Southtrap

I nodded towards the south-west quarter. 'There's an old saying for a gale down this way — long foretold, long last. Launching the buoy tomorrow could be tricky if the weather breaks the way I think it will.'

The high white polo collar of the jersey she wore under her jacket reached right up to her chin. A broad belt of rectangles — a typical Icelandic pattern — was knitted into the fabric down the front. The white colour was a perfect foil for her pale gold hair.

She said suddenly, 'Are you going to see Captain Jacobsen now, John?'

'In a few moments.'

'How did you get past Mrs Jacobsen?'

I laughed a little ruefully. 'When I knocked at their cabin door I was confronted by a squat square person in a leather coat. I thought for a moment that it was the Captain.'

'She's pretty formidable, isn't she?' said Linn.

'I thought she'd throw me with a judo hold, or mule-kick me in the chest. But she just said flatly, "You're not going to see my husband." A lioness guarding her cub had nothing on her. You know, Linn, for one dreadful moment I found myself wondering whether she could have done it herself.'

Linn paused and eyed me. I wished at that moment I were alone with her in the Quest, in a wide, wide sea, without a thousand problems riding on my back.

'I think she'd be quite capable of such a thing if his well-being were involved,' she answered quietly. 'But is it?'

'I mean to find out shortly.' I glanced at my watch. 'He's due in my cabin in ten minutes.'

'With or without Mrs Jacobsen?'

'Without.'

'I don't know how you contrived it, John.'

'When she refused, I said. "I'm the captain." Captain Jacobsen was in the lounge section of their suite and he must have overheard. My luck was in. He emerged of his own accord. Being a sailor, he knew the significance of a visit from the captain. The rest was easy.'

It wasn't easy, though, when Captain Jacobsen knocked at my cabin door a little later — not to start with, anyway.

The first thing I did when I opened the door was to judge whether he tallied with Reilly's description. His hands were certainly big but his frame was more square and stocky than big. He'd gone to seed and his belly pushed his sea-cut jacket tight. If he really had a heart complaint, then he would have been better at sea, I reckoned, keeping himself trim instead of being cosseted by a domestic dragon. I closed the door behind him. I wondered whether a man-to-man approach mightn't pay off.

'A drink, Captain?'

It did. He grinned like a schoolboy playing truant. 'My wife won't like it, and the sun's not over the yardarm yet as you British say — schnapps.'

I poured two small glasses. I had warmed to him even before I felt the warmth of the fiery liquid down my throat.

'You didn't come to the burial service,' I remarked.

His eyes were bleached to pale blue from gazing too long at horizonless oceans.

'I wanted to, but my wife said the strain would be bad for my heart. I've buried quite a few men at sea in my time.'

'Then you know what it's all about.'

'Aye. It's worse in a small ship like a catcher when you know everyone personally, even if you are the skipper.'.

I said, watching closely for his reaction, 'This man was killed. Murdered.'

He held out his glass for more schnapps. His hand was quite steady. He sat like a judge considering his verdict. It was a ponderous silence.

Then he said, 'That makes the captain's position very difficult. Your position.'

'It does.'

'Why should you want to talk to me about it?'

I saw the opening I had been looking for. 'Because Captain Prestrud was also murdered.'

The glass fell from his hand and spilled some of its contents on him before reaching the carpet. He made no attempt to recover it. He gaped at me and his face became grey-blue mottled. He began to frisk his pockets.

I held out a pack of cigarettes.

'My pills — I should have a pill with news like this,' he replied thickly.

I retrieved his glass, which had not smashed. 'Another drink will do you more good.'

I pressed it upon him, together with the smoke. He lit up and inhaled deeply. 'This, too, is verboten. But the hell with that.'

Then he eyed me steadily. 'Is this true what you say about my old friend, Captain Prestrud?'

'Yes. He was pistol-whipped to death. The accident story was a blind so as not to upset the passengers.'

He sank the schnapps. 'His daughter told me…'

'I know what she told you. Why I asked you to come here now is to find out whether there is any connection between Captain Prestrud's death and Doctor Holdgate's.'

'Doctor Holdgate — I never heard the name.'

I believed him. I sketched in Holdgate's background — what I knew of it — quickly.

'It makes no sense, Captain Shotton,' he replied.

'It would make less sense to me if Captain Prestrud hadn't confessed something to me shortly before his death.'

I could have been mistaken but there seemed to be a spurt of fear in his eyes. Of caution, certainly.

'What did he say?'

'It is what he left unsaid, Captain Jacobsen. I believe you can fill it in for me.'

'I don't understand what you are driving at.'

'Listen. What I want to know is what happened in these waters during the war. The incident took place very close to here. The German raider HK-33, which was also called the Pinguin, captured the entire Norwegian whaling fleet. You were there, Captain.'

'As you say, I was there.'

'Captain Prestrud was there also.'

'Aye, he was there.'

'A few hours before he died, Captain Prestrud started to tell me about it.'

'There's very little to tell. It was about the same time of the year — mid-January of 1941. Captain Kruder was the raider captain. He was a very clever man. We catchers were all grouped about the factory ships. He surprised us in the middle of the night. There was no fighting. Three of us — Prestrud, Torgersen and I — managed to escape. That's all.'

I poured myself another drink. 'That's laconic enough to be a Royal Navy despatch, Captain Jacobsen.'

'You think I'm lying.'

'I didn't say that. Your account is remarkable for its brevity. But it's the bits and pieces that are important to me.'

'Such as?''

'You escaped, you three. Fair enough. Where did you go?'

To Cape Town. It was the nearest friendly port.'

'You're going much too fast, Captain Jacobsen. You three gave the raider the slip — how?'

'We bluffed our way past. We didn't stop when Kruder signalled us to stop. We knew he was a humane man and wouldn't fire. He didn't.'

This checked with Captain Prestrud's account to me.

Then I fired my first broadside.

'What about the torpedo?'

He put down his glass and stared at me. The torpedo?'

If you can bluff a man at poker, you can bluff him at interrogation. Your hand can be empty. Mine was.

'You were at great pains, you and Torgersen, to guard Prestrud's flanks in order to. get the torpedo safely away.'

I didn't care for the throaty way he coughed. Perhaps his wife was right about his heart.

'It was a trick, a ruse-de-guerre, it was legitimate,' he answered thickly. 'Kruder used a Norwegian radio-operator — a quisling — to bluff us. Fair's fair. War makes things like that legitimate.'

'I'll come to that quisling in a moment,' I went on. 'Let's stick to that torpedo. What were you doing with a torpedo? None of you were warships. You couldn't have fired it if you'd wanted to.'

He smiled, and I knew I'd come unstuck somewhere. 'I think I could manage another schnapps,' he said, holding out his glass.

I poured it and he went on. 'We brought the torpedo with us from Norway. It was a German one. A souvenir, you could call it.'

'A torpedo — for a souvenir!'

He smiled again. 'Prestrud and Torgersen and I were all on the factory ship Pelagos in port at Narvik when the Germans attacked. That assault brought Norway to her knees.'