Night Frost (A Mike Faraday Mystery Book 2) Page 14

  Mandrake was standing by the big table. He looked as pink and bland as ever. Diane Morris stood and picked nervously at the back of a leather chair. Her blonde hair was like a flame under the light of the saloon lamps. Otto stood behind me. He had got the Luger out now. I could see it from the comer of my eye. Mandrake glanced down at the table before him.

  He tapped the little blue book with the names and addresses absently.

  “You’re sure this is the right spot?” he said. “I wouldn’t want there to be any further misunderstandings.”

  “I’ll be diving just as soon as you give the word,” I said brightly. More brightly than I was feeling, in fact.

  He smiled. He tapped the blue book once again and shook his head.

  “I’ve made up my mind, Mr. Faraday and the evidence is stacked conclusively against you. But for the book we might have made a deal of it. As it is, we’re in the place we want to be and you’re superfluous baggage. I was never a one for taking unnecessary risks. I’ve decided to do the diving myself. This is where you get off.”

  He beckoned to Otto and I felt the gun in my ribs.

  “I think the port forward gangway would be the best place,” Mandrake told Otto smoothly, as though he were choosing a good lie at golf.

  He turned to Diane Morris. “Get below and keep your mouth shut,” he told her curtly. She paused as she got opposite me and closed one eyelid as though the light in the saloon was tiring her. Otto was looking at me and didn’t see it and she had her back to Mandrake. But as plain as though she’d spelt it out the wink said not to worry. She ran to the door and slammed the sliding panels shut after her. I heard the tattoo of her heels down the corridor.

  Otto whistled softly out of the side of his mouth. The Luger moved in a small circle, trained steadily on the spot where it would do most damage. I walked across the saloon in front of him. Mr. Mandrake opened another set of sliding doors and we went out on deck. It was a beautiful night or it would have been had I got the time for such things. Mr. Mandrake led the way forward and I walked in the middle with Otto behind.

  I heard a click and a floodlight went on, lighting up the forward gangway. It was the same one where I’d had the fight with Scarpini.

  “Walking the plank’s a bit corny for this day and age, don’t you think?” I said mechanically. It wasn’t really a very good effort but then this wasn’t my best night. Mandrake didn’t answer. He had all the cards and I knew he didn’t believe in wasting breath. The stars were very bright and I could hear the clink of knives and forks coming up from the crew’s quarters. There was no-one about; they all seemed to be having supper.

  Mandrake turned and faced the rail. He looked me over for the last time.

  “This will do nicely,” he said to Otto. The big man moved towards me, keeping the gun steady and low into his side. His eyes didn’t leave my face for a moment. He leaned forward and unhooked the retaining chain at the back of the platform. There was nothing between me and the sea down below.

  “Get out on the platform, pal,” the big bruiser said gently. He looked almost regretful. “We might as well do this right.”

  I stepped backwards nice and slow and easy. I didn’t want to give him the opportunity of slipping me a slug before it was really the end of the line.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Faraday,” said Mandrake, an indistinct figure at the rail. “It was an amusing encounter but like everything it had to come to an end some time.”

  “See you in hell,” I said without feeling. Just for the record. To get down on to the platform I had to drop about a foot, edging my way with my heels. The floor of the platform was supported on two L-shaped clamps and the actual deck formed a sort of top step. Otto shifted the angle of the gun downwards; he took it smooth and slow and I knew there was no chance of rushing him.

  As I paused I glanced automatically down and along the ship’s side. There was a big porthole facing me, just on a level with my feet. I had just got down on to the companionway when a long yellow arm came out of the port, seized my ankle with surprising strength and pulled me to one side. I went over backwards without a sound, clutching at the rail. It wasn’t there and I missed. Otto’s gun boomed twice, there was a white flash, something scorched my neck and shoulder and then I was turning and falling off the rim of the world. I went down into water and darkness and chaos and death.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Island

  1

  I WAS vomiting. I lay and vomited half the Atlantic Ocean. Water ran out of my mouth, there was nothing but darkness and mottled shapes in front of my eyes and the universe twisted and turned. I tasted salt and blood and burning. I wasn’t dead but I began to wish I was.

