Bill for the Use of a Body (19 page)

At midnight on the day that Merri had been kidnapped the
Matabura
had been due to sail from Hong Kong to Yokohama, calling in at Osaka on the way. That morning a shipping agent had gone off to the tramp to ask if her Captain could take a Chinese gentleman, named Ling Yee, and his wife and daughter as passengers to Osaka. The daughter, he added, was only just recovering from a serious illness, so would be carried aboard on a stretcher
and have to keep to her cabin; but her mother would take her meals to her and Mr. Ling was prepared to pay a bit above the price the Captain would have normally expected to get. The agent produced the money and the Captain had agreed.

That afternoon a coolie had brought off the Lings' luggage and it had been placed in the cabins they were to occupy, but evening came and they did not put in an appearance. The Captain had waited for them with increasing impatience, and even given them a quarter of an hour's leeway; but at 12.15 he had sailed.

Half an hour later, when the
Matabura
had rounded the western end of Hong Kong and was running down the channel between the island and Lamma Island, she had been hailed from a large launch with a number of people in her. The Ling family was among them and Mr. Ling had explained that, owing to his daughter having had a relapse just as they were about to leave their home, the doctor had had to be sent for and their departure had been delayed. As the girl had been declared fit to be moved, and he was still anxious to catch the ship, he had hired a launch in Aberdeen hoping to intercept the
Matabura
.

The girl had been slung aboard in a hammock and taken straight to her cabin. Her parents had proved to be a quiet, respectable couple, but during the voyage none of the ship's company had seen the girl. On arrival at Osaka the Lings had been greatly concerned about their daughter because the previous night she had had another relapse. Mr. Ling had gone ashore and arranged for an ambulance to come down to the wharf and, again slung in a hammock, the girl had been lowered over the side and taken ashore. That was the last the Captain of the
Matabura
had seen of the Lings, but on his return from Yokohama the police had questioned him about his last call at Osaka, and he had told them about the Lings on the chance that the invalid might be the missing girl.

When Julian had heard Bill out he said, ‘Since the dates
are right I haven't a doubt that the girl was Merri, doped both when she was put on board and landed, and kept under light drugs during the voyage. But whoever handled this job in Hong Kong for Hayashi must be a first-class planner. Of course, after the chap who was watching Mrs. Sang's house had turned in my note, his boss had the best part of a day to work in. His luck was in to find a ship that was sailing that night, but if there hadn't been one he'd have only had to keep Merri hidden somewhere on one of the off-shore islands for a few days then work the same trick. And what a darned clever one. By it he saved himself from having to get forged papers for Merri at short notice, and avoided the possibility of being traced by having gone with her through the Hong Kong immigration people. Merri's kidnapper would have known that we should leave the Sea Palace at least an hour before midnight, and once he'd got hold of her all he had to do was to lie well off the coast in the launch until the
Matabura
came up.'

A good twenty minutes elapsed before they were clear of Kyoto, and they were able to increase their pace only along short stretches farther on. As had been the case when they had driven from Osaka, the narrow road held two streams of traffic that was for a lot of the time moving bumper to bumper, and for a good part of the way they had to crawl behind coaches and heavily loaded lorries. It was, too, another cold, rainy and gusty morning.

Anxiously they kept consulting their watches as the minutes sped by and when they reached the docks the congestion was even worse, so by the time they pulled up on a wharf it was ten minutes to twelve. The
Matabura
was lying some way off and as Bill pointed her out to Julian he saw that she was already flying her Pilot Jack, showing that she was about to leave harbour.

Hastily they secured a motor boat, and promised its owner a handsome sum if he would make all possible speed out to the
Matabura
. Even in the harbour the sea was made
choppy by sudden gusts of wind. The sky was overcast and it looked like blowing up for another storm. At the very moment they came alongside, the ship's siren gave three ear-splitting blasts, announcing her departure.

