Night Of Error

I smiled. 'Sounds good from my point of view.'

'Not so good from mine. I have to skipper this ship.'

But we entered the anchorage without sighting anything unusual, tied up and settled down to wait for the port officials. Nuku'alofa was a typical Pacific island town; the wooden houses with their galvanized iron roofs forever frozen in a late-Victorian matrix. At one time it had looked as though Nuku'alofa was going to be the chief trading port and coaling station of the Western Pacific; but Suva, in the Fiji Islands, eventually came out on top, possibly for no more profound reason than that it was an easier name to pronounce. At any rate, Nuku'alofa lost its chance and relapsed into a timeless trance.

Once free to go ashore Campbell headed for the post office as usual. I went off with the two girls who were going to book in at an hotel. Clare announced that she was tired of salt water showers. 'My hair's in a mess and I can't get the salt out. It needs cutting,' she said. 'I want fresh water and luxury for a while.'

I said thoughtfully, 'It looks as though we may be based on Nuku'alofa for some time. Maybe I'd better do the same – get a room for me and see if Geordie wants one. A ship's all right if you can get off it once in a while.'

Paula felt happier here too, with Hadley a remote risk and nobody else around whom she knew either. It was a lot more relaxing for all of us than our second visit to Papeete. We arrived at the hotel and Clare said, 'My God, look at all that gingerbread!' It was a museum piece sprouting galvanized iron turrets and cupolas in the most unlikely places; inside it was pleasantly cool and dark with big electric fans lazily circulating the air.

At the reception desk we ran into trouble when we asked for five rooms – they had only three, one single and two doubles. I said to Clare, That's all right if you don't mind doubling up with Paula again. Geordie and I will share and your father can have the single.'

The receptionist was most apologetic. There had been an unprecedented rush on accommodation just recently. I left the desk feeling that perhaps Nuku'alofa was going to give Suva a run for its money after all.

I arranged with the girls to meet them in the lounge in an hour or so and went upstairs to soak in a hot bath, and to lay schemes for getting Clare away by myself somewhere that evening – the first chance I would have had since Papeete. When I came downstairs I found them already in the lounge with tall glasses of beer in front of them, frosted on the sides. 'That's a good idea,' I said and looked at the label on the bottle. It was Australian beer – Swan. For a moment I was back in London on a wet dull day a million years ago. 'That's Kane's favourite tipple. Maybe he'll be around for a drink.'

Clare looked past me. 'Here comes Pop.'

Campbell came over to the table with a sheaf of correspondence in his hand and the inevitable worried look on his face. Clare said, 'Have a cold beer, Pop. It's just the thing for this weather.'

He dropped heavily into a cane chair which creaked protestingly. 'I think we've come to the wrong place,' he said abruptly.

I signalled to a hovering waiter and ordered a couple of beers. 'What's the trouble?'

He unfolded a cable. The Suarez-Navarro crowd have moved again to Noumea in New Caledonia.'

I raised my eyebrows, 'Interesting, but not very informative. I wonder what they're doing there?'

'I don't know but it doesn't look too good to me. According to what we've figured they don't know where the stuff is, so what the hell are they drifting round the Pacific for? It looks as though they're as lost as we are.'

Clare said thoughtfully, 'Maybe Mark gave them a bum steer before he died.'

I shook my head. 'No, if he'd done that they would have been out testing for it, and we know they haven't. But we're not lost – at least we don't think so. We're here for a purpose.'

I glanced through the door of the lounge and saw the receptionist working at his accounts. I said, 'Excuse me for a minute,' and went into the foyer where I had an interesting little five-minute chat with him, which included the passing of a discreet backhander across the counter. I went back into the lounge, sat down and took a long, lingering draught of cold beer. Then I said, 'We're in the right place.'

They all stared at me. 'How do you know? How can anyone know?'

I said, 'One Ernesto Ramirez has booked half a dozen rooms in this hotel. He hasn't turned up yet.'

Campbell looked startled and Clare let out a yelp of pure joy. Paula, on the other hand, visibly shrank back in her chair, and I made a quick mental note of that. I said, 'I thought it a bit odd that the hotel should be so full right now, so I checked up on it. Ramirez booked the rooms and paid handsomely for them in advance; he wrote that he didn't know exactly when he was coming, but that the rooms must be kept free.'

'I'll be damned,' said Campbell. 'But what's he been doing in Noumea?'

'I think he's been stooging around in this area all the time, getting slowly closer to wherever we were, and waiting to see where we'd go without being too close, so that he could follow easily from a distance.'

'But now he is coming here, and we've not been in a day,' said Clare. 'How could he know? And why come so close now?'

'We saw several ships as we came across, and we made no secret of our destination. My guess is that he's been fed the information somehow. As to why he's closing with us, that I can't guess. But what he doesn't know is that we know he's coming, and we have a head start on him – we're here.'

'He must know we've arrived,' said Campbell soberly. 'He's sure to have left a man here. I'll bet they're in touch right now.'

'We're not going to be in for long,' I said. 'We'll be off dredging soon. But we could put it about that we are leaving for somewhere else – that might help draw him into the net. At close quarters we can at least do something.' It was all very dubious though, and we weren't at all sure what was happening around us.

'What kind of a ship have they?' I asked.

'Pretty much the same as ours – a bit bigger. Her name is Sirena.' Then if he leaves now it'll be over a week before he gets here.'

Campbell put down his empty glass with a click. Then we've got to get going as soon as we can,' he said.

I saw Geordie coming into the foyer and waved to him, and he came to the table. He was dirty and looked tired, and the half-healed scars on his face didn't make him look any better. He put a little glass pot on the table with a hand stained black with grease, and said, 'We've got trouble.'

I said, 'Sit down and have a beer.'

'What's the trouble?' Campbell asked.

Geordie sat down and sighed. 'I would like a beer,' he admitted. He unscrewed the top of the jar and showed that it was full of grease. He pushed it over to me and said, 'Rub some of that between your fingers and tell me what it feels like.'

I dipped up some of the grease on my forefinger and rubbed it with my thumb. It wasn't slick and smooth as grease should be but seemed gritty. Campbell reached over and tested it for himself.

'Where did you get this?' he demanded.

'It came from the main bearings of the winch motor,' said Geordie. 'And the grease in the bearing of the winch drum is the same – all doctored with carborundum.'

'Christ!' I said. 'If we'd have used the winch the whole damn thing would have seized up. What put you on to it?'

'Partly routine maintenance. But I also thought about what I'd do if I were Kane and I wanted to put a stop to Mr Campbell here. I wasn't looking for anything definite, mind you, but I thought I'd have a look at the winch. I never thought I'd find grinding powder mixed with the bearing grease.'.

Campbell swore violently, then looked at Paula. 'Sorry,' he mumbled.

That's all right. I know those words.'

I said, 'How long will it take to fix?'