Lempriere's Dictionary by Norfolk Lawrence

Author:Norfolk, Lawrence [Norfolk, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2007-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Outside the house, the earlier gusting winds died slowly. The layered air settled calmly over the city. Far above, the astral fabric rolled silently while all the efforts below it teetered on the celestial contraption, balancing their forces, for the moment.

Nazim waited in the cold. Le Mara stood at his station further along the street. Between them lay the object of their patient attention. Nazim shivered and pulled the brim of his hat further over his eyes. Le Mara waited. His eyes moved quickly, sweeping the street to left and right, checking and re-checking. Waiting.

‘When the storm lifted, Neagle and his crew found themselves drifting in the Sea of Alboran, as he told his wife, but the sight which greeted them was a ship. Unexceptional, and the crew paid it little mind for the most part. It lay less than a league away to port, a three-master. More than that, an Indiaman.’

‘An Indiaman? So there was a passage by the Mediterranean!’

‘Who knows? It might have been there for any reason. The point is not so immediately why it was there, but that it was there at all. You see, Alan Neagle recognised that ship. It was the Sophie, though that was not the name she sailed under then.’

‘So it had been renamed,’ said Lemprière.

‘Renamed, yes. And refitted too, according to Neagle’s notes. But most important of all, it had been reported sunk, lost with all hands. And this was over twenty years ago. It should have been rotting on the ocean bed, yet here it was plying the coastal trade up and down the Mediterranean two decades later.’

‘An insurance fraud then,’ said Lemprière, remembering the Widow’s words, and Septimus’ before her.

‘That was Neagle’s conjecture; not on the ship but its cargo. The Company does not build its own ships. There is a leasing agreement with the shipyards, but it is very complicated. The cargo is owned outright though, an insurance claim would be straightforward, and less quantifiable. “A thousand bolts of cloth” could become “a thousand bolts of silk”, “coloured stones” could be “amethysts” and so on. The ship could be sold as well. It would all add up I suppose.’

‘You are not convinced?’

‘When I read Neagle’s account that night it struck me that the sums involved were really very small compared to the risk. A few thousands, no more, and a vast scandal in the offing if it came to light. Risk and profit are two things the Company balances very finely. My own thought was that they needed the ship for some other purpose. After all, why was it there?’

‘But they could simply buy a ship.’

‘Certainly, but when it just disappeared, for no visible reason, questions would follow. They must have been trying to avoid that. So, something in secret and the means to do it.’

‘What?’ said Lemprière.

‘I have no idea,’ said Peppard. ‘When I found out Neagle’s real intentions that night, I could no longer take the case. It was blackmail, dressed up a little with a covenant or two and some fine legal prose, but blackmail all the same.

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