Isvik Read online

  TWO

  The only way for me to get back on board was by the rope ladder, which meant traipsing half round the ship. It was slow going, for the ice was very broken. The gun ports were just above the level of the ice and most of them were open. I was conscious again of that smell. I had forgotten about it in my excitement at exploring the ship and then finding Carlos lying there under the bows, but now it was so strong and all-pervading that it was no longer possible to ignore it.

  At one moment it seemed to come from the interior of the ship. I caught a whiff of it from an open gun port. But when I reached the stern, which still had some of its gingerbread intact, the gold paint of the carving protected by a thick layer of ice, I realised where the stench was coming from. A little wind had sprung up from the north-west, and from the far side of the ship a beaten track stretched out in that same direction to where a fire-blackened mound of garbage had been built up on the ice. And beyond it was a white adobe of ice like an igloo beside a round pool of open water.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked Iain when I had swung myself up the rope ladder on to the afterdeck.

  ‘The smell, is that what’s worryin’ ye?’ He nodded towards the pile of garbage. ‘It’s what archaeologists would call a midden.’ He looked at me sharply. ‘Tell me, dae ye remember when the people at Ushuaia said this ship had sailed?’

  ‘They weren’t sure,’ I said. ‘They thought it was two, two and a half years ago. That’s what Iris said.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s about right, Ah reck’n, fur one man livin’ here alone. Mebbe tae, but not more than tae.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ah’m talkin’ about that pile of shit and bones and putrid meat. Out there on the ice there’s no way ye can get rid of the filth ye produce. Give him his due, he’s tried. He’s had fires down there. Looks like he burned a hole in the ice first go, then built a hide in the hope that seal, or somethin’ even bigger, would use it as a blow-hole.’

  A midden, he had called it, and I stared at it, fascinated by the thought that somebody had been living here ever since the ship had become icebound. ‘Who is it? One of the Disappeareds?’

  He nodded. ‘Or one of the guards.’

  ‘And he’s on board – now?’

  ‘Look around ye. There’s nowhere else he can be.’

  ‘And Ángel?’

  But he had turned away. ‘Come below and Ah’ll show ye how he’s been living this past tae years and more.’ He led me down the companion ladder to the gun-deck below, moving cautiously, a step at a time, probing the gloom with the powerful beam of his torch, the machine pistol ready in his hand. All the time we had been talking, I had been conscious of his eyes fixed on the long sweep of the ice-encrusted deck, watchful for the first sign of movement.

  At the bottom of the ladder the smell was very noticeable and I made some comment about it seeming to have followed us. He laughed. ‘That’s not the midden ye’re smellin’.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Bodies,’ he said.

  ‘Bodies? D’you mean dead bodies?’

  ‘Aye. Dead bodies.’ And he added, ‘Dead sheep, dead humans. Carcases rottin’ in the hold.’ There was a note of sadness as well as disgust in his voice. ‘Ah’ll show ye in a minute. First Ah want to check again how this man’s been livin’.’ He turned aft then, away from the half-light of the open gun ports. There were doors here, officers’ cabins with wooden bunks. He pushed open the central door just aft of the thick rudder post. There was sunlight here, slanting rays pouring in through the cracked glass of five big stern windows.

  The place was lived in. So much was obvious at a glance. There were clothes draped over the back of a chair, the table laid ready for a meal – plate, knife, fork and spoon, a dirty brown lump of something that looked like bread. A big iron stove stood just behind the door jacketed in asbestos with a pile of sawn pieces of the ship’s timbers in a basket beside it. The bunk was also on the starb’d side and had several dark skins spread over it; fur seal, by the look of them, and one that was bigger and might be leopard seal.

  ‘What’s he hunting with?’ Looking around the cabin I couldn’t see any sign of a weapon.

  For answer Iain took me over to a big wooden chest in the corner and lifted the lid. Inside, neatly resting in their racks, were all sorts of weapons – rifles, machine pistols, a revolver, several automatics, two shotguns. ‘Quite an arsenal.’

  He nodded. ‘Ye’ll notice there’s one of the racks with nothin’ in it.’

