Night of Error

III

It was a good dinner and a better show and we drove home replete with fine food and excellent entertainment. Geordie was in high spirits and sang in a cracked and tuneless voice one of the numbers from the show. We were both in a cheerful mood.

I parked the car outside the block of flats and got out. There was still a thin drizzle of rain but I thought that by morning it would have cleared. That was good; I wanted fine weather for my leave. As I looked up at the sky I stiffened.

‘Geordie, there’s someone in my flat.’

He looked up at the third floor and saw what I had seen – a furtive, hunting light moving at one of the windows.

‘That’s a torch.’ His teeth flashed as he grinned in the darkness. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve had a proper scrap.’

I said, ‘Come on,’ and ran up into the foyer.

Geordie caught my arm as I pressed for the lift. ‘Hold on, let’s do this properly,’ he said. ‘Wait one minute and then go up in the lift. I’ll take the stairs – we should arrive on your floor at the same time. Covers both exits.’

I grinned and saluted. ‘Yes, sergeant.’ You can’t keep an old soldier down; Geordie was making a military operation out of catching a sneak thief – but I followed orders.

I went up in the lift and stepped out into the lighted corridor. Geordie had made good time up the stairs and was breathing as easily as though he’d been strolling on the level. He motioned me to keep the lift door open and reached inside to press the button for the top floor. I closed the door and the lift went up.

He grinned in his turn. ‘Anyone leaving in a hurry must use the stairs now. Got your key?’

I passed it to him and we walked to the door of my flat, treading softly. Through the uncurtained kitchen window I could see the flash of a torch. Geordie cautiously inserted the key into the lock. ‘We’ll go in sharpish,’ he whispered, gave the key a twist, threw open the door and plunged into the flat like an angry bull.

As I followed on his heel I heard a shout – ’Ojo!’ - and the next thing I knew was a blinding flash in my eyes and I was grappling with someone at the kitchen door. Whoever it was hit me on the side of the head, it must have been with the torch because the light went out. I felt dizzy for a moment but held on, thrusting forward and bringing my knee up sharply.

I heard a gasp of pain and above it the roar of Geordie’s voice from further in the flat – possibly the bedroom.

I let go my grip and struck out with my fist, and yelled in pain as my knuckles hit the kitchen door. My opponent squirmed out from where I had him pinned and was gone through the open door of the flat. Things were happening too fast for me. I could hear Geordie swearing at the top of his voice and the crash of furniture. A light tenor voice called, ‘Huid! Huid! No disparéis! Emplead cuchillos!’ Then suddenly someone else banged into me in the darkness and I struck out again.

I knew now that this assailant would certainly have a knife and possibly a gun and I think I went berserk – it’s wonderful what the adrenal glands will do for a man in an emergency. In the light from the corridor I caught a glimpse of an upraised knife and I chopped viciously at the wrist. There was a howl of pain and the knife clattered to the floor. I aimed a punch at where I thought a stomach was – and missed.

Something was swung at the side of my head again and I went down as a black figure jumped over me. If he hadn’t stopped to kick at my head he would have got clean away, but I squirmed to avoid his boot and caught his leg, and he went sprawling into the corridor.

I dived after him and got between him and the stairs, and he stood in a crouch looking at me, his eyes darting about, looking for escape. Then I saw what he must have swung at my head in the flat – it was Mark’s suitcase.

Suddenly he turned and ran, towards the blank end of the corridor. ‘I’ve got him now,’ I thought exultantly, and went after him at a dead run. But he had remembered what I’d forgotten – the fire escape.

He might have got away then but once again I tackled him rugby-fashion so that I floored him just short of the fire escape. The fall knocked the breath out of me and he improved the shining hour by kicking me in the face. Then, as I was shaking my head in dizziness, he tossed Mark’s case into the darkness.

By the time I regained my feet I was between him and the metal staircase and he was facing me with his right hand, now unencumbered, darting to his pocket. I saw the gun as he drew it and knew the meaning of real fear. I jumped for him and he side-stepped frantically trying to clear the gun from his pocket – but the foresight must have caught on the lining.

Then I hit him hard on the jaw and he teetered on the top step of the fire escape. I hit him again and slammed him against the railing and, to my horror, he jackknifed over. He didn’t make a sound as he fell the three floors into the alley and it seemed a long time before I heard the dull thump as he hit the ground.

I looked down into the darkness and saw nothing. I was conscious of the trembling of my hands as they gripped the steel rail. There was a scurry of footsteps and I turned to see Geordie darting down the stairs. ‘Leave them,’ I shouted. ‘They’re armed!’