  I closed my eyes again in the roaring darkness and when my head cleared and I stopped retching I could hear voices. I was lying on my face. I opened my eyes to a vagueness. Something touched my shoulder and I felt myself lifted.

  “He’s conscious,” a woman’s voice said from far away. Then I saw I was lying in the bottom of a boat; the darkness and mottled shapes were the knots and the graininess of the planking in the boat bottom. That accounted for the rocking too. I still couldn’t account for the roaring. Later it translated itself into the sound of a winch.

  I sat up. Charley Fong blinked at me in the half-light and grinned encouragingly. He was soaking wet too. The voice belonged to Diane Morris. She sat in the stem of the small row-boat and looked small and scared. Come to

  think of it she had looked pretty frightened most of the time since this whole thing began, except for our early encounters at the Catamaran.

  “What happened?” I said weakly and started coughing again. I struggled up on to one of the wooden bench seats of the boat. It rocked alarmingly and Charley Fong put a steadying hand on my arm.

  “Charley fished you out—after tipping you in,” Diane said. “We had only a short while and it was all we could think of. I heard Mandrake mention which gangway and then I remembered the big port. It stuck in my mind because it’s the place the crew stand to look when women come aboard that way.”

  I grinned and held out a feeble hand to Charley Fong. “Now it’s my turn to say thanks,” I said.

  “Pleasure,” said Charley.

  I made my way with difficulty to where Diane sat in the stem.

  “Careful,” she warned, “you just swallowed half the Atlantic. And keep your voice down.”

  I started to cough again and she clamped her hand over my mouth. She needn’t have worried though. There was the clank and rumble of a winch from overhead and the whine of turbines. I saw we were neatly under the stem of the yacht, right under the overhang, where we couldn’t be seen from the deck. Not that anyone was interested; it was pretty dark and all the crew seemed to be where the lights were, up forward. Mandrake was diving for his nonexistent treasure.

  I began to laugh quietly to myself until my shoulder hurt again. That sobered me up.

  I started to take stock. Apart from my feeling weak, the nausea had passed. I felt my shoulder and neck; the flesh stung and I could feel dried blood.

  “It’s all right,” Diane whispered. “Otto missed you, but it was a close thing. As soon as you hit water Charley went in round the stern. I got the dinghy and he fished you out. Everyone was too busy up in the bows.”

  “They think they finished me?” I asked. She nodded, an indistinct figure, her face a blur of white under even paler-looking hair.

  “They checked for half an hour. And they kept flashing the searchlight on every side of the yacht in case the tide had carried you away. But we were already under the stern by then.”

  I brushed her cheek with my face, felt her lips and kissed her gently.

  “Thanks, chum,” I said and meant it. She disengaged herself with warm fingers.

  “What next?” I asked.

  “There’s land over there, about half a mile off,” she said. “I suggest we row for cover while there’s still time. We shan’t get two chances. They’re so excited over th
is diving they won’t miss me for hours.”

  “A good idea,” I said. “A police cutter will be along before morning, I guess. Incidentally, Mandrake will draw a blank here too.”

  She laughed. I sat and drank in the night air and the sensation of being alive and felt her shoulders shake under my hands.

  “Charley had better get back aboard,” I said. “I’ll see him right with the police when the time comes. So far as Mandrake knows he’s not involved in this; no sense in him sticking his neck out any further. I already owe him a bucketful.”

  Diane scrambled away from me and went into a whispered conversation with Charley; I could hear some argument going on. Evidently the little man didn’t feel like deserting us; common sense prevailed in the end. He slid the boat along by the painter and got his hand over the lower rail. It was dark down here and there was no one about on the deck. I got my cupped hands under the sole of his shoe and heaved him up; the strength was already coming back into my body.

