Night of Error. Desmond Bagley

told the coppers the plain truth,’ I said. ‘But Mark seemed to have some curious ideas about nodule formation – still, the notebooks are gone and I can’t check up on his theories without them.’

      Then suddenly I remembered something. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said and went into the bedroom. Sure enough, there it was – the little leather-bound diary, still lying on my dressing-table. The police would have had no reason to think it wasn’t mine, and hadn’t touched it.

      I went back and tossed it to Geordie. ‘They didn’t get that. I meant to tell you – I found it in a pocket of one of Mark’s suits. What do you make of it?’

      He opened the book with interest but I watched the enthusiasm seep out of him as he scanned the pages. ‘What the hell!’

      ‘That’s Mark’s patent Pitman variation,’ I said. ‘I doubt if old Isaac himself could make anything of it.’

      ‘What are all the drawings?’

      ‘Mark was an inveterate doodler,’ I said. ‘You’d have to apply psychological theory to make anything of those.’

      I sat mulling over the events of the previous day, trying to piece them together.

      ‘Geordie, listen to this,’ I said. ‘Mark dies, and Norgaard, his colleague, disappears. Jarvis keeps his ear close to the ground and knows all the gossip of the profession, and if he says he hasn’t heard anything of Norgaard then it’s unlikely that anyone else has either.’ I held up a finger. ‘That’s one thing.’

      ‘Do you know anything about Norgaard?’

      ‘Only that he’s one of us oceanographers. He’s a Swede, but he was on an American survey ship during the IGY. I lost sight of him after that; a lot of comradeship went for a bust when the operation closed down.’

      ‘What’s his speciality?’

      ‘Ocean currents. He’s one of those geniuses who can dredge up a bit of water and tell you which way it was flowing a million years ago last Wednesday. I don’t think there’s a name for his line yet, so I’ll call it paleoaquaology – there’s a mouthful for you.’

      Geordie raised his eyebrows. ‘Can they really do that kind of thing?’

      I grinned. ‘They’d like you to believe so, and I’ve no reason to doubt it. But to my mind there’s a hell of a lot of theory balancing uneasily on too few facts. My line is different – I analyse what I’m given and if anyone wants to build any whacky theories on what I tell ’em, that’s their affair.’

      ‘And Mark was like yourself – an analytical chemist. Why would he team up with Norgaard? They don’t seem to have anything in common.’

      I said slowly, ‘I don’t know; I really don’t know.’ I was thinking of the highly unlikely theory indicated in Mark’s missing notebooks.

      ‘All right,’ Geordie said. ‘Norgaard’s disappeared – you think. What else have you got?’

      ‘The next thing is Kane. The whole thing is too damn pat. Kane turns up and we have a burglary. He knew the stuff was coming – I told him.’

      Geordie chuckled. ‘And how do you tie in the four Spanish burglars with Kane? Speaking as a non-theoreticist, that is?’

      ‘I’m damned if I know. There’s something odd about that too. I couldn’t place the accent; it was one I’ve never heard before.’

      ‘You don’t know them all,’ said Geordie. ‘You’d have to be born Spanish to be that good.’

      ‘True.’ There was a long silence while I marshalled my thoughts. ‘I wish I could get hold of Kane.’

      ‘You think there’s something odd about him, don’t you?’

      ‘I do. But I don’t know what it is. I’ve been trying to bring it to the surface ever since I saw him.’

      ‘Mike, I think this is all a lot of nonsense,’ Geordie said decisively. ‘I think your imagination is working overtime. You’ve had a shock about Mark’s death and another over the burglary – so have I, come to that. But I don’t think Norgaard has mysteriously disappeared; I think he’s probably sitting somewhere writing a thesis on prehistoric water. As for Kane, you’ve got nothing but a blind hunch. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If Kane is a seaman he’ll probably be down somewhere in dockland, and if you want him that bad I’ll put my boys on to nosing around a bit. It’s a pretty hopeless chance but it’s all I can do.’

      ‘Thanks, Geordie,’ I said. ‘Meantime, I’d better ring Helen and tell her I’ve been burgled. She’s not going to like hearing that Mark’s stuff is gone but there’s no hope for it. I can only play it down, tell her it was all worthless anyway.’

      ‘Are you going to pass on the notebook to her?’

      I shook my head thoughtfully. ‘What notebook? As far as she’s concerned, it was all stolen. She could never make anything of that stuff of Mark’s – but maybe I can.’

      V

      I had nightmares that night.

      I dreamed of a lovely Pacific island with white beaches and waving palm fronds where I wandered quite happily until I became aware that the sky was darkening and a cold, icy wind had arisen. I started to run but my feet slipped in the soft sand and I made no progress. And I knew what I was running from.

      He caught me at last with my back to a palm trunk, and came nearer and nearer, brandishing a rusty kitchen knife. I knew it was the Dutch doctor, although he was screaming in Spanish, ‘Emplead cuchillo – cuchillo – cuchillo!’

      He was drunk and sweaty-faced and as he came nearer I felt powerless to move and I knew he was going to stick me with the knife. At last his face was close to mine and I could see the individual beads of sweat on his shiny forehead and his lean dark face. It was the face of Kane. He drew back his arm and struck with the knife right into my guts.

      I woke with a yell.

      I was breathing deeply, taking in great gulps of air, and I could feel a slick film of sweat all over my body. The knife-scratch in my arm was aching. And I knew at last what was wrong with Kane’s story.

      The bedroom door opened and Geordie said in a low voice, ‘What the devil’s going on?’

      I said, ‘Come in, Geordie; I’m all right – just a nightmare.’

      I switched on the bedside light and Geordie said, ‘You gave me a hell of a fright, Mike.’

      ‘I gave myself a hell of a fright,’ I said and lit a cigarette. ‘But I discovered something – or remembered something.’

      ‘What?’

      I tapped Geordie emphatically on the chest with my forefinger. ‘Mark had his appendix out years ago.’

      Geordie looked startled. ‘But the death certificate …’

      ‘I don’t know anything about the death certificate. I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t know if it’s a fake. But I know that Mr Bloody Kane is a fake.’

      ‘Are you sure about this?’

      ‘I still know the doctor who operated on Mark. I’ll give him a ring and check on it – but I’m sure.’

      ‘Perhaps this Dutch doctor made a mistake,’ offered Geordie.

      ‘He’d be a damned good doctor who could take out an appendix that wasn’t there,’ I said acidly. ‘Doctors can’t make mistakes like that.’

      ‘Not unless he was covering up. Lots of doctors bury their mistakes.’

      ‘You mean he was incompetent?’ I thought about that,