Isvik Read online

  ‘But –’ I hesitated. The possibility of my being a member of the expedition hadn’t occurred to me.

  He smiled. ‘Why do you think I asked you to attend this meeting?’

  ‘But I’m not qualified,’ I said. ‘Timber preservation, yes – but sailing in the Antarctic …’

  ‘You know about ships. You’ve sailed, and you have a boat of your own.’

  ‘I had. But on the Norfolk coast. You’re talking about the Antarctic.’

  ‘Nelson,’ the Admiral cut in. ‘Burnham Thorpe. He was brought up on the edge of the saltings there. And the north of Norfolk is sometimes referred to as the Arctic – Shore. It’s cold and it breeds a certain type of man. You’ll fit. Won’t he, Mrs Sunderby?’

  I turned my head to find her looking at me very intently. Clearly she hadn’t been ready to make a decision there and then. But suddenly she smiled. ‘Yes, of course. The Admiral’s right.’ And she added, ‘If we do find the ship, we’ll certainly need the sort of specialised knowledge you can provide.’

  Nobody asked me how I felt about a voyage into the Antarctic. They just seemed to take it for granted I would go along with them, the talk turning to the availability of a suitable search vessel that would be within the budget Ward was offering. And like a fool I just sat there and said nothing. If I’d had any sense I’d have got to my feet and walked out, for the boat the Sunderby woman had in mind was a sixty-foot motor-sailer with a quarter-inch steel hull and a powerful diesel auxiliary. It was lying in the Chilean naval port of Punta Arenas on the north side of the Magellan Strait and had been strengthened and equipped for a Norwegian prospecting expedition in Queen Maude Land that had run out of money before it had even started.

  Mrs Sunderby had been down to Punta Arenas, had seen the boat. Its name was Isvik and it had been left in charge of one of the expedition members, a Norwegian named Nils Solberg. The boat was for sale and she thought Solberg, who was an engineer and whom she regarded as highly competent, would go along with any new expedition.

  The discussion then turned to the feasibility of wintering over in the ice. The name David Lewis was mentioned. Apparently he had wintered a vessel of very similar size in the ice in Prydz Bay in the Australian territory of Queen Mary Land with a crew of only six, including two girls. Clearly it could be done, and the meeting finally broke up with Ward agreeing to meet the initial cost, including purchase of the vessel, which Mrs Sunderby thought could be acquired for a figure well below the US$230,000 the bankrupt Norwegian expedition were asking.

  The object of the meeting in the Cutty Sark after cabin had clearly been to influence Ward’s decision. But once she had his agreement, she also had the backing of all the three institutions represented there. As she put it, ‘Now all we need is about thirty hours in every day, the right weather and a hell of a lot of luck.’ She rose to her feet, looking round the table. ‘Thank you, gentlemen – for your time, and for your help.’ She was smiling, her eyes shining, and she added, ‘You’ve no idea what this means to me – personally.’ The way she said it conveyed an extraordinary sense of excitement. And as the maritime heritage men said goodbye and ducked out through the after door beside the dresser, leaving just the three of us there in the cabin, the thing I was chiefly conscious of was her vitality. Now that she had got what she wanted, she seemed packed full of energy, so that just being there with her gave me an extraordinary lift, my feeling of depression quite gone.

  ‘Did you come by car?’ She was speaking to Ward.

  ‘No. Water bus.’

  ‘Can I give you a lift then?’

  He shook his head. ‘Ah’d prefer to go back the way Ah came. There’s a lot to see on the river here. Also, Ah’ve a wee bit o’ thinkin’ to dae, ye understan’. Ah’ve never before had anythin’ to dae wi’ this sort of an outfit – Ah mean admirals an’ directors o’ museums an’ maritime trusts. It’s all new to me. An’ there’s the wee matter o’ what Ah’m lettin’ mesel’ in fur. Ah mean, six months, maybe a year if we’re locked into the ice, searchin’ fur a vessel Ah’m no’ at all sure really exists.’

  ‘But you’ve read the notes Charles made.’ The voice was crisp and sharp. ‘You know very well that he must have written that description of the ship within minutes of having sighted it. We’ve been over all this on the phone and I’ve explained to you that I have a navigator in mind, a man I’m convinced has actually seen what my husband saw.’