  “Thanks again,” I said. “We’ll pick you up later.” I didn’t tell him about the police launch. The less he knew about the set-up the better for his safety.

  “Slure,” he said. He waved down to us and then padded away behind the yacht superstructure. We felt pretty lonely when he’d gone. Diane Morris handed me an oar. I untied the painter and we shoved off. There was a bright moon unfortunately, but if we could get a few hundred yards away unnoticed we’d blend with the shoreline, and there were so many shadows in the tumbled wavelets I hoped we’d pass without comment. I didn’t think we’d have to worry as there was so much activity going on up in The Gay Lady’s bows, but there was always the odd chance that a seaman might be looking in our direction at the wrong moment.

  The current was in our favour and at first we lay on the floorboards to make the boat harder to spot, and let it take us in. I risked a look up over the gunwale after about three minutes to see that we had drifted quite a long way from the yacht; the spotlights on the foredeck burned a vivid yellow hole in the darkness of the night, making a second moon low down on the horizon.

  There was a jib hoisted out on the side opposite to us for the diving operations. In front and to one side was the long shape of the land, dark and indistinct, rising from the sea. It was too far off to make out clearly but I could see the faint shimmer where the waves came in on the shore. Diane Morris picked up her oar, I dipped mine in the water and we started to row.

  2

  A fringe of palms came up the faint sky. The wavelets tossed us into the shore and the scent of vegetation came out to meet us in the tropic night. It only wanted the Pagan Love Song on the soundtrack and I should have had it made. We rested at the oars and let the tide take us in on to a beach washed pale by the sea and the moon.

  I jumped off when we hit the surf and stood in warm water up to my knees; I hauled on the painter and dragged her well up the sand. When she was properly beached Diane Morris came over the gunwale; I scooped her up and carried her up the beach. I felt like Sir Walter Raleigh. Except that when I got close inshore I stubbed my toe on a small outcrop just under the water and we nearly went down on our faces. Sir Walter Raleigh my foot.

  I got to the beach in the end and put her down far from gently.

  “I didn’t think you’d make it, Atlas,” she said drily.

  “Like I told you I got my muscles coming by post,” I said. I was looking around the while; something was wrong but I couldn’t spot it for a bit. We went up the beach; it was a lonely place, but the vegetation was thick about a hundred yards in. There were palms, ferns, flowering creepers; we went in under the shadow of the trees.

  Any other time this would have been great. We pushed on through the fringe of palms, came out on to more sand; something was still wrong but the nickel didn’t drop for another full five minutes. Then I got it. We seemed to have been walking for quite a while but we still couldn’t lose the sound of the sea. A few moments more and we came out on to an identical beach. We had arrived at the other side of the island; it was all of a quarter of a mile wide. Five minutes and we were within sight of the boat again. We exchanged long glances. We went back to the dinghy.

  “What do you think?” said Diane.

  “Seems hardly worth setting off again,” I said. “We don’t know where the hell we are. Unless you know these waters?”

  She shook her head. I took her arm and we walked back along the beach. We went all the way around on the seaward side this time. It took a bit longer but the end result was the same. When we got to the other side there was no land in sight here, no other island. I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. We might drift anywhere and Clay would pick us up at the rendezvous in due course; he only had two known bearings and we had to be at one of these.

  The thing which worried me most was that Mandrake might find Diane had disappeared too soon; he would be pretty mad when he found only sand on the bottom and I didn’t want her to be around when that happened. In that case he could hardly fail to spot the boat and then he would know I wasn’t making fish-bait. But it wasn’t worth busting a gut for. It was a great night and a blonde and a desert island wouldn’t make it too hard to bear.