  I had noticed. That, and the single place setting at the table, suggested it was just one man on board, one man, besides Ángel, prowling about somewhere in the ship, and he was armed. ‘Dae ye no’ sense a weird feelin’ here?’ Iain’s accent was more pronounced and there was a nerve twitching at the side of his jaw. ‘If it weren’t fur the fact that he’s got a weapon wi’ him, Ah’d be worryin’ me head about ghosts an’ sich like. Och aye, Ah would that. But a man wi’ a gun is summat Ah understan’.’

  He reached down into the chest and picked up one of the machine pistols. It was an Uzi, he said. ‘The magazines are over here.’ He went to another, smaller chest, that was full of ammunition. ‘Put those in yer pocket.’ He handed me several mags, fitted one of them on to the pistol and thrust it into my hands. ‘Just in case.’ He smiled, but the nerve was still twitching along the left side of his jaw. ‘Now Ah’ll show ye what this is all about. Better prepare yerself fur the worst, because it’s no’ very nice.’

  I followed him and we went for’ard, past the rudder post and the ladder to the deck, past what appeared to be the stowage for hammocks and bedding, out into the long, open run of the gun-deck. No torch was necessary here, enough light coming in through the open gun ports in low, slanting rays. The guns themselves were not run out, of course. In fact, they were not real guns at all, but made of some black plastic that looked real enough so that the whole deck had an air of waiting, as though at any moment the call for action stations might ring out. The breeze was blowing a draught of air from one side to the other across the deck and it was bitterly cold.

  ‘Down here.’ He led me to a grating in the centre of which was a lift-out section with ropes attached to the four corners. It was roughly spliced into a single strand, which ran up to a block in the deck beam above. He hauled on the tail end of it, swinging the section of grating aside to reveal a black hole. ‘That’s where the East India Company’s merchandise was stowed in the long passage from London to Bombay. But the hold has a different cargo now. Take a look.’ He shone the beam of his torch down into the darkness, moving it slowly across the ice, first for’ard, then aft.

  ‘My God!’ I murmured.

  ‘Aye, an’ ye can thank him also that the water there is frozen solid.’

  For’ard, the bodies were all human, lying just as they had floated up when the ship struck and water flooded the hold, a horrible jumble of cadavers, the outline of their bodies blurred by the thickness of the ice that had virtually mummified them. Amidships there was a partition wall of timber, a sort of half bulkhead, and aft of that the iced-up hold appeared to be full of sheep. It was one of these that was the cause of the smell. The surface of the ice had been hacked into broken fragments, and as I stared along the beam of the torch, I saw that there had been a method in the way the ice had been broken up, one of the sheep chipped out, dragged towards the partition, where it lay on its back, its upthrust legs standing like matchsticks, the stomach, no longer in the deep freeze of solid ice, bloated with trapped wind.

  I was moving closer, peering down at the ice-glazed huddle of human bodies, when I felt that gloved hand of his grab hold of my arm. ‘Ah wouldn’t go any nearer if Ah were ye.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shook his head. ‘How many dae ye reck’n there are down there – thirty, forty? What did they die of, all together like that? Ye don’t know, so we’ll get the hatch cover on again.’

  ‘And what about you, do you know?’
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  He didn’t answer, and I stood there, utterly appalled, half petrified with the horror of it. To see death like that – it reminded me of pictures I had seen of Belsen and Auschwitz, or of death in the Ethiopian desert. Except that this wasn’t a picture, this was the real thing. ‘Why?’ I asked him again. ‘And the sheep – why sheep? What did they all die of?’

  ‘That we’ll find out in due course. At least, Ah hope we will.’ He hauled on the rope and I helped him swing the heavy section of grating back over the hole, lowering it into position. He switched off his torch, his eyes searching the gun-deck, adjusting to the change of light. ‘We’ll go back to the main cabin now an’ await developments.’ But he didn’t move immediately, his head cocked a little on one side, listening. ‘Did ye hear anythin’?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered, my nerves tensing as I realised how exposed we were. Was this what Carlos had seen? Was that why Ángel had killed him, shooting the poor devil in the back as he stood there on the foredeck?

