Night of Error. Desmond Bagley

lying on the bottom of the Pacific. There are quite a few in the Atlantic too.’

      ‘Not many there,’ I said. ‘And the quality’s poor. Too much sedimentation.’

      ‘True.’ He tossed the stone and caught it. ‘The highest cobalt assay so far is a fraction over 2 per cent. That one came from the central Pacific. Where did this one come from?’

      I looked at him blankly and shook my head. He smiled suddenly and it transformed his face – he had a very charming smile. ‘All right, I tried,’ he said. ‘You’d be surprised how often it works. Do you know why I am able to reel off facts about manganese nodules?’

      ‘I was wondering.’

      ‘Your brother told me,’ he said. ‘He wanted me to fit an expedition a couple of years back. I must say I was tempted.’

      ‘Why didn’t you?’

      He hesitated, then said, ‘I lost a packet in South America. It caught me off balance and until I reorganized I didn’t have any fluid capital. About that time your brother left my company, and he hadn’t left me enough to go on by myself.’

      ‘I hope you’re better placed now,’ I said dryly. ‘Because that’s why I’ve come to you – now it’s my turn to ask you to fund an expedition.’

      ‘So I gathered,’ he said, equally dryly. He touched the nodule. ‘I must say you brought more than your brother did. He talked a good story but he never showed any concrete evidence. You say this assayed at ten per cent cobalt?’

      ‘I assayed it myself yesterday afternoon – the other half, that is.’

      ‘Mind if I have this assayed – independently?’

      ‘Not at all,’ I said equably.

      He laughed, showing his charm again. ‘All right, Trevelyan, I won’t need to. I’m convinced of this anyway.’

      ‘I’d prefer it if you did,’ I said. ‘I could do with corroboration. But I must tell you that what you’ve got in your hand is all the evidence I have to show.’

      His hand clenched around the nodule. ‘Now you do begin to interest me. I think you have a story, Mr Trevelyan. Why don’t you tell it and quit beating around the bush?’

      I had already decided that if we were to work together at all I must hold nothing back. It was only moderately risky. So I told him everything, and when I’d finished we were well past my original half hour. He listened in absolute silence until I was done and then said, ‘Now let’s see if I’ve got all this straight. One, your brother died out in the Pacific; two, a man called Nelson whom you have never heard of sent you a case which contained notebooks and nodule samples; three, Kane shows up and pitches what you think is a cock-and-bull yarn; four, the suitcase is stolen by presumed South Americans with additional violence including one killing; five, you retain one nodule, analyse it and find a fantastic percentage of cobalt; and six, you also retain a diary of your brother’s which you can’t even read.’

      He looked at me for a long time and then said gently, ‘And on the basis of this you want me to invest maybe a million dollars.’

      I got out of my chair.

      ‘Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr Campbell.’

      ‘Sit down, you damned fool. Don’t give up without a fight. I haven’t said I won’t invest, have I?’ He saw the look on my face and added, ‘And I haven’t yet said I will, either. Have you got that diary here?’

      Wordlessly I took it from my breast pocket and handed it over the desk. He flicked it open and turned rapidly from page to page. ‘Who taught your brother to write shorthand?’ he asked disgustedly. ‘St Vitus?’

      ‘Basically it’s Pitman’s,’ I said. ‘But Mark adapted it.’ I could have gone on to say that Mark had always been secretive, never liking anyone to know what he was doing. But I kept my mouth shut.

      Campbell tossed the diary aside. ‘Maybe we can get something out of it somehow – maybe a cipher expert can sort it out.’ He turned in his swivel chair and looked out of the window towards Hyde Park, and there was a long silence until he spoke again.

      ‘You know what really interested me in this improbable story of yours?’

      ‘No, I don’t.’

      ‘Those South Americans,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘South America has been unlucky for me, you know. I lost nearly ten million down there. That’s when Mark’s expedition went down the drain, along with a lot of other things. And now Mark has come back – in a sense – and more South Americans are involved. What do you make of that?’

      ‘Not a thing,’ I said.

      ‘I don’t believe in coincidence. Not when it happens like this. What I do have to consider lies outside your domain, perhaps – the complications of international law regarding mining, especially offshore, undersea stuff. International relations – so I have to know more about the areas you want to research. Financing. Distribution. Markets.’

      I was a little taken aback. Perhaps I was too much of the research scientist – the hard facts of commercial dealing had hardly occurred to me. But on reflection I could hear no note of doubt or dismay in Campbell’s voice, only the sound of a man mulling over the forthcoming ramifications of the deal he was being offered – and liking it. There was undoubtedly the faint note of challenge in his attitude, and this encouraged me. I guessed that he, like Geordie’s old pal Ian Lewis, may be finding life a little boring at present and was attracted by the novelty of my proposition.

      He poked the nodule with his finger. ‘There are two things necessary for industrial civilization – cheap power and cheap steel. What’s the iron oxide content of this?’

      ‘Thirty-two per cent by weight.’

      ‘That does it. The cobalt will make it economically feasible and the result is a cheap high-grade iron ore, a hell of a lot of manganese, plus some copper, vanadium and anything else we can pick up. Cheap metals, billions of dollars’ worth and cheaper than anyone else can produce. It can be tied into one neat, strong package – but it needs careful handling. And above all it needs secrecy.’

      ‘I know. I’ve already been stalling off a police inspector who thinks there’s more to the burglary than meets the eye.’

      Campbell appeared satisfied. ‘Good. You’ve got the point.’

      ‘Then you’re willing to finance an expedition?’ I asked. It was almost too easy, I thought, and I was right.

      ‘I don’t know yet. I want to make some investigations of my own, enquiries which I can make and you can’t. And maybe I can find Kane for you. Besides, you may not be in a position to undertake anything for some time – you killed a man, remember.’ His smile this time was more grim than charming. ‘Not that I blame you for it – I’ve killed men myself – but let’s wait for your inquest before deciding anything.’

      IV

      It was six days to the inquest, the longest six days I’ve spent in my life. To fill in the time I got down to writing the paper that I was supposed to turn out. It wasn’t a very good paper as it happened; I had too much else on my mind to concentrate really well.

      By the end of the week Geordie still hadn’t found Kane, though he’d got a lot of other things moving. ‘It’s hopeless,’ he said to me. ‘A needle in a haystack would be easier – this is like trying to find one particular wisp of hay.’

      ‘He may not be in London at all.’

      A truism which didn’t help. But on the morning of the inquest Kane was found – or rather, he found me.

      He called at the flat just as I was leaving for the court – Geordie as usual was out ahead of me and