Blame the Dead: A Gripping and Stylish Thriller from a Master of the Genre by Gavin Lyall

Author:Gavin Lyall [Lyall, Gavin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2024-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-six

As we chugged down the patched-up street, I asked, ‘How long have you known Nygaard?’

‘Since before Christmas.’

‘From about when he came to the Home? How did you get to know him?’

‘There is a—sort of club. Called Student Christian. We help old people and like that.’

‘So it was pure chance you drew him?’

‘Ja . . .’ she stirred the gear lever around until she found a noise that suited her. ‘But why did you—’

But I was determined to keep this interrogation in my hands for a while longer. ‘Hasn’t he got any family?’

‘His wife is dead for ten years. They have no children. His sister lives in Denmark but she is also very old. So . . .’

We turned a corner and I got slung against the door—which tried to open. I scrambled back into my seat. ‘But can’t his old employers at ADP do anything? Like get him out of that dump? Have you seen Mrs Smith-Bang?’

‘You know her? Yes, I have seen her. But she says she cannot pay more than his pension—and he says he does not want to leave the Home. He likes being with sailors.’

Come to think of it, why should Mrs S-B pay any more? She hardly owed a bonus to a crew that had done at least its fair share of running the Skadi into legal history, at whatever speed. And overpaying a star witness can look bad in court.

Then we turned on to the main road and she bollicksed the clutch work and we crossed two lines of fast traffic hoppity-hoppity-hop like a storybook bunny. A white Mercedes swerved around us and vanished ahead in a dying scream of its horn and my nerves.

Kari said seriously, ‘I am a better driver with boats.’

I nodded breathlessly and she finally got a question in. ‘Why did you come to see him—and bring the whisky?’

‘Just as a present. Is that bastard Ruud going to steal it?’

‘No. I asked him to, many times. If he did, he could stop Engineer Nygaard drinking very soon.’

‘And clap hands if you believe in fairies,’ I murmured.

‘Pardon?’

‘Never mind. Just believe I wouldn’t have brought the Scotch if I’d known he was an alcoholic.’ Wouldn’t I, though? Well, it was a moral problem I didn’t have to solve right now. ‘But you know Nygaard’s an important witness in a legal affair?’

‘Ja. He was on a boat that burned up.’

‘So I’m hardly the first person to come asking questions, right?’

‘Ja,’ she admitted.

‘And did you ever hear of a man called Jonas Steen?’

‘Engineer Nygaard said about him. He did not like him.’

‘Maybe, but that wasn’t why he got murdered.’

‘Hva?’ she said incredulously.

D’you want to know why women will never rule the world? Because they can’t be bothered to read a newspaper to find out if they’ve taken over the world, that’s why. Spread all over the front page, that story had been—and the radio, according to Mrs S-B.

I tried to explain. When I’d finished, she asked carefully, ‘But you do not think it was this man Lie who did it?’

‘Well .

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