  Iain had turned his head to face the fore part of the ship, still listening, his eyes watchful. ‘Wonder why he’s got that hatch open?’ The beam of his torch flashed out, the gun in his hand levelled at the for’ard end of the deck.

  ‘What is it?’

  He shook his head, puzzled. ‘That’s been raised since Ah came on board.’ The light was shining on a section of the deck that had been swung up into the vertical by block and tackle. It wasn’t a grating like the one we had just lifted. It was a solid section of decking so that it had the appearance of an over-sized trap door. ‘Why would he want it open?’ He was voicing his thoughts aloud, the question rhetorical. He switched off the torch again and turned to me. ‘D’ye think that’s what he intends to dae? Fittin’, don’t ye think? Very fittin’.’

  I stared at him, a thought crossing my mind, so that I felt suddenly as though I was caught up in a nightmare. ‘Fitting?’ My voice sounded hoarse, little more than a whisper.

  ‘Aye. What would ye dae? Ye’ve seen the crime that’s been committed.’

  But my mind had gone off on a tangent, to the fact that the man was armed and we were standing here in the open on the gun-deck, our bodies, in silhouette against the light from the open gun ports, a perfect target. But when I suggested that we were in danger of getting killed, he just laughed at me and shook his head. ‘He won’t be troubling us, not just yet.’ And he added, ‘What will be worrying him right now is that there is a man who’s been on board here ever since the ship struck, a man who knows the answer to what happened, how all those bodies were done to death. One of the rifles is missing so he knows the man is armed. If he fires at us, then he reveals his position. He needs to get his bullet in first.’ He turned then, muttering something in French. ‘Incroyable!’ Catching his repetition of the word, I thought he was referring to the scene in that frozen hold. Then, as he headed aft, he said quite distinctly, ‘She couldn’t have known, surely.’ He was talking to himself, not to me. And he added, his accent broadening, his voice barely audible, ‘What the hell state o’ mind will the poor bugger be in?’

  He didn’t bother to soften the sound of his footsteps, but when he reached the door he kicked it wide open, his gun ready in his left hand. As I followed him in, the thought uppermost in my mind was that phrase he had used before. He had been referring to that cargo of Disappeareds, not to Carlos. How the hell did he know Ángel was responsible for that ghastly hold full of refrigerated bodies? But when I put the question to him, all he said was, ‘Ye’ll see. Ah’ll be proved right.’ He looked round at me, smiling. ‘Want to bet on it?’

  That sudden glimpse of callousness shocked me. ‘You can’t be certain of that. Not until you know what they died of.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Ángel now. Concentrate yer wee mind on the person who’s been livin’ on board this antique hulk fur the last couple of years or more. Who is he, d’ye reck’n? And what’s happened to his mates? They won’t have sailed with the hold half full of political prisoners without some sort of a guard. Who disposed of them, eh?’ He reached for the catch of a door just beyond the stove, motioned me aside and yanked it open. A pantry, the shelves almost empty, but still a sack with some flour in it, a collection of rusty tins, some sugar in the bottom of a deep jar, and strips of meat hanging from hooks in the beams above. ‘Olive oil.’ Iain was shaking a can marked aceite. ‘Strips of smokey seal meat, homemade bread, an occasional delicacy from out of one of the tins, with a wee bit of mutton now and then. Reck’n ye can exist on that fur quite a time. But no green stuff. Nothin’ to keep the scurvy at bay.’ He put his hand into an open cardboard case. ‘Ugh! Look. It’s crawlin’.’ He held out his hand to me, biscuits all crumbled and full of weevils. ‘This is the sort of diet they used to live on in the old days, and fur months at a time, the whole ship’s company dyin’ of lethargy with ulcered gums and their teeth droppin’ out.’

  He stepped back, closing the pantry door as though to keep the maggots from invading the big cabin. ‘Take that safety catch off,’ he said, pointing to the Uzi I had placed on the table. He showed me how to work it and told me to hold it ready. ‘An’ don’t shoot me in the back if Ah’m lucky enough to flush somebody out.’ He then kicked open the doors of the four smaller cabins, one by one, his gun ready and probing with his torch.

