Paul observed her surreptitiously. Her countenance had not altered in the face of danger — real or perceived. She was either remarkably cool, he decided, or remarkably unimaginative. Even the captain’s observation that a man overboard would not last long in these waters had made no impression. It made him wonder if, despite the intelligent light in her eyes, she was not very bright at all and had taken Nordvik’s statement to apply only to men. Perhaps she thought that survival in cold water didn’t signify in the case of women; that while a man would sink a female might sit daintily on the surface waiting for the circling boat to pick her up again.
Caught up in the picture this engendered, Paul forgot he was looking at her and when she glanced his way she noticed that he was staring at her. Flustered, he smiled. To his surprise, she smiled back. Then she turned towards the Reverend Pater as if to make sure he had noticed the fact.
A few moments later Mrs Hogarth said, ‘Come Ragna,’ and rose from the table. The Captain, too, stood and excused himself, leaving Pinker apparently engaged in trying to sell Korbelov and Solokov a pair of boots each. Paul followed the Captain, threw a meaningful look at Valentine and announced that he might take a stroll around the deck. As he passed Pater, hunched in his chair, Paul heard the reverend in muttered communication with his God once again. Having already thanked Him for what they were about to receive, Paul — working with his tongue at a somewhat durable sliver of beef lodged between his teeth — hoped that the reverend, whilst in touch, might find the time to request an improvement in the menu.
On deck Paul took up a station by the rail where he could see the saloon door through which Valentine would have to emerge. Ten minutes later, though, he was still waiting. When the door finally did open it was Pater who stepped out. Looking rejuvenated from his tête-à-tête with his maker, the parson spotted Paul lurking amid the superstructure and started towards him with the air of a man with something to say.
Paul assuming that whatever it might be, it would bear a religious aspect, wasn’t interested. The Red Room in Petersburg had early cured him of any attachment to faith, holding connotations for him of corporal punishment rather than spiritual grace. The few vestiges of belief that had remained, clinging to his intellect more in the manner of a stubborn stain than unconscious certainty, had vanished in the shell-hole. Paradoxically, he had thought later lying in hospital and counter to the old saying that there were no atheists in foxholes, that is precisely what there had been. Jacobs — atheist, Marxist and all-round sceptic — had been in the hole alongside Paul, and had died. Paul had not and supposed the godly would have seen this as some sort of divine intervention. Although to Paul’s way of thinking, and obviously to Jacobs’, praying wouldn’t have made any difference. Paul hadn’t prayed and had lived. The whole episodes had nuances which, at another time, he might have liked to talk over with Pater. But not now. It was straight answers from Valentine he wanted now, not some oracular mumbo-jumbo courtesy of a Delphic intermediary like Pater.
Nodding curtly at the reverend, he walked off smartly in the opposite direction.
14
Rounding the stern of the steamer to avoid Pater, Paul walked along the starboard side toward the bow. As he neared the front of the ship he saw a figure at the rail, swathed in a dark coat and staring into the sea. It was Ragna Andresen and something about the way she stood at the rail alone made him stop rather than approach her.
The sea had risen, the swell running from the north-east with heavy grey cloud thickening before a stiff wind. Ragna Andresen was staring straight ahead, motionless. As it began to rain she turned her face to the sky, holding it briefly to the worsening weather before turning away towards the bow and the port side of the vessel.
Paul waited for few moments and was about to follow when a hand shot out from between the lifeboats and grabbed his arm. He yelped in surprise.
‘Quiet,’ Valentine hissed. ‘Get in here where we can’t be seen.’
Rough canvas sheeting scraped against Paul’s face as he was yanked into a gap between the boats.
‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ Valentine said.
‘That’s a coincidence,’ Paul replied, touching his fingers to his grazed cheek, ‘I was waiting for you back in my room after you disappeared with my money.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Valentine warned. ‘The others might be around.’
‘What others?’
‘The Andresen girl was standing at the rail.’
‘She’s gone,’ Paul said.
‘We have to be careful. What was she doing? Was she behaving suspiciously?’
‘Miss Andresen? Are you mad? She was looking at the sea. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only suspicious person on board this ship, Valentine. Or Darling, if that’s your name. Or should I call you Hart?’
Valentine peeked out between the lifeboats.
‘I didn’t want to alert you before you got on board, so I kept my distance.’
‘If I’d known you were Hart I wouldn’t have got on board. Where’s my money?’
‘Perfectly understandable for you to feel a bit miffed under the circumstances, but we haven’t got time for that now.’
‘Oh, why not? Why did you think it necessary to trick me into this business? Did you think I wouldn’t do it without being blackmailed?’
‘Not blackmail, old man, never that. Coercion, perhaps. After Burkett gave us your name—’
‘Burkett? Burkett from my club?’
‘He’s one of our scouts. Didn’t you know? Tips the wink on chaps who might be up for our game, that sort of thing.’
If he had known, Paul would have thought twice about tipping the man anything never mind the wink.
‘After he suggested your name I had a word with one or two of the officers in your battalion and they told me about the sharping. C thought—’
‘That wasn’t me!’ Paul said, tired of having to keep repeating the fact. ‘You had the wrong battalion. That was the other—’
‘Yes, I know that now,’ Valentine said quickly. ‘C explained the mix-up. But given the character we thought you had, we came up with the pitchblende business. Personally, I didn’t think someone capable of sharping would be gullible enough to fall for that line, so you could have knocked me down with a feather when you swallowed it.’
Valentine seemed barely able to suppress a grin, as if he found the whole thing a lark.
‘So it was Cumming’s idea,’ Paul said.
‘C, old man. We don’t use his name.’
‘C,’ Paul repeated wearily.
‘Then when Kell got the low-down on your Russian background we thought we’d scored a bull’s eye.’
‘Kell again. You don’t seem to mind using his name.’
‘Oh, he’s the other lot. We don’t worry about them. Browning thinks—’
‘And what do you mean by the “low-down”?’ Paul interrupted, past caring what Browning thought. ‘Is it quite necessary to talk like an Edgar Wallace character?’
‘Edgar who?’
‘Never mind.’
‘As you like, old man. Actually, I told C we’d be better off coming clean from the start, above board don’t you know. But he does love intrigue. After all, you’re an officer with a decent record — well, apart from the sharping — doughty fellow and all that… I told them you’d be only too happy to stand up for King and Country once we’d told you what was needed. All right, it’s risky, but that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it? That why we do it…’