‘Logical or not,’ he said, ‘I still don’t understand why they’re not worried about my body being found. Even a sick Pinker would be expected to make a fuss when he found me in the morning.’
‘It’s reckless of them,’ Valentine agreed, ‘but they must be counting on the fact that Nordvik can’t do anything till we get to Copenhagen. There’s no Marconi wireless telegraph on this ship. That means he has no way of alerting the authorities in Copenhagen until we dock.’
‘Even so…’
‘And whoever it is must feel pretty confident of not being suspected. Perhaps using a kitchen knife was meant to throw suspicion on the crew.’
‘Look,’ Paul suggested. ‘Everyone knows Pinker was seasick, if we do nothing they might think he’s stayed in bed and didn’t find me. It might buy us some time and if I keep my head down…’
Valentine didn’t look convinced.
‘How long can we get away with that?’ he asked. ‘We’ll reach Copenhagen the day after tomorrow and Pinker was due to get off. When he doesn’t surface they’ll come looking for him. Then they really will think you did it.’
He took one last thoughtful pull on his cigarette and dropped the butt into the basin. It hissed unpleasantly in Pinker’s vomit.
‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s only one thing to do.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Pitch him over the side.’
‘We can’t do that!’
‘Why not?’ Valentine shrugged. ‘No body, no murder. Imagine their surprise when you turn up and Pinker doesn’t.’
‘They’ll try and kill me again, won’t they?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Paul stared at him. It was all very well for Valentine to take a laissez-faire attitude. It wasn’t his skin they were after.
‘Then how do we explain Pinker’s absence?’
‘We don’t have to. Not us, anyway. Nordvik’s already warned us against going on deck because of the rough weather. He’ll assume poor old Pinker went up to get some air, lost his footing and heigh-ho…’
‘That’s a bit cold-blooded, isn’t it? What about his people? Without a Marconi we can’t even get in touch with C to pass on the bad news.’
Valentine started to laugh.
‘I don’t see what’s so funny.’
‘C would throw a fit if we tried to get in touch over something like this. He’d be ripping his trousers to shreds. You know what he’s like.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Didn’t he pull his parlour trick with you? The paperknife?’
Paul vaguely remembered the paperknife on Cumming’s desk; how he had grabbed it in a rage when he discovered the person he was trying to recruit wasn’t one man but two and that half of them was dead. Browning had calmed him down. He said something then about trousers…
‘What was that all about?’
‘His party trick. More of a music hall turn really.’ Valentine laughed again. ‘He pretends to get mad and stab himself in the leg. Disconcerts a fellow if he doesn’t know his leg is wooden, I can tell you.’
‘Wooden?’
‘Didn’t you know?’
‘I could see he had a gammy leg,’ Paul said. ‘I assumed that’s why he used that scooter of his.’
‘Goes through trousers like billy-o,’ said Valentine.
‘Did he lose it in the war?’
‘The leg? No, a motoring accident in the south of France. The car turned over and killed his son. C was trapped underneath. The story goes that he cut his own leg off with a penknife to get out.’
‘A penknife?’
‘I don’t think it’s true,’ Valentine said. ‘Just a story they tell to show what kind of man he is.’
‘Apocryphal, you mean.’
‘Do I?’ Valentine frowned.
‘From the Greek.’
‘Ah, bit of a duffer in the classical stakes, I’m afraid.’
‘You made all that up about us going to the same school, didn’t you?’ Paul said. ‘An invention, like the rest of that pitchblende business?’
Valentine smiled shyly, brushing aside a hank of blond hair that had fallen across his forehead.
‘All part of the ruse, old man. I mugged up on some of the fellows you would have known and you assumed I’d been there.’
‘So what school did you go to?’
Valentine flushed a little. He looked at Pinker again and glanced at his watch.
‘Hadn’t we best be getting on? If we’re going to pitch old Pinker over the side we’ll need to do it before anybody starts to stir. It’s gone three-thirty now. It’ll be light in an hour.’
He stood up and stepped to the cabin door.
‘You get him ready. I’ll pop up and make sure the coast is clear. Back in a jiff.’
Valentine poked his head into the corridor and slipped out. Paul climbed off the top bunk and looked down at Pinker. He could see blood on the sheets and supposed that they would have to dispose of them as well. He rolled Pinker over and wrapped the sheets around him. He had just finished parcelling the boot salesman up when Valentine returned.
‘Here,’ he said, grunting with the effort of getting his hands under the dead man’s shoulders, ‘grab his feet, will you?’
Wrapped in his shroud of bed sheets there seemed nothing to get hold of. It always amazed Paul how much a dead man weighed, so much more it seemed than a live one, as if death was fattening. Together they heaved the body off the bunk and laid him on the floor.
‘We’ll have to get him out of the sheets,’ Valentine said, ‘or we’ll never get him up the stairs.’
‘I’ve only just wrapped him up.’ It seemed the poor man wasn’t even going to be allowed the respectability of being buried in a shroud. ‘What about his people?’
‘Was he married?’
‘He didn’t say.’ Paul looked down at the shrouded body. ‘He was a decent little fellow, really. There must be someone. Can’t something be done? After all, he was killed because of me.’
Valentine shook his head. ‘There’s no room for sentiment in this game, old man. Casualties of war and all that. You’ve been in the trenches.’ He looked at Paul, sighed and relented. ‘Still, we’ll keep his papers. Go through his things before the balloon goes up. I’ll send anything relevant on to C. He can get on to Pinker’s employer and give them some sort of story for the benefit of the chap’s people if he’s got any.’
Paul began unwrapping the body again then went through his trousers.
‘And you’d better put some clothes on yourself,’ Valentine added. ‘I’ll take another look up top.’
Paul put the contents of Pinker’s pockets on the bunk. He still found it all a bit heartless despite what Valentine had said. Pinker hadn’t been at war. He’d been looking forward to the peace and getting the chance to sell his boots. He straightened the man’s clothes and, as an afterthought, jammed his trilby on his head, wondering what anyone would make of him it he were ever washed up.
Valentine slipped back into the cabin.
‘All clear. Let’s get him up.’
They heaved Pinker to his feet and took an arm each around their necks.
‘If we see anyone he’ll look as if he’s drunk,’ Valentine said.
‘It’s a dry ship.’
‘Seasick then.’
Heaving the dead weight to the door, Paul thought he looked exactly what he was, dead, particularly with the blood staining his waistcoat.
‘What’ll Cumming tell his people?’ Paul persisted.
‘C,’ Valentine said, ‘it’s C!’
‘Sorry, I forgot.’
They manoeuvred Pinker down the passage and to the foot of the companionway.
‘I’m sure they’d appreciate your consideration if they knew,’ Valentine said keeping his voice low but heavy with sarcasm. ‘We’ll tell them he died of a heart attack and is buried in Copenhagen, how’s that?’