But he didn’t stop and all I heard was the thud of his feet as he raced down the staircase.

The tall thin man who lived in the next flat came out in a dressing gown. ‘Now, what’s all this?’ he asked querulously. ‘A chap can’t listen to the radio with all this racket going on.’

I said, ‘Phone the police. There’s been an attempted murder.’

His face went white and he looked at my arm. I looked down and saw blood staining the edges of a slit in the sleeve of my jacket. I couldn’t remember being knifed and I felt nothing.

I looked back up at him. ‘Well, hurry,’ I yelled at him.

A gunshot echoed up the stairwell and we both started.

‘Christ!’

I clattered down the stairs at top speed, all three flights, and came across Geordie in the foyer. He was sitting on the floor staring at his fingers in amazement – they were red with welling blood.

‘The bastard shot me!’ he said incredulously.

‘Where are you hit, for God’s sake?’

‘In the hand, I think. I don’t feel anything anywhere else, and he only fired one shot.’

I looked at his hand. Blood was spurting from the end of his little finger. I began to laugh, an hysterical sound not far from crying, and went on until Geordie slapped my face with his unwounded hand. ‘Pull yourself together, Mike,’ he said firmly. I became aware of doors slamming and voices upstairs but as yet nobody had ventured down into the foyer itself, and I sobered suddenly.

‘I think I killed one of them,’ I said emptily.

‘Don’t be daft. How could you kill a man with your fist?’

‘I knocked him off the fire escape. He fell from the third floor.’

Geordie looked at me closely. ‘We’d better go and have a look at that.’

‘Are you all right?’ We were both bleeding freely now.

He was wrapping his finger in a handkerchief which promptly turned bright red. ‘I’m okay. You can’t call this a mortal wound,’ he said dryly. We went out into the street and walked quickly round to the alley into which the fire escape led. As we turned the corner there was a sudden glare of light and the roar of an engine, together with the slamming of a car door.

‘Look out!’ yelled Geordie and flung himself sideways.

I saw the two great eyes of headlamps rushing at me from the darkness of the alley and I frantically flattened myself against the wall. The car roared past and I felt the wind of it brush my trousers, and then with a squeal of hard-used tyres it turned the corner and was gone.

I listened to the noise of the engine die away and eased myself from the wall, taking a deep shaky breath. In the light of the street lamp on the corner I saw Geordie pick himself up. ‘Christ!’ I said. ‘You don’t know what’s going to happen next.’

‘This lot aren’t ordinary burglars,’ said Geordie, brushing himself down. ‘They’re too bloody persistent. Where’s this fire escape?’

‘A bit further along,’ I said.

We walked slowly up the alley and Geordie fell over the man I had knocked over the edge. We bent down to examine him and, in the faint light, we could see his head. It was twisted at an impossible angle and there was a deep bloody depression in the skull.

Geordie said, ‘No need to look any further. He’s dead.’

IV

‘And you say they were speaking Spanish,’ said the Inspector.

I nodded wearily. ‘As soon as we went into the flat someone shouted, “Look out!” and then I was in the middle of a fight. A bit later on another man shouted, “Get out of here; don’t shoot – use your knives.” I think it was the man I knocked off the fire escape.’

The Inspector looked at me thoughtfully. ‘But you say he was going to shoot you.’

‘He’d lost his knife by then, and I was going for him.’

‘How good is your Spanish, Mr Trevelyan?’

‘Pretty good,’ I said. ‘I did a lot of work off south-west Europe about four years ago and I was based in Spain. I took the trouble to learn the language – I have a flair for them.’

The doctor tied a neat knot in the bandage round my arm and said, ‘That’ll hold it, but try not to use the arm for a while.’ He packed his bag and went out.

I sat up and looked about the flat – it was like a field dressing station in a blitzed area. I was stripped to the waist with a bandaged arm and Geordie sported a natty bandage on his little finger. He was drinking tea and he held out his finger like a charlady at a garden party.

The flat was a wreck. What hadn’t been broken by the burglars had been smashed during the fight. A chair with no legs lay in the corner and broken glass from the front of my bookcase littered the carpet. A couple of uniformed constables stood stolidly in the corners and a plain clothes man was blowing powder about the place with an insufflator.

The Inspector said, ‘Once again – how many of them were there?

Geordie said, ‘I had two on my hands at one time.’

‘I had a go at two,’ I said. ‘But I think that one of them had a bash at Geordie first. It’s difficult to say – it happened so fast.’

‘This man you heard – did he say “knife” or “knives”?’

I thought about that. ‘He said “knives”.’

