‘How did you—’
‘English,’ Pinker said, anticipating Paul’s question. ‘They speak English all right. Don’t know why they don’t talk it all the time. Said now that the revolution had come their place was in Russia. Got the impression they thought themselves pretty important. Looking for a couple of comfortable billets in the Russian government, I dare say.’
‘Bolsheviks?’
Pinker grimaced. ‘Couldn’t say, Filbert. Anyone’s guess.’
Paul thought about Kell and took another cautious sip of coffee. If the two beards were foreign agents they were hardly likely to go around telling everyone they were Russian. He might be new to the game but that much was obvious. So, aside from the two women, that left the priest and the other fellow Pinker said hadn’t turned up.
‘Anyway,’ Pinker was saying, ‘you’ll see them at lunch. We’re due to get underweigh again later this morning.’
‘Let’s hope the weather improves then,’ Paul said, feeling marginally better for the coffee. ‘Choppy last night, wasn’t it? You looked a bit queasy after dinner.’
‘Me?’ Pinker countered, sounding offended. ‘Not at all, Filbert. Not at all.’
Paul squinted at him over the top of his coffee cup. He’d had the distinct impression Pinker had gone a bit green around the gills the previous evening.
‘Anyway,’ Pinker announced curtly, ‘I’ve got some work to catch up on if you’ll excuse me.’ The salesman went back to his figures.
Paul sat a while longer then took a turn around the deck, watching the dockers until his head stopped throbbing. He still felt fragile and, with nothing else to do, decided he might as well go back to the cabin and lay down until lunch.
He was dozing when Pinker returned and sat himself in the chair and began fussing with his boxes once again. Pulling boots from their packing, he examined the size numbers stamped on the soles and jotted them down in a notebook.
‘Wake you up, old fellow?’ he asked, re-packing the footwear and pushing the boxes back under Paul’s bunk. ‘Just had a word with the first officer, the big blond chap. Been some sort of delay, apparently, and we’re going to miss the tide. Won’t be leaving until tomorrow morning now.’
Paul sat up, banging his head against the upper berth.
‘What sort of delay?’
‘Didn’t say. They won’t be serving lunch, though. We’ll have to go ashore. All a bit thick in my opinion, having paid all-found. I’ll have to get my office on the blower otherwise I shan’t get my money back. You game for a recce? I was told there are pubs and a hotel by the market that do a good lunch. Reasonably priced. I suppose you’ll have to get on to your office about expenses, too, or are they decent about that sort of thing?’
Getting on the blower to his office was just what Paul would have liked to do. But Cumming, needless to say, had neglected to give him a number. Expenses were the least of his worries — as long as one discounted having to lug the greatcoat around in the middle of summer. He was in two minds whether he ought to stay holed up on the boat, though, rather than chance it on shore given what had happened in London.
‘The first officer didn’t say if the delay was because one of the passengers was late, did he?’ he asked Pinker. ‘I mean, they finished loading this morning so I don’t see why we have to wait.’
‘Can’t help you there. The man’s Finnish and hasn’t got much English. All I know is there’s a delay and he said something about the tide.’
‘But it’s a steamer,’ Paul objected. ‘What’s the tide got to do with it?’
Pinker shrugged his thin shoulders, disclaiming all knowledge. ‘Too shallow? Some nautical reason, no doubt. Coming ashore then?’
Paul begged five minutes in the bathroom down the corridor and spent ten trying to wash the excesses of the previous evening away. Then he followed Pinker onto deck where the first officer repeated what he had said to Pinker earlier and, through a mixture of French, German and English, managed to tell them that they had until first light if they wanted. The ship wouldn’t be leaving till then.
Paul wondered if Cumming would know about the delay and tried to pump the officer for more information. But the man’s grasp of English was restricted to a few basic words, most of them seafaring terms, and he employed an irritatingly smile to fill in the gaps. Paul gave up and trooped down the gangway behind Pinker, keeping his eye out for policemen.
The port was alive with ships and men. An overwhelming aroma of fish drifted on the breeze from the boats docked by the piers. Boxes of the things had been landed and stacked on the quayside and were being loaded onto trolleys and wheeled into the quayside wharves. Inside, lines of chattering women with hair tucked under headscarves and bodies shapeless behind aprons stood at long tables gutting the fish with quick deft movements. Paul followed Pinker, dodging the porters with stacked wicker boxes balanced on their heads. The lowing of penned livestock from the cattle depot drifted across the river on the wind as they made their way along the quayside and up Humber Street.
The Cross Keys Hotel in the market offered a secluded snug and while Pinker went off in search of a telephone Paul slid onto a settle by a vacant table. The smell of fish had followed him in, mixed now with tobacco smoke and the hoppy tang of beer. He had left his greatcoat stashed behind Pinker’s boxes under his berth while Pinker was relieving himself in the bathroom and, wearing his shabby jacket and trousers, Paul felt he blended in quite anonymously with the other drinkers.
He asked a fat barmaid what they had to eat and was given the choice of herrings and cheese. Not fancying cheese again, he plumped for the herrings and a glass of beer, ordering the same for Pinker.
‘What ho, old chap,’ Pinker said, his return coinciding with the herrings, ‘this looks good.’ He stabbed at the inert fish with his fork and began prising bones off its carcass. Then he leaned conspiratorially across the table. ‘Didn’t like to say anything on the boat, Filbert. About the delay, that is. But I was wondering if there wasn’t more to it. Like you said.’
‘Like I said?’ Paul began a tentative autopsy of his herring, wondering just how much he might have told Pinker the night before.
‘It’s that other passenger who hasn’t turned up yet.’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, the chap in our office who made the booking arrangements for me said how odd it was that a passage came up like it did. Given how difficult it had been getting any sort of information before, if you follow.’
‘No, not really,’ Paul said.
‘What about your company?’
‘My company? Oh, my passage, you mean. I left all that to head office.’
Pinker pulled a herring bone from between his teeth.
‘You don’t think there’s something funny about it?’
‘Funny?’
‘Those two Russians for instance?’
Paul’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth.
‘What about them?’
Pinker raised a suggestive eyebrow. ‘Why are they on board?’
‘You said this morning that they were going back to join the Revolution.’
‘Exactly!’ said Pinker. ‘Why would our chaps let a couple of revolutionaries go back? Hardly in our interest, is it?’
In his view, being offered a berth on the Hesperus was highly suspicious. He said his company had been trying to get him to Copenhagen for months and had been repeatedly fobbed off with the excuse that it was too dangerous for civilians to travel. So what had changed? he wanted to know.
‘The situation in Russia,’ Pinker said, answering his own question. ‘Now the Bolsheviks have made peace with the Hun, our chaps are all in a sweat about it. So what do they do?’