  But they were all empty, the heads, too, and the little cubbyhole of a galley with its simple paraffin stove where the officers’ food had been prepared. The main galley, he said, was up for’ard, also the main storeroom, where the fresh food had been kept. ‘But that’s empty now. Rats have been at it, and what they haven’t taken he’s moved here.’ He motioned me back into the main cabin, shut the door and pulled up a chair facing it, but a little to one side, the gun on his knees. ‘It’s just a matter of waitin’ now.’ His haversack was on the table and he pulled it across, rummaging inside. ‘Here yer are.’ He produced a slab of chocolate, broke it in half and tossed one half across to me.

  It was nut chocolate with raisins, and as I bit into it I suddenly realised how hungry I was. ‘We’ll have a brew-up later. Could be a long wait.’

  ‘You think he’ll come – here?’

  ‘Och aye, of coarse he’ll come. He’ll want some food, same as us. And he’ll be curious, wonderin’ whether he’s got to shoot us, or if this is the moment he’s been prayin’ fur all these years, the moment of release. How many years is it, Ah wonder, since he was a free man – five, six? D’ye remember when it was Iris said her brother disappeared?’

  I shook my head. ‘Do you think it’s him – out there? Is that what you mean?

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, chewing ruminantly on his chocolate. Finally he said, ‘Ye’re sort of a scientist, aren’t ye? Ye’ve spent all yer life since leavin’ school playin’ around with chemicals and such deadly liquids and powders that kill pests, woodworm, deathwatch beetle, and that worm ye find in tropical waters, what’s it called?’

  ‘Teredo.’

  ‘Aye, that’s it.’ He fell silent then, staring at me, as though wondering whether to continue, and I sat there, just across the cabin from him, waiting, until finally he laid his gun on the table, leaning forward. ‘Does Porton Down mean anythin’ to ye?’

  ‘What’s Porton Down got to do with it?’ And then I remembered his telling me Iris’s brother had been there. Or had Iris told me herself? I couldn’t remember. It seemed so long ago, another world. ‘You’re not suggesting the men in the hold here were killed by poison gas, are you? Porton Down is a government research station specialising in chemical warfare. A poison gas in the confines of a ship would make the air so toxic –’

  ‘Not if the killers had masks.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any gas masks.’

  ‘No. They would have got rid of them, thrown them overboard. But Ah wasn’t thinkin’ of anythin’ toxic like poison gas.’

  He was silent then, his eyes turned towards the stern windows. The sun had set a little while back, the polar twilight darkenin
g the cabin. He got slowly to his feet, went to the door and opened it ‘Thought so. Could do with some oil. Thought Ah remembered the hinges creakin’ when Ah first opened it.’ He pushed it to again and went through into the pantry. ‘What would ye like? Some bully beef? There’s two very rusty tins of it left. He’s probably savin’ them fur Easter. He’ll be a Catholic, so he’s sure to starve himself over Lent. Not that he would have had much choice. There’s water here and some oats. The oats look all right, so we could cook up a mess of porridge, or we could cut a piece off a strip of the seal meat. What can Ah get ye?’

  ‘You said there was some tea there? Is there a tin opener?’

  ‘Tea we have, but we’re fresh out of milk, and there’s no lemon or sugar. There’s coffee, just a dreg that looks more like a dark brown paste at the bottom of the jar.’

  ‘What about a tin opener?’ I heard him pulling drawers open and got up and joined him. He had a cupboard door open and was bent over an olive-green haversack full of stones. ‘Tea,’ I said.

  He didn’t seem to hear for a moment, staring intently at the whitish fragment he held in his hand. ‘Aye, tea.’ He nodded and replaced the stones in the haversack. ‘Or would ye care for some coffee?’ He dumped the haversack back in the cupboard, closed the door and straightened up.

  ‘It doesn’t look very appetising, the coffee, I mean.’ I was wondering what the stones were doing there.

  ‘No, it doesn’t. And we don’t want to upset our stomachs, do we?’ He grinned and held up a bent and very rusty tin opener. ‘Voilà. Thé au naturel and bully beef à la Frégate Ancienne. How’s that suit ye, mon ami?’ His humour sounded a little macabre in the circumstances, but perhaps it was an attempt to conceal what he really felt.