The Inspector said, ‘Then there were more than two of them.’

Geordie said unexpectedly, ‘There were four.’

The Inspector looked at him with raised eyebrows.

‘I saw three men in the car that passed us. One driving and two getting in in a hurry. With one dead in the alley – that makes four.’

‘Ah yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘They would have one man in the car. Tell me, how did you come to get shot?’

A smile touched Geordie’s lips. ‘How does anyone get shot? With a gun.’ The Inspector recognized a touch of overexcitement and said dryly, ‘I mean, what were the circumstances?’

‘Well, I chased the little bastard down the stairs and damn nearly caught him in the foyer. He saw he was going to be copped so he turned and let me have it. I hadn’t reached him yet. I was so surprised I sat down – then I saw all the blood.’

‘You say he was little?’

‘That he was. A little squirt of not more than five foot four.’

‘So two men went down the stairs, there was one in the car – and one went over the fire escape,’ the Inspector summarized. He had a blunt, square face with watchful grey eyes which he suddenly turned on me like gimlets. ‘You say this man threw a suitcase into the alley.’

‘That’s right.’

‘We haven’t found it, Mr Trevelyan.’

I said, ‘The others must have picked it up. That’s when they nearly ran us down.’

He said softly, ‘How did they know it was there?’

‘I don’t know. They may have seen it coming over. I guess the car was parked in the alley waiting for the others to come down that way.’

He nodded. ‘What was in the suitcase – do you know?’

I glanced across at Geordie who looked back at me expressionlessly. I said, ‘Some stuff belonging to my brother.’

‘What kind of – er – stuff?’

‘Clothing, books – geological samples.’

The Inspector sighed. ‘Anything important or valuable?’

I shook my head. ‘I doubt it.’

‘What about the samples?’

I said, ‘I only saw the specimens briefly. They appeared to be manganese nodules of the type which is often to be found on the ocean bed. They’re very common, you know.’

‘And valuable?’ he persisted.

‘I don’t think that anyone with knowledge of them would regard them as valuable,’ I said. ‘I suppose they might be if they were generally accessible, but it’s too hard to get at them through two or three miles of water.’

The Inspector seemed at a loss. ‘How do you think your brother will regard the loss of those specimens, and his other things?’

‘He’s dead,’ I said.

The Inspector sharpened his attention. ‘Oh? When did he die?’

‘About four months ago – in the Pacific.’

He looked at me closely and I went on, ‘My brother, Mark, was an oceanographer like myself. He died of appendicitis a few months ago and I’ve just received his effects today. As for the specimens I would say they were souvenirs of the IGY survey in which he was engaged. As a scientist he would naturally be interested in them.’

‘Um,’ said the Inspector. ‘Is there anything else missing, Mr Trevelyan?’

‘Not that I know of.’

Geordie clattered his cup. ‘I think we were too quick for them,’ he said. ‘They thought they were on to a good thing, but we didn’t give them enough time. So one of them grabbed the first thing he saw and tried to make a getaway.’

I carefully didn’t mention that the case had been hidden under my bed.

The Inspector looked at Geordie with something approaching contempt. ‘This isn’t an ordinary burglary,’ he said. ‘Your explanation doesn’t account for the fact that they went to a lot of trouble to retrieve the suitcase, or why they used so many weapons.’ He turned to me. ‘Have you any enemies in Spain?’

I shrugged. ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

He pursed his lips. ‘All right, Mr Trevelyan, let’s go back to the beginning again. Let’s start when you say you first saw the light on in your flat …’

It was after three a.m. before we got rid of the police, and they were back again next morning, to recheck the premises and to hear the whole tale yet again. The Inspector wasn’t satisfied but neither he nor any of his colleagues could pin down what was wrong. Come to that – neither could I! It was a great way to start my leave. His last word to me that morning was, ‘There’s been a fatality here, Mr Trevelyan, and that’s a very serious matter. I shall expect both of you to hold yourselves in readiness for the inquest. You are not under arrest,’ he added in such a way as to make me feel that I was. He strode out of the flat with his myrmidons trailing behind.

‘In other words – don’t leave town,’ I said. ‘There goes a very unhappy policeman.’

Geordie said, ‘He’ll be burning up the wires looking for an expert on manganese nodules. He thinks there’s something fishy there.’

‘By God, so do I! But he won’t find much. He’ll phone the Institute of course, and speak to Jarvis or some other big noise and get exactly the same story I told him.’

I got up, went into the kitchen and got a couple of bottles of beer from the refrigerator and took them back into the living room. Geordie eyed them and said, ‘You have some good ideas, sometimes. Tell me, these nodules – are they really valueless?’