  ‘Aye, but ye haven’t produced the man. Ye haven’t even told me his name or where Ah can contact him.’

  ‘No.’

  They stared at each other, hostility building between them so that the atmosphere in that panelled saloon was almost frigid.

  It was Ward who finally broke the heavy silence. ‘Och hell!’ he muttered. ‘What’s it matter?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Her eyes blazed.

  ‘Just that Ah don’t care very much one way or t’other. Whether the ship exists outside o’ yer husband’s imagination is no’ all that important to me. Ye say this nameless navigator o’ yers has also seen it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Okay then. But Ah want to see him before he joins us as navigator. Where can Ah meet him?’

  ‘At Punta Arenas. That’s if he agrees.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Somewhere in South America.’

  She turned away, the movement and the expression on her face making it clear she was unwilling to answer any more questions.

  Ward hesitated, then gave a little shrug. ‘Okay, if that’s the way ye want it. But understan’ this, girl, it’s my money an’ ye don’t ship crew wi’out Ah check them first. Okay?’ And he added almost waspishly, ‘If we find the ship, good – but Ah’ll no’ lose any sleep if we don’t set eyes on her. It’s like Ah was sayin’. Ah’ve made some money an’ now Ah want to use it to dae somethin’ Ah’ve always wanted to dae. The ship is merely an objective.’ A sudden smile lit up his features. ‘If it’s there, fine. But it’s the challenge o’ the thin’. That’s what’s important to me.’

  His manner, his whole bearing, the way he faced us, was pure theatre. He was playing a part and we were the audience. ‘A challenge,’ he repeated. And then he smiled that attractive smile of his, held out his left hand and said, ‘Ah’ll be thinkin’ about it all the way back to Glasgae, Mrs Sunderby. O’ ye, too. Let me know when ye’ve fixed the boat, an’ the price – then Ah’ll talk to the lawyer men Ah seem to have acquired. Also the accountancy laddies who check the figures.’

  He left us, his mouth stretched into something near a grin as he ducked through the after cabin doorway like an actor going off stage at the end of his big scene.

  Iris Sunderby’s reaction was similar to my own. ‘God!’ she breathed, tossing her head back in a gesture of irritation as she listened to the sound of his footsteps on the deck above. ‘Much more of that man and I’d –’ She checked herself with a wry little smile, then snatched up her briefcase and began stuffing her papers into it. ‘Do you think that accent of his is real?’ She turned and looked at me. ‘Well, do you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, it does.’ There was a note almost of desperation in her voice. ‘If it isn’t, then the man’s far too complex, has much too much imagination. And if I can’t stand his play-acting here, how the hell am I going to manage in the close confines of the boat. It could be for month after month, you know. If we get locked into the ice, per’aps for a whole winter. ¡Dios mio!’

  She stood there, staring at her reflection in the dresser’s mirror. The silence for that moment was absolute. ‘Trouble is,’ she went on slowly, ‘that man is just about my last hope.’ She snapped the lock of the briefcase shut and moved towards the door. ‘I’ve been knocking on big company doors till I’m sick of the sight of men trying to avoid telling me outright my husband was a nutter. And the endless letters …’ She shook her head. ‘If it hadn’t been for the Admiral –’ She turned and looked at me again, holdin
g out the bulging briefcase. ‘All these notes and memos of mine,’ she said angrily. ‘All wasted on him. An ego a mile high and that Glasgae accent of his … The Admiral saw it at once.’

  ‘Saw what?’ I asked.

  ‘Ward’s reluctance. That it was all just a game to him. He’d only come down from Scotland out of curiosity. A Glaswegian truck driver – Ah’ve never before had anythin’ to dae wi’ an outfit o’ this sort.’ It was a fair imitation and she repeated, ‘The Admiral saw it at once. Clever, the way he handled the man.’

  ‘You mean that man-to-man stuff about his disability endangering lives?’

  ‘Of course. You don’t think the Admiral behaves like that normally? Not in his nature. But he saw Ward’s reluctance, realised he wasn’t going to throw his cash around, so he go straight for the jugular.’ She was excited, her English slipping as she moved towards the door again. ‘Where are you going – Liverpool Street station, is it?’ And when I nodded she offered to drop me off. ‘I’ve got to go through the City anyway. I need to visit the Argentine Embassy, Cadogan Gardens.’

