Blame The Dead

At the second knock, a bed creaked and a bleared voice mumbled something, and footsteps moved reluctantly towards the door.

Maybe he was sixty, maybe more, but it wasn't his age you saw first, it was his defeat. He'd quit, switched off, surrendered. His face was puffy, making his red-rimmed eyes look too small, his stomach bulged out over trousers unbuttoned at the top – but for a big man, the way he peered out was small and furtive. And his breath was a meal in itself, only a week late.

'Ja? Hva onsker De?'

I held my ground and tried not to breathe in. 'Chief Engineer Nygaard? I'm James Card from London. I brought you a…' and I showed him the bottle.

'Oh, ja!'He took it, held it up to stare at it closely – and then I saw his hands. The backs, from where they stuck out of the frayed old sweater, were a mass of crumpled blue-white scar tissues right to the ends of his fingers. The fingernails, the three or four still there, were thick, dirty little wedges. But from the way he handled the bottle the fingers weren't locked: they could move from about half clenched to almost wide open.

Fire. Only fire does that.

Then he tried to square his shoulders against the pull of his gut, threw the door wide, and said cheerfully, 'Come in, my friend, come in. I was having a little – you say, snooze.'

I went in. I could guess what the room would be like – but I was wrong. It was surprisingly clean, bright, and almost tidy. Not that there was much to get in a mess, but the bed was made, if rumpled, and the table, chest of drawers, and shelves had been freshly painted white. There were even a couple of flowers in the glass on the narrow tiled window-sill.

Nygaard half opened a drawer, changed his mind, and left the bottle in plain view. Then picked up an electric kettle and shook it. 'Would you want some coffee, ja?'

'If you're making it anyway.' I perched myself on the arm of a middle-aged armchair that was wearing an old but recently cleaned cover.

He got the kettle switched on, found a jar of instant coffee and a couple of mugs and a bag of sugar, and even that effort made him wheeze a bit. 'Are you a sailor man, Mr – er-?'

'Card. No.'

'So why do you visit an old man like me, hey?'

'I'm doing some work for somebody in Lloyd's of London.' Well, there was a reasonable percentage of truth in that. 'I understand you were in the Skadi when she…'

He turned his back and the big shoulders trembled. 'No. I do not talk about that.'

'Sorry.' I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. 'But you're going to have to talk about it to the court if the case ever comes to trial. Why not to me?'

'Always lawyers, questions, why this and that, all the time. No. Why cannot an old man die by himself, with his own people?' He still had his back to me.

'You're not dying, come off it.' He didn't answer. 'All right, don't talk about the collision, then. Did you ever meet a man called Steen?'

He turned around and seemed calmer.'Ja, I meet him, once, twice.'

'Recently?'

'A month, I think. Ja.'

'What did he ask you about?'

He flapped his arms like stiff wings. 'Always the same, Skadi, Skadi, Skadi.' Then the kettle hissed and he turned away to make the coffee.

I asked, 'Did you read this morning's papers?'

'I don't read newspapers. Only the shipping magazine.'

'Steen got himself killed yesterday. Murdered.'

He shook his head. 'I did not like him.'

'Why not?' Though I could see why a neat, fastidious man like Steen – to judge from his clothes and office – wouldn't get on too well with Nygaard.

He turned round with a couple of steaming mugs. 'Just always questions. Skadi, Skadi, Skadi.'

His hand trembled as he held out the mug, and just the touch of warmth from it reminded me how cold the room was; I still had my sheepskin coat on. There was a serious-looking electric fan heater in the corner, but Nygaard obviously preferred to use his spare cash for other things.

For a while we just sipped, and probably he was wondering why I was there as much as I was myself. Then I managed to slop some coffee down my coat collar, and reached for my handkerchief.

He jerked like a shot puppet. 'No, no! You must not smoke! No light, no!' One crumpled, shivering hand was stretched out towards me.

Very carefully, I took out the handkerchief and mopped myself. He slumped and half turned away. I said, 'You don't like naked flame? Well, that sounds reasonable, after what you went through.'

His hand reached for the whisky, then pulled back and patted the thin white strands on his scalp. And then tried to reach the bottle again. He gave me a quick sideways glance that was both sly and hopeful and I wanted to tell him to go ahead and have one. But you can't, not even when you know you can't stop it, you can't be the one to start it.

Then he picked the bottle up as if he'd never seen it before and studied the label carefully. 'I do not know this type before. It is good,; a?'

I shrugged. 'Don't know it myself.' Though at more than three quid for a half bottle it had ruddy well better be good.

He waved the bottle at me. 'You like some in the coffee?'

'Well…' What do you say? The small eyes looked at me yearningly.

He said quickly, 'I don't drink in the afternoon. But just once, to, try it, ja?'

He had the cap unscrewed. Silently, I held out my mug and he shook, rather than poured, a tot in. Then turned his back to me so that, maybe by accident, I couldn't see how much he gave himself.

'Skol.'He lifted the mug and took a gulp, and smiled easily. 'Is good, ja?'

'Yes, sure.' A car stopped somewhere outside – a rare enough noise in that street for him to hear it and pause. But he didn't go to look. I sipped on; he gulped.

Then I asked, 'You ever heard of something called H and Thornton?'

He had. He gave another jerk, then buried his face in the mug, and came up with a carefully thoughtful expression. 'You say what?'

'H and Thornton. I think they're a firm of solicitors, or maybe ship surveyors or something.'

Now he was looking genuinely puzzled. He shook his head. 'No, I do not know them. No.'

Hell. I'd had him and I'd lost him, but I didn't know how or where.

Then feet came galloping down the corridor – young feet. There was the briefest of knocks on the door, it slammed open, and she came straight in – and not to wish me a Merry Christmas.

She was young, tall, blonde, and she might have quite a figure under the dark blue anorak and black ski pants. Right now, she just stood and stared fiercely at me, flushed and panting slightly and with the funny little white student cap on her head knocked sideways.

'What are you doing here?1 'Having a quiet cup of coffee with Herr Nygaard.'

She glared suspiciously around, then spotted the whisky. 'Did you bring this?'

I nodded.

'It is not good for him!' For a moment I thought she was going to heave it through the window – and so did he. I've never seen anybody look so simply horrified.

But she controlled herself. 'Who are you?'

I told her, but it didn't mean anything.

'Why do you want to see him? '

'Hold on a minute. Who are you? – his daughter?'

'No, I am only a student. But I help look after him.' That accounted for the fresh-painted furniture, then, and the flowers and general tidiness.

"Very charitable of you,' I said approvingly. 'Nice to know there are still some students who don't spend all their time smashing up the campus and sleeping three in a bed. But I'm not doing him any harm.'

Ruud's face appeared over her shoulder and he gave me a triumphant leer. A quick man with a telephone, Herr Ruud.