‘I told the coppers the plain truth,’ I said. ‘But Mark seemed to have some curious ideas about nodule formation – still, the notebooks are gone and I can’t check up on his theories without them.’

Then suddenly I remembered something. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said and went into the bedroom. Sure enough, there it was – the little leather-bound diary, still lying on my dressing-table. The police would have had no reason to think it wasn’t mine, and hadn’t touched it.

I went back and tossed it to Geordie. ‘They didn’t get that. I meant to tell you – I found it in a pocket of one of Mark’s suits. What do you make of it?’

He opened the book with interest but I watched the enthusiasm seep out of him as he scanned the pages. ‘What the hell!’

‘That’s Mark’s patent Pitman variation,’ I said. ‘I doubt if old Isaac himself could make anything of it.’

‘What are all the drawings?’

‘Mark was an inveterate doodler,’ I said. ‘You’d have to apply psychological theory to make anything of those.’

I sat mulling over the events of the previous day, trying to piece them together.

‘Geordie, listen to this,’ I said. ‘Mark dies, and Norgaard, his colleague, disappears. Jarvis keeps his ear close to the ground and knows all the gossip of the profession, and if he says he hasn’t heard anything of Norgaard then it’s unlikely that anyone else has either.’ I held up a finger. ‘That’s one thing.’

‘Do you know anything about Norgaard?’

‘Only that he’s one of us oceanographers. He’s a Swede, but he was on an American survey ship during the IGY. I lost sight of him after that; a lot of comradeship went for a bust when the operation closed down.’

‘What’s his speciality?’

‘Ocean currents. He’s one of those geniuses who can dredge up a bit of water and tell you which way it was flowing a million years ago last Wednesday. I don’t think there’s a name for his line yet, so I’ll call it paleoaquaology – there’s a mouthful for you.’

Geordie raised his eyebrows. ‘Can they really do that kind of thing?’

I grinned. ‘They’d like you to believe so, and I’ve no reason to doubt it. But to my mind there’s a hell of a lot of theory balancing uneasily on too few facts. My line is different – I analyse what I’m given and if anyone wants to build any whacky theories on what I tell ’em, that’s their affair.’

‘And Mark was like yourself – an analytical chemist. Why would he team up with Norgaard? They don’t seem to have anything in common.’

I said slowly, ‘I don’t know; I really don’t know.’ I was thinking of the highly unlikely theory indicated in Mark’s missing notebooks.

‘All right,’ Geordie said. ‘Norgaard’s disappeared – you think. What else have you got?’

‘The next thing is Kane. The whole thing is too damn pat. Kane turns up and we have a burglary. He knew the stuff was coming – I told him.’

Geordie chuckled. ‘And how do you tie in the four Spanish burglars with Kane? Speaking as a non-theoreticist, that is?’

‘I’m damned if I know. There’s something odd about that too. I couldn’t place the accent; it was one I’ve never heard before.’

‘You don’t know them all,’ said Geordie. ‘You’d have to be born Spanish to be that good.’

‘True.’ There was a long silence while I marshalled my thoughts. ‘I wish I could get hold of Kane.’

‘You think there’s something odd about him, don’t you?’

‘I do. But I don’t know what it is. I’ve been trying to bring it to the surface ever since I saw him.’

‘Mike, I think this is all a lot of nonsense,’ Geordie said decisively. ‘I think your imagination is working overtime. You’ve had a shock about Mark’s death and another over the burglary – so have I, come to that. But I don’t think Norgaard has mysteriously disappeared; I think he’s probably sitting somewhere writing a thesis on prehistoric water. As for Kane, you’ve got nothing but a blind hunch. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If Kane is a seaman he’ll probably be down somewhere in dockland, and if you want him that bad I’ll put my boys on to nosing around a bit. It’s a pretty hopeless chance but it’s all I can do.’

‘Thanks, Geordie,’ I said. ‘Meantime, I’d better ring Helen and tell her I’ve been burgled. She’s not going to like hearing that Mark’s stuff is gone but there’s no hope for it. I can only play it down, tell her it was all worthless anyway.’

‘Are you going to pass on the notebook to her?’

I shook my head thoughtfully. ‘What notebook? As far as she’s concerned, it was all stolen. She could never make anything of that stuff of Mark’s – but maybe I can.’

V

I had nightmares that night.

I dreamed of a lovely Pacific island with white beaches and waving palm fronds where I wandered quite happily until I became aware that the sky was darkening and a cold, icy wind had arisen. I started to run but my feet slipped in the soft sand and I made no progress. And I knew what I was running from.