Andromeda Breakthrough

Afterwards, when Osborne and his guest had booked out, the duty operator locked up for the night.'

'And Osborne went back to London?' Fleming looked better now; he had had a shave and a bath, and his usual casual slacks and wool shirt and sweater were at least moderately clean. He seemed now more despondent than tired, but there were strain marks around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.

'Yes,' said Geers. 'No one else went in to the computer block after that, except the girl, Andromeda. After she'd been there some time the guard corporal thought he smelt burning. He went into the main control room and found the place a perfect shambles and full of smoke.'

'And where was Andre?' Dawnay asked.

'Got out through the emergency exit, according to the corporal. Anyway, she or someone dropped a glove. A man's glove.'

He turned and looked at Fleming, suddenly displaying a leather gauntlet taken from the desk drawer. 'Yours?'

Fleming did not trouble to look.

'So you know it all,' Geers said. 'Only two people know, you and the girl. The girl's dead.'

Fleming nodded. With maddening slowness he repeated: 'The girl's dead. So that's that.'

'Not quite,' said Geers angrily. 'You have some questions to answer. You're the only person, Fleming, who wanted the computer destroyed. You always have. I can tell you that your security file is full of instances when you've shot off your mouth about it. In that I'm glad to say you're unique.

Others have a better sense of loyalty, more vision.'

Dawnay protested. 'I think some of us were beginning to have doubts.'

Geers turned and stared at her unbelievingly. He was about to speak when the intercom buzzed.

'Major Quadring is here, sir,' came his secretary's voice.

'He has the Marine Commando report on the island search.'

'Right,' Geers told her. 'I'll see him in his office.'

He rose and crossed to the door. 'You're to stay here, Fleming,' he ordered. Less brusquely he told Dawnay that he would try not to keep her much longer.

When the door closed Fleming moved across the office and stood close to Dawnay, looking out of the window.

'He's no business to drag you into all this,' he said. 'You're not well enough yet.'

She laughed shortly. 'I'm all right. I'm a tough old bird. I must be, or I wouldn't be here. Bu tell me, John, what really happened? You did it, didn't you?'

He kept on looking out of the window. 'You don't want to be saddled with this.'

'I don't,' she agreed, 'but as I'm involved whether I like it or not I'll just say that you can trust me if you want to trust anyone. Osborne must have smuggled you in. Then you and the girl destroyed it.'

'The girl's dead.'

There was a break in his voice which surprised her. In her experience John Fleming easily got emotional about principles, ideals, wrongs. But seldom about people.

'Anyway,' she said quietly. 'There's no one, no one, to give evidence against you.'

Before he could answer Geers returned. He was grim but pleased with himself. Major Quadring had brought useful information.

Deliberately he took time to seat himself at his desk before he spoke.

'Right, Fleming; right,' he barked.

'Right what?' enquired Fleming lazily.

'What happened when you got to the island?'

Fleming ambled around the desk. 'Why ask me when obviously the snoops have told you? But I'll confirm what they have undoubtedly said. We got into the caves and I lost her. They're big caves. We had no torch. She blundered into a dead-end with a deep pool. That was it. Poor bloody kid.'

Dawnay noted the break in his voice again. 'I thought you held Andre wasn't human,' she observed.

'Human enough to drown.'

'Are you sure she fell in?' Geers asked suspiciously.

'Of course I'm sure,' Fleming snapped. 'Quadring told you that they'd found the bandages off her hands, didn't he? Or was that one bit of his smug little report he forgot to give? Or were those jolly Marines so dumb they didn't think them worth picking up ?'

Geers studied Fleming in silence, taking his time so that he could be certain of noting any reaction. 'I have news for you, Fleming, if it is news in your case. They've both dived and dragged the pool. There's no body.'

There was no doubt about Fleming's surprise. 'She must be in there,' he shouted. 'I traced her into that part of the caves. They've not dragged properly. There's no other way out. I searched thoroughly.'

'So Quadring says,' Geers murmured. His briskness had gone. He had hoped to bluster a confession from Fleming.

But Fleming was obviously dumbfounded.

'She can't get off the island, and as it's been under constant survey since daylight that mean's she's somewhere in the caves. I'm going to look for myself. It's the only way to get things done in this damned situation.'

'I'll take you,' said Fleming firmly.

'No, that won't do,' Geers retorted. 'You're under arrest.'

'Only on your instructions.'

'Let him,' Dawnay interrupted. 'He knows the place. He wants to find Andre far more even than you.'

With bad grace Geers agreed and the two men went off to get into warm clothes and seaboots.

Fleming was authorised to draw torches and a high-pressure lamp, and to fuel an outboard motor boat. Within half an hour they were crossing the two miles of angry water to the island. Neither said a word on the trip. Geers sat hunched in the middle of the boat staring at the silhouette of the rocky islet rising out of the mist. Fleming sat at the stem holding the tiller.

He beached the boat on the shingle right opposite the mouth of the cave.

Geers waded through the surf while Fleming heaved the boat clear of deep water. They clambered through the steep shingle at high tide mark and moved to the mouth of the cave. Gulls wheeled and called at this invasion of their private kingdom, but the silence inside the cavern made a weird contrast to the screaming birds and the rhythmic hiss of the breaking waves.

'Sure this is the way you came?' Geers asked, moving cautiously forward in the wavering light of the lamp and Fleming's torch.

'Sure,' grunted Fleming. 'You automatically memorise this sort of thing just to make sure you don't forget the way out.'

He directed his beam of torchlight along a narrow sloping.

passage which curved to the right. 'There's the way to the chamber with the pool. You can see the Commando's footsteps in the sand.'

Geers began to move forward, shining the lamp on the disturbed sand. He stopped abruptly when he sensed that Fleming was not following. 'Where are you going?' he called.

Fleming was moving to the left. 'I'm taking a look down this passage. There's another pool in here too.'

'You think they dragged the wrong one?' Geers asked.

'No. Even Quadring and that Marine Officer aren't that stupid.'

Geers turned back. 'I don't know what your idea is, but I'm coming to see. We'll look at the other pool afterwards.'

The passage dropped steeply, and the aperture became smaller. Fleming crouched low and moved steadily ahead.

Geers, trying to keep up with him, caught his boot on a boulder and fell headlong. He grunted with pain as a jagged rock caught his shoulder.

Fleming turned and shone his torch on him. 'Hurt yourself? It's tricky if you haven't done much caving. Wait here while I take a look at the pool. I won't be long.'

Geers got up awkwardly and took a few steps back to the wider part of the passage. Fleming's footsteps echoed softly but clearly along the cave walls, getting fainter and fainter.

For a full minute there was the cold, dead silence of a lifeless world. Then, to his right in the direction of the main cavern, came the hard, clear sound of a stone moving across the rock face. It dropped with a dull plop into water. Geers froze into immobility, instinctively holding his breath.