Face facts, man: she ran rings around you.' And I fell silent.
'We now show you something you don't know,' the grey Mate said. 'Come and follow me.'
Chapter Forty
The Captain came too, with pistol in hand. We descended to the room below the chart room, and then we were out on the mid-ships ladder. Again I could see no crew, and could not get a good view of the rear of the ship.
'What's aft?' I enquired, as we descended.
'A red flag,' said the Mate, setting foot on the deck. 'Some coal. Nothing for you.'
'Where are the crew?'
'Mostly ashore,' said the Captain. 'So think on.'
He meant that he had a free hand with me; might do what he liked. I supposed that an unloading gang of some sort remained on board, since it seemed likely that we were about to put off the coal at the gas works.
It was still dark. I still saw the lights on the cranes before the cranes themselves. But the world was stirring. More cranes turned and talked to their neighbours; a train wound through the streets before the flat, moon-like gas works. Every wagon was covered with white sheeting, and the sheets were numbered at the sides – giant black numbers, but they were not in order, so that it looked as though the train had been put together in a hurry. The gas works still seemed to slumber, and the line of dark, sleeping ships of which we were a part remained as before waiting patiently. Yet the factories that commanded the streets were gamely pumping out smoke, making the black sky blacker, keeping it just the way they liked it; and the air was filled with a constant clanking noise, as though great chains were being dragged in all directions.
'Your sister's in the clear and so is your brother,' I said to the Captain as we descended onto the deck, 'even though he rowed me out to this bloody tub. But I'll tell you this for nothing: you'll be in lumber if you don't put me off directly.'
No answer from the Captain; he had collected a lamp from the railing at the foot of the ladder.
'Young Adam would have been banking on you doing the sensible thing,' I said. 'You've still the chance to come right – just about.'
We had remained in the shadow of the mid-ships, and we now stood before the hatchway of a locker new to me. The Captain held up his lamp for the benefit of the Mate, who was removing a padlock from the catch of the iron door. The door swung open, and the Captain stepped forward, holding the lamp to show me a quantity of brushes of all descriptions: long-handled paint brushes, brooms and mops, buckets made of wood and iron, paint tins, a quantity of ropes, a stack of folded oilskins, a hand pump of some sort, a length of rubber hose, and Tommy Nugent in his shirt sleeves. He sat against the far wall, with legs outstretched before him and crossed in a civilised way, as he might once have crossed his legs while leaning against a tree trunk and eating a picnic.
From boot soles to neck Tommy looked normal, but his face had the dead whiteness of a fungus and the same horrifying lack of shape. It was in at the left cheek, and out at the right temple. All his hair had moved to the right side, as though to cover the great lump that had grown there, and his eyes, which were wide open, were no longer level, no longer a pair, the right one having wandered off to have a look for once around the back of his head. I looked again at his legs, and I was ashamed not to be able to remember which one had been crocked. His right hand rested on one of his kit bags, as though to keep it safe no matter what. The mercy was that Tommy did not breathe – and I did not breathe either. The Captain lowered the lamp, so that Tommy seemed to retreat into the locker, and he kept silence.
It was the Mate who said, 'Your friend Tom.'
'Tommy,' I said. 'His name is Tommy.'
Well, he might have been carrying any number of papers that would have given away his identity, but of course I'd told them all about him. I thought of Tommy's fiancee, Joan, wandering alone in her father's shop, the Overcoat Depot on Parliament Street. I pictured the giant overcoat hanging outside like a man on a gibbet. Joan would no longer need to go to the Electric Theatre on Fossgate; she would no longer need to book an aisle seat on account of Tommy's leg, and so could go to the City Picture Palace on Fishergate, where the seats were more comfortable, but… The Romance of a Jockey, A Sheriff and a Rustler, The Water-Soaked Hero… nobody saw those films alone; it just wouldn't be right.
'He shot at my brother,' said the Captain.
'We have his guns,' the Mate put in. 'We took them from his bag.'
'Adam was bringing you out of the house,' said the Captain. 'He didn't know whether you were dead or alive. He wanted to get you into the fresh air. This…' said the Captain, gesturing at the corpse,'… he loosed off a shot the moment my brother stepped out of the door of the house. He's at least two ribs broken. How he rowed out to me I've no idea…' He indicated the corpse again, saying, 'He was re-loading for a second shot. My brother walked up and hit him.'
'He hit him only once,' the Mate put in.
'And he doesn't know his own strength,' I said. 'Is that it?'
'He knew it,' said the Captain. 'It was this idiot that didn't.'
And he nodded in the direction of Tommy.
'He was alive when my brother brought him. He and… the two of them thought I'd know what to do.'
'And do you?' I said.
No reply.
Had it been Miss Rickerby's idea to send Tommy and me out to the boat? Had she been in any fit state to make that decision, having been poisoned by the gas? And ought I to count it a kindness that she had sent me out? I pictured her waiting on the harbour wall for her brother's return, and I thought of her and her brother as two children, whereas the Captain was definitely grown-up, or so they might think.
'Your brother made you a present of two sacks of potatoes,' I said. 'You must have been chuffed to bits.'
Again, no answer. I wondered whether it had been left to the Captain and the Mate to discover that I was a copper, or whether the two other Rickerbys had made the discovery for themselves. They had evidently put my suit-coat on me before rowing me out, and the warrant card had been in there.
'Your brother might argue self-defence, when taken in charge… i/what you say is true.'
'It's true,' said the Captain,'… and he will argue nothing.'
He raised the lantern again, making Tommy come into full view once more.
'Go in,' said the Mate.
I stepped into the locker, and the door clanged shut behind me.
Chapter Forty-One
As the smell of Tommy Nugent competed with the smell of paint I sat beside Tommy – there was no help for it, the locker being so small – and watched, over the course of perhaps an hour or so, a rectangle of light form around the hatchway, which was evidently imperfectly sealed. When the rising dawn made the outline completely clear I began to pound at the door with my boot heels, and must have carried on doing so for a clear five minutes.
My fury was directed partly at the door and partly at the Chief. I had been a fool in the Paradise guest house, but I blamed the Chief for Tommy's death. I ought to have been free to make an ass of myself alone. I had not wanted Tommy along and had made that perfectly clear, but the Chief had insisted, knowing very well that Tommy would go armed and that he was trigger happy. Why had the Chief done it? Simply to make mischief? He was pushing seventy but that particular flame never burned out in a man, as far as I could see. Had he sent Tommy to lay on a bit of adventure for a fellow shootist? Or had he wanted to make trouble for me because I'd told him I meant to take articles?
After a long interval of my pounding on the door the whole locker about me began to vibrate, and at first I thought this was my doing, but then the ship seemed to lift, Tommy fell softly against me, and my head was filled with the vibration of the engines. I pushed Tommy off, in an apologetic sort of way, marvelling that I might lately