A junior officer had come to the ship's rail and was looking down at them. Bill called up to him in Japanese. He shook his head; but Bill began to shout at him angrily and, with evident reluctance, the officer threw a rope ladder over the side. Bill swarmed up it with Julian after him. As they reached the deck the propellers began to turn. Leaving Julian standing there, Bill ran forward and up the bridge ladder. He was away for a good five minutes. As he came running back, he panted:

‘Captain's set against holding her, even for quarter of an hour. But I've fixed it for the pilot to take us off in his boat. Skipper won't leave the bridge. Couldn't expect that while he's getting the old tub out of harbour. We'll have time to frisk Merri's cabin, though. It's not been slept in since. Maybe she managed to hide some sorta tip-off about the people who snatched her, hoping she'd be traced to the
Matabura
. If it linked them with Hayashi we'd be able to get the cops to raid his place. Got to find the steward first, though. He's gotten the key.'

As the vessel had only just sailed, the deck crew were all hard at work; but Bill grabbed one of them by the arm, swung him round and hissed urgent questions at him in sibilant Japanese. The man hissed something back and jerked his head in the direction of the open doorway under the bridge. Bill ran to it and was gone for another five minutes. When he reappeared the ship was clearing the harbour mouth and had begun to roll, but he was holding a key and pointing aft. Julian turned and joined him as he ran on towards a double row of deck cabins in the stern. Fumbling with the key, he got it in the lock of one of the cabins, turned it and jerked the door open.

At the same moment they both moved to enter, and collided. Muttering apologies to one another, they stepped
inside. It was a small single-berth cabin and had been tidied up since Merri had occupied it. There was only one cupboard and the bare drab walls offered no place of concealment for any clue she might have left.

Julian pulled open the cupboard, but it was empty. Bill dived at the bunk, snatched off the thin coverlet and began to crush parts of it between his hands, so that had a piece of paper been under the cotton cover it would have rustled. As he did so, he cried to Julian, ‘The mattress! That'd be the most likely place she'd hide a letter.'

Tearing the sheets and single blanket away, Julian hauled the canvas-covered mattress from the bunk. Bill produced a penknife and swiftly ripped open one of its ends, then he said, ‘Here, you carry on with this. Mustn't let the pilot go off without us. He'll not know we're in here. I'll go tell him and ask how long we got. Be back in a few minutes.'

He dashed from the cabin, swinging to the door behind him. Julian was kneeling on the floor, thrusting his hands in among the mattress's horsehair stuffing. There was nothing in the end Bill had opened, and he had gone off with his penknife; so Julian could not slit open the other end. Frantically, he pulled the horsehair out by the handful. It took him ten or twelve minutes before he was satisfied that no piece of paper had been hidden in it. Quickly he searched the sides of the empty bunk, the top of the cupboard and the ventilator, but with no luck.

Bill had not returned. By then the ship had been under way for at least twenty-five minutes, and was wallowing through a heavy sea. Lurching to the cabin door, Julian grasped the handle and turned it. But the door did not open. He tried it again, again and again. Only then did it suddenly dawn on him that the door must be locked.

At that, chaotic thoughts tumbled through his mind. Only Bill Urata could have locked it. The pilot boat must have put off, within five or ten minutes of passing the harbour mouth. It couldn't live in a sea like this. Bill
must have locked him in deliberately and gone off in her. The account of Merri's being brought to Osaka in the
Matabura
had been nothing but a pack of well-thought-out lies. But perhaps she had. This must be one of Urata's ships for them to have let Bill come on board when she was at the actual moment of sailing—or perhaps Hayashi's. It looked now as if that was the same thing. It might well be that the Uratas managed Hayashi's shipping line for him. Tilly Sang had been right. Bill Urata was Hayashi's man and had put on a clever act to win the confidence of his master's enemies, so that he could sabotage any attempt to get Merri back. And he, Julian, had been fool enough to walk into Bill's trap.

Frantically he tried to open the cabin window, but it would not budge; so it was either stuck or had been secured in some way outside. And it was made of heavy plate glass. There was not even a chair in the narrow cabin: nothing with which he could smash it. He pounded on the window with his fists, then on the walls, while shouting to be let out. But a high wind was blowing and spray from the waves now slapping on the deck outside; so he failed to attract anyone's attention.

Heaping the bedclothes and