Ruud himself opened the door this time. His eyes flicked from her face to mine, puzzled to see us together.
I leaned a casual hand against the door, just to save further ringings and knockings, and said as formally as I could, 'I understand that this is no longer the address of Herr Nygaard?'
The eyes flickered again, the face made mumbling movements. Then,'Ja. He is gone away.'
'Good. Now, all I need for my office is your statement to that effect, all right? May we come in?'
Sheer bewilderment had rotted the defiance he'd been prepared to throw at me. He just let go the door and it creaked open. I said, 'After you.'
His own room was on the ground floor at the back, overlooking a small concrete courtyard with some straggly plants in wooden tubs. The room itself was small, dark, and jammed with furniture and pictures and vases; Ruud was obviously the type who couldn't bring himself to sling anything out. But it was all fairly clean and very neat.
He weaved expertly through it all, his tin leg just missing a chair, a table, a standing lamp, as it always would in his own careful setting. Then he sat in a high-backed chair like a throne, the leg stuck straight out in front. I found myself at a small Victorian table with a heavy tasselled cloth; I put down a handful of papers, took out my pen, and got stuck in before he could object.
'Herr Nygaard first came here when? '
'In… before Christmas.'
'December? You don't remember the exact date?'
'No-o.'
Kari was still standing up, hardly daring to move for fear of knocking something over. I asked her, 'Do you confirm that he came in December?'
She nodded.'Ja.'
'Good.' I wrote it down. 'And he left when?'
Ruud frowned, coughed, and muttered, 'On Saturday.'
'Do you remember if it was morning or afternoon?'
He gave me a resentful glance. 'Morning.'
'Good.' I wrote that down, too. 'Was he alone?'
'What is this about?' A spat of the old anger – maybe of the old concern.
'Only a statement. But you don't know if he went alone or not? – it doesn't much matter.'
There was a long thick silence. Then Kari sat gently on the arm of a green velvet sofa and it creaked like a jungle bird. Ruud growled, 'I think there was an auto.'
'Taxi?'
'I do not know.' Getting stubborn, now.
So, very politely and uninterestedly, I asked, 'Did he carry his own luggage?'
After another pause, he said, 'I do not know.' I heard Kari give a prim little gasp at the obvious lie.
But I played satisfied; actually, I was – so far. 'Fine,' I said briskly, and held up the paper and read from it. ' "Herr Nygaard came to the Gulbrandsen's Seamen's Home last December. He left last Saturday morning. I did not see him go. I do not know where he has gone." Is that correct?'
'I did not say about where he has gone.'
'Well, do you know?'
A low reluctant growl, 'No.'
'Then this is correct. Will you sign, please?'
I gave him the paper and pen. He took them, peered at the paper and then back at me. 'Why should I sign?'
'Isn't it true?'
'Ja, but…'
'We're all going to sign. We're witnesses.'
'Witness? Of what?' The eyes were really hunted now, flickering from one to the other of us and finding no hiding place.
'The truth, you said.'
He crunched the paper, hurled it into a corner, and said something. Kari stiffened, so it must have been quite an interesting something. But it didn't gain him any sympathy.
I stood up. 'It doesn't matter. We both agree on what he said, I think?' The girl nodded; I went on, 'Good. That's all, then, Herr Ruud. Thank you very much. You'll probably hear something before the end of today.' And I moved towards the door.
Ruud said, 'Wait. I…"
I turned back slowly. 'Well?'
T think he went with a doctor.'
'Oh, yes? Whereto?'
'The home for… for drinking, you understand?'
'Alcoholics' home, you mean? Where?'
'On Saevarstad.'
'Never heard of it.'
Kari said, 'It is a small island near Stavanger.'
'Good.' I sat down again and got out another piece of paper.
As we drove away, Kari asked, 'But why did you write it all down again and make him sign?'
'Just to impress him. Now he can never say it wasn't him told us. And that might stop him telling somebody that we've found out. If that matters.'
'I see.' She thought this over. 'You are a bit cruel.*
'Are you glad we know, or not?'
When she didn't answer, I asked, 'How do you get to Stavanger from here?'
'You are going? There is a hydrofoil – but I think it is too late, now. There is an aeroplane.'
'Good. Back to the terminal, then, please."
She said thoughtfully, 'I think I will come, too. I have an aunt who lives near there.'
'Fine.' I was surprised, though. 'But what about the university?'
'The term ends tomorrow. And I can say my aunt is ill. She is, often. But can you lend me the money for the ticket?'
'I owe it you, after all this driving around." But of course she wasn't takingthat. Anyway, we caught the six-thirty-five plane.
Stavanger is another port, smaller than Bergen, just a hundred airline miles south. And since it was dark by the time we got into the town itself, that was about all I knew or could see. But Kari knew her way around; we took a taxi out to the ferry quayside and found there was one ferry still to go out to Saevarstad – but not another coming back. If we went now, we were stuck for the night on an island that couldn't be two miles long, and not even a youth hostel. I wanted more room for manoeuvre than that.
So I booked in at the Victoria Hotel, right down on the waterfront, and Kari rang her aunt, then caught a local train to spend the night at Sandnes – another small town about ten miles up the fjord. She'd pick me up at nine in the morning.
With her gone, I could take a serious drink in comfort, so I did that, while the hotel put through a call to Willie. The Victoria suited its name: old-fashioned, comfortable, ceilings as high as its principles, and polite with it. They said how terribly sorry they were they couldn't find Mr Winslow, but it was promised he'd ring back. So I took a bath and he rang back in the middle of that.
'Hello – Mr Card? James? Is it you, old boy? You got to Norway all right, then, but what are you doing in Stavanger?'
'Various complications, chum. Nygaard's down near here. I 'hope to find him tomorrow.'
'I see. Good, what? But the log's all right, is it?'
I must have stayed silent too long, because he said, 'I say, it is all right, isn't it?'
'Let's say I know who's got it.'
'Oh, crikey.' A humming pause. 'It sounds as if I'd better pop across, what?'
'You're welcome. I'm at the Victoria.'
Til be there by lunchtime or so.'
I thought of going back to my bath, but then put in a call to my London answering service – just in case. There was the usual amount of communicational fluff, but also a message from Draper; he'd heard that Pat Kavanagh was last heard of working for Dave Tanner.
Now he tells me.