Blame The Dead

I shrugged. 'Anything could happen.'

'I suppose you want a drink first.' He strode over to a bookcase that turned out, of course, of course, to be a cocktail cabinet lined in rose-tinted mirror glass (one of these days I'm going to market a cocktail cabinet that turns out to be a bookcase; there must besome secret readers in The Bishop's Avenue).

'Scotch? And you, Willie?'

'Ah – pink gin if you could.'

'Oh, Christ,' Mockby said impatiently. 'Mix your own.' He strode back with two big cut-glass tumblers and shoved one into my hand. Willie went and started necromancing with the little bottle of bitters.

Mockby and I drank; then he said, 'Well, now are you going to hand it over?'

Willie called, I've never seen this thing. Which log are we talking about?'

Mockby swung round. 'Deck log – chief officer's log. Not the rough one that went with the bridge, but the fair copy they kept below.'

'Ali, yes.' He went on blending.

'Well?' Mockby asked me.

'What does it prove? – the log, I mean.'

'You've had it long enough, haven't you?'

Willie was zigzagging elegantly among the furniture towards us. 'I don't suppose Mr Card reads Norwegian sea-going terms frightfully well, what?'

You know, it's damn silly, but maybe it was hearing all those Norwegians talking perfect English that had made me forget they'd write up their logs in Norwegian. I'd somehow imagined Fenwick skimming through the book and saying, 'Aha! – the Captain's butler did it!'

'Did Martin Fenwick read Norwegian?' I asked quickly.

Mockby and Willie looked at each other; Willie sipped his pale-pink mixture and shrugged delicately. Mockby said, 'Bit, I think. Not much.'

So Fenwick must have got an explanatory letter with the log. Or phone call. But if you're parcelling up the log, you'd add a letter as well anyway. Would Fenwick have kept that? Say, in the bureau at his flat? And would an interested party have swiped it before I got there?

Mockby was staring down into his glass, baby features crowded into a slight frown.

I said, 'So, what did he tell you the log showed?'

He stretched his big chest with a deep breath. 'Oh, something about whether it invalidated the policy or not.'

Willie stared at him.'Invalidated it? Did he really say that?'

Mockby got angry. 'Of course he did. I just said so.'

I said, 'If you do pay out in full on the collision, how much? – it'll be pretty big, won't it?'

Mockby heaved his shoulders in a big shrug. 'The whole claim comes to about half a million – plus bloody great fees to every lawyer that can get his greedy great gob into the honey-pot. We had a line of seven-and-a-half per cent. It'll cost us about forty thousand quid.'

I frowned. 'That doesn't sound too bad… I mean, it does to me, but…'

'Two per cent of turnover on the year. We pay out over ninety per cent in the best years; it's been over a hundred. That's insurance.'

'But the Prometheus Sahara must've been worth a lot more than any ofthat?'

Willie said, 'About ten million, I'd imagine. These liquid-gas jobs come expensive. All that stainless steel and whatnot, you know?'

'But if it's your side's fault, aren't you responsible?'

Mockby looked contemptuous. 'You really think we write policies like that at Lloyd's? Just because we're all gentlemen, it doesn't mean our heads are full of horse-shit. Since there're no salvage costs, the most we can pay on this one is the cost of the Skadi-about a quarter of a million – plus the same again to the other side. Half a million, like I said.'

'Who pays the rest, then? The ADP – if they're to blame?'

'Limitation,' he barked. 'You don't know bugger-all about marine insurance, do you? The owner applies to the courts to limit the liability; the figures get a bit fancy, but it comes out that you can't owe the other side more than the value of your own ship – about what the Lloyd's policy covers anyway.'

Willie said mildly, 'It was originally to protect the small shipowner – make sure he couldn't be ruined by a single accident. They didn't want to create a monopoly situation such as you've got with the airlines these days, you know? And after all, you don't usually get a dinghy sinking the QE2.'

'Just bad luck when it does happen, eh? Incidentally, how could a small boat like the Skadi sink a big tanker? '

'She had a strengthened bow – almost an ice-breaker. They'd been using her on the Saint Lawrence Seaway trade.'

I nodded. 'But there's still nine-and-something million to be found. Who pays that?'

Mockby said, 'The Sahara Line's insurers. Lloyd's again, but not the same syndicates. Not us, anyway.'

I thought about this 'limitation', and the more I thought the more I liked it. Maybe they could extend it to make sure smalltime security adviser/bodyguards didn't go out of business.

Then I asked, 'And ADP willget limitation – even if the collision was their fault?'

'If it was the fault of the ship or crew – if they were sailing balls-out in the fog – yes, the owner gets limitation. But if it was the owner's fault, likeordering them to sail balls-out in fog – then no limitation.'

'Just a bill for ten million,' I said dreamily.

Willie said, 'And some of that could be paid by a Mutual Club. Sort of protection society among shipowners, you know? But anyway, none of that arises in this case. Nobody's trying to prove that Ellie Smith-Bang gave orders about going full ahead in fog. She wouldn't, anyway.'

I said carefully, 'Just whatdoes arise in this case – if the Lloyd's policy is invalidated? Like you said.'

Willie looked at Mockby and Mockby looked at his Scotch. Then his voice was a bit hesitant. 'Well, yes… that was just what Martin said, though.'

'Before he went to Arras, of course. And you knew he was being blackmailed about that log?'

Another brief pause. 'He told me that, too.'

'And you let him go?'

'Christ! – how could I stop him? It was his cock on the block. And I didn't knowyou were going to let him get killed!'

So then Willie had to help. 'Maggie told Mr Card about… about her and Martin having an affair.'

Mockby stared at him, his face melting from surprise into vague disbelief. 'Christ. Gabby little bit, ain't she?' Then he turned to me and became the prison-camp commandant again. 'And how many people haveyou told?'

I just sipped my drink and for a while nobody said anything. Then I asked politely, 'And your interest has nothing to do with being in the Sahara Line as well."

'No, of course not!' But I wasn't sure if I believed his eyes.

'I had to ask. It could represent a conflict of interests.'

'Get them every day in the City, if you're on enough boards.' Then he swung on Willie and exploded, 'Isthat why you brought him along? Little bloody ray of sunshine, ain't you?'

Willie looked genuinely embarrassed. 'Well, old chap… I mean, Mr Card rather insisted, you know? '

I could have done with something stronger than that. Mockby turned sourly back to me. 'Oh, he's a bloody marvellous insister, he is. Pity he's such a lousy bodyguard. Well?'

I said calmly, 'Did Fenwick mention the log proving engine trouble in the Skadi?'

'Er – he said something. I thought you couldn't read it? '

'Happened to run into a Mrs Smith-Bang the other day. In Bergen.'

'That crooked old bag?'

I smiled and shrugged. 'You know her, obviously.'

"Everybody knows her.' He guffawed heartily, then remembered my character weaknesses again. 'You're not giving her that log. What were you doing in Bergen?'

Willie blushed but Mockby didn't notice.

'Went to see a surveyor called Steen. But he got himself shot before we could talk.'