. The metal is cold and wet, sticky with salt, and his stiff fingers are slowly losing their grip. Jónas is panting and trying to think straight as he appraises the movement of the ship. He must neither end up in the sea nor land on the railing on the deck below. It’s a question of the right moment, letting go just as the ship begins to lift after breaking a heavy wave, but not too soon and absolutely not too late…
Boom, boom, boom…
Now!
Jónas lets go of the wet railing. For just a moment he seems to float in midair. Then C-deck shoots past his eyes, his stomach is filled with a cold emptiness, his heart flames in his chest and the taste of blood fills his nose, and the blood tastes of rusty iron…
XXIII
F-deck
Guðmundur Berndsen is sitting on the couch in his starboard cabin playing patience. The cards slide on the table when the ship rolls or plunges but Guðmundur has been playing this same game of patience at sea for twenty years and his clever captain’s fingers have up to now straightened the cards as he went along without his focused mind even noticing.
But no longer.
Guðmundur is finding it difficult to concentrate and when the cards slide about it gets on his nerves, his fingers are unsteady, the cards stick to them and gradually the game falls apart into a ludicrous mess.
‘Damn it!’ mutters the captain, mixing the cards around before shuffling them again.
He’s thinking about Hrafnhildur, about the sabotage on the ship, about the morale on board; and he’s thinking about that storm that Methúsalem should have manoeuvred them around long ago.
‘The devil take this cursed ship,’ murmurs Guðmundur and stands up to fetch a flask of cognac and a heavy shot glass.
The captain doesn’t usually bring spirits on board but this is his final voyage, after all. Isn’t he definitely going to quit after this trip? Yes, by Christ – he’s quitting!
‘Just one, for my stomach,’ Guðmundur tells himself as he breaks the seal on the bottle and fills the shot glass. Then he tosses it back and closes his eyes, smacking his lips on the smooth aftertaste.
That’s better!
He shuffles the cards and lays the game yet again. The ship rolls back and forth, the wind from the west is rising and the daylight outside the window has turned to a weak glimmer.
What would Hrafnhildur be doing right now? Is she going to come to Suriname? Is he still a married man – or has Guðmundur Berndsen become a divorced old fogey?
‘King on the ace, queen on the king,’ he mutters as he moves the king and queen, then turns up the cards that lie upside down underneath them.
Guðmundur sighs deeply and licks his lips. He unscrews the top of the bottle, fills the shot glass and tosses it back. Then he refills the glass and screws the top back on.
For a long time he turned a deaf ear when men in their late fifties talked about how dull it must be not to have anyone to share your old age with. How sad it was to maybe die alone.