  It was while we were saying goodbye to the Cutty Sark’s Captain that I saw the student again, standing by one of the pictorial display panels. He lingered there until we moved towards the exit, then he started walking casually down the length of the deck. He emerged into the sunshine just as we reached the ship’s stern. ‘I see your boyfriend is still keeping you in his sights.’

  I said it as a joke, but she didn’t take it that way. ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’ There was a sudden tension in her voice, and she didn’t turn her head to see who I was referring to.

  ‘You know him, don’t you?’

  She didn’t answer and we walked in silence until we reached her car. As she unlocked it he passed us, running along the upper walk that led past the big square flower tubs to the kiosk and on to Chichester’s Gypsy Moth. He kept on the far side of the platform, and since we were at a much lower level, I only caught a glimpse of his head and shoulders until he came off the raised level and ducked down to the right, towards the underground car park run by the British Legion.

  She was leaning into the back of her car, rearranging her things, and she hadn’t seen him. A family of tourists stood near us, talking to an old man who had just come out of the Gypsy Moth pub. ‘They call it Church Street now,’ he told them. ‘’Cos of the church there, St Alfege. But way back, afore they brought that ship ’ere an’ knocked all the buildings down to build a dock for ’er, this was a street of shops an’ ’ouses, right down to the pier. Billingsgate Street. That was the name of it.’

  They passed out of earshot, a child’s voice raised, demanding ice-cream. We got into the car and she drove off. Looking back as we turned into College Approach, I saw a bright red open sports car shoot out of the street opposite the Gypsy Moth, a man at the wheel, and no passenger. It followed us as we turned right by the entrance to the Royal Naval College and right again on to the main road.

  When I told her he was following us, she didn’t say anything, but her face had a set look, her eyes on the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Who is he?’ I asked. ‘What’s he want?’

  She didn’t answer, and when I repeated the question, she shook her head.

  ‘Is he a student, or just a visitor?’

  ‘A student, I think.’

  We drove in silence, heading down river till we joined the motorway and turned north. Several rimes I looked back, but it wasn’t until we were dipping into the entrance of the Blackwall Tunnel that I caught the flash of that red sports car weaving through the traffic behind a big cement truck. She had seen it too and she changed lanes, putting her foot down till we were nose-to-tail with the car ahead.

  ‘Do you think he’s following us?’ I had to yell to make myself heard above the noise of engines reverberating against the wall of the tunnel.

  She nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  She turned her head. ‘Why do you think?’ she yelled. Her mouth was a thin line, her eyes blazing with anger.

  I shrugged. It was nothing to do with me. But I had an uneasy feeling it might be if I landed up crewing that boat of hers down into the Antarctic. ‘Who is he?’ I asked again as we came out into the relative peace of the above-ground traffic.

  ‘His name is Carlos.’ She banged the wheel again. ‘He send that fucking little sod. One of his boys, but he’s some sort of a cousin, too. He even looks like him.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Ángel.’ She looked at me out of the corner of those extraordinary blue eyes and laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll love him.’

  ‘Who is this Ángel?’ I asked.

  Still looking at me, she almost ran into the vehicle ahead. ‘You really want to know? He is half my brother, wonderfully handsome, like that boy. And he’s a devil,’ she added viciously. ‘Fucks any girl he can get hold of and sodoms them too. Nothing he likes better than having them crawl on their hands and knees with their rumps in the air, then he has …’ She glanced at me, the flicker of a smile. ‘I see I have shocked you, but that is the sort of man he is.’ She swerved suddenly, cutting across the front of a lorry as she changed lanes. ‘¡Dios mio! I should know.’ She was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘It’s the Italian in him, a legacy from a bitch of a woman named Rosalli Gabrielli.’ She swung abruptly left on to an intersecting cut-off. Another glance, and a funny little laugh, her eyes alight with a strange excitement. ‘Don’t look so worried. The libido don’t thrive, I think, down in the ice of the Weddell Sea. You will be safe enough.’ Again that little laugh, a soft, throaty chuckle now.