  I went and felt the gunwhale of the dinghy. It was much bigger out of the water and heftily built; solid teak for the most part, I guessed. There didn’t seem much chance of the two of us dragging it up the beach and behind the trees. And even then there would be the marks in the sand to erase. I thought about it for a bit longer and then decided to let it go. It wasn’t worth it, especially as Mandrake would know the boat was missing and the island was the only place the girl could be. No-one but a nut case would row off into nowhere in these waters. And she was no nut case.

  The problem became academic a few moments after. A beam of light shot across the water and there was the deep throb of a marine engine as a small cutter came across the bay. I glanced up beyond the dinghy and saw that the boat was well away from the yacht, the small searchlight in the bow cutting the dusk into segments as it moved in a complete circle.

  The light moved on over us, steadied, came back and then remained stationary on the dinghy. I could almost feel night glasses being focussed in our direction. As the beam pencilled on down the beach I grabbed Diane and we made a run for the trees. Against the white sand of the beach we didn’t stand a chance of going without being observed. The light came back again and held us pinned as we ran in an almost straight line through the fine, powdery sand.

  I heard a shout, “There’s two of them,” and the sound of a shot; there was a vicious whang and sand scattered in puffs at the edge of the beach, down near the dinghy. Then we were in among the trees. The firing stopped and there was a moment’s silence. This was followed by the metallic whine of a loud-hailer. After the preliminary crackle there was Otto’s voice.

  “Well, well, pal. You’re kinda durable at that. Better come on out while there’s a chance.”

  I risked a glance through the fringe of undergrowth; Diane’s frightened breathing sounded close to me. I could feel her trembling through the contact of her hand on my arm. The boat creamed in to the shallows and dark figures got down on to the beach. They fussed around the dinghy. If they came up to us we were finished; we could play hide and seek among the trees for half an hour, but there didn’t seem much percentage in it.

  There was a delay of about ten minutes and then I saw lights flashing from the yacht; I never learned to read Morse so I missed an interesting conversation. The cutter used the searchlight to reply. There was another pause and then a final short message from The Gay Lady. Darkness closed in again.

  The engine of the cutter started up and she put out to sea towing the dinghy. It bobbed in her wake and I saw one of the seamen get down in the stem to let out the painter. The loudhailer crackled again. Otto sounded amused.

  “We’ll pick you up in the morning, pal. You ain’t goin’ any place. Make the most of it.”

  The engine of the cutter died in the distance and then there was
nothing but the sound of the surf. Diane Morris turned towards me and quietly came into my arms. I held her close.

  3

  The moon looked like a silver nickel cut out of the darkness of the sky. It was warm enough to be comfortable. I lay back on the soft sand, stretched out my clasped hands behind my head and looked up at the stars. I would have given a lot for a cigarette just then. The fellows on the TV programmes always leave out bits like that when they talk about life on desert islands. Who the hell wants phonograph records when there’s women around? I’ll settle for a blonde any time.

  Diane moved at my side. I waited until she’d settled herself more comfortably again and then looked back up at the sky. Its remoteness made Mandrake and the whole mess seem unimportant. It would be the thing to get out for Diane Morris. She had done quite a deal for me in the last twenty-four hours. At least I owed her that. And anyways I was hoping the police cutter would turn up soon. It seemed a long while since I had seen Stella. I stopped thinking then. The recollection of her face took the edge off my plans for tonight.

  I sat and stretched myself. A soft wind was stirring the tops of the palms. I stood, shook the sand out of my trousers and stared out to sea. I couldn’t see the yacht any more but I knew it was still there. Suddenly I felt tired of this side of the island. Diane Morris had woken. She lay staring at me. I could see the moonlight glinting on her half-opened eyes. I guessed the time was only around eleven o’clock and I didn’t feel like sleeping. I’d never felt less like sleeping in my life.

  “Nickel for them,” she said. I grinned. I grabbed her by the hand and hauled her to her feet.

  “Come on,” I said. “It’s a lovely night for a walk.”