  A road sign indicated that we were in the East India Dock Road. She slowed for some lights. ‘I’m sorry. I should have kept quiet about the family. We are not always very nice people.’ She shrugged. ‘But perhaps that goes for a lot of the human race.’

  The lights changed and she swung left into a side street. ‘You ever travel the Docklands Light Railway? It’s rather like riding the El in New York before they build any skyscrapers. I’ll drop you off outside the Telegraph building. The train will take you to the Tower, and from there it’s only a short walk to Liverpool Street station, or you can take the Circle Line.’ She turned left again, a mean, shabby little street with a view of water ahead, then right and more water as she doubled back on her tracks. Another glimpse of the river, and then we were crossing the entrance to some docks.

  I glanced back. No sign of the car. ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

  ‘Isle of Dogs. West India Docks.’

  ‘You seem to know your way around.’

  ‘I live here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s cheap. I have a couple of rooms in a house that’s due for demolition.’ We turned up on to what was the raised quay of the South Docks, two massive buildings of glass and granite-like cladding, and beyond them, seen through the piers supporting the overhead railway, a litter of developers’ high gantry cranes. ‘There’ll be nothing left of the old Tower Hamlets streets in a few years’ time.’

  ‘There must be other parts of London just as cheap,’ I said. ‘What made you pick on this?’

  ‘You ask too many questions.’ She swung under the round pillars of the railway and stopped outside the second of the glass-fronted buildings. ‘I like water and here the river and the docks are all around me.’ She nodded to the iron stairway painted in Docklands Light Railway blue that led up to the little station poised overhead. ‘I have your address and telephone number. I’ll be in touch. Hopefully in about two or three weeks’ time.’

  I thanked her for the lift and got out. She drove off then, and that was the last I saw of her till the police brought me down from Norfolk to identify the body of a woman they had fished out of the South Docks. When they slid her body out and pulled the plastic sheet away it looked at though she had been battered to death with an axe.

  TWO

  I had only met her that once and the appalling mess they uncovered for me in the hospital mortuar
y was quite unrecognisable. The body was about the same build. That was all I could tell them. Concentrate on the clothes, they said, and that ring on her finger. But I didn’t know what clothes Iris Sunderby possessed and she might have had any number of rings. I certainly had not noticed one when I sat almost opposite her in the after cabin of the Cutty Sark, or when her hands were on the steering wheel as she drove me through the Blackwall Tunnel and on to the Isle of Dogs.

  I asked them why they thought I could help and they said that divers had dredged up a handbag from the bottom of the dock. In it they had found the remains of several letters, one from Victor Wellington, another from me, the others from addresses in the Argentine. ‘Have you any reason to think she would commit suicide?’ The Inspector threw the question at me almost casually as we walked out into the damp atmosphere of a day that was hovering between drizzle and rain.

  ‘Quite the reverse,’ I said. ‘She was full of plans for the future.’ And I told him briefly about the ship in the ice and the vessel waiting for us in Tierra del Fuego. But he already knew about that. ‘Mr Wellington said the same thing and I’ve spoken to a man named Ward up in Glasgow. I gather he was willing to finance the expedition.’ He nodded, leaning his body into the wind. ‘So it’s murder.’ He turned his head, a quick, searching glance. ‘Have you got any views on that, sir?’

  ‘No, why should I?’ And I told him again that my visit to the Cutty Sark was the first and only time I had met her. But then I remembered the student, a cousin she had said, and I explained how I had seen him watching her park her car by the Gypsy Moth pub, how he had looked down at us through the Cutty Sark’s skylight and had then followed us in his bright red sports car.

  ‘Did she give you his name?’

  ‘Carlos,’ I said.

  ‘His surname?’

  But I couldn’t tell him that and in the end he thanked me for my co-operation. ‘If you hear anything else …’ He hesitated. ‘I think I should tell you the state of the body is not indicative of the cause of death. The pathologist is quite satisfied she died by drowning.’ And he added, ‘The wounds to the head and neck were probably caused by her body being sucked into the swirl of a ship’s propellor. We checked with the Maritime Trust vessels and one of them regularly runs up the engines, usually at slow ahead to lubricate the prop shaft. The watchman did that the night before the body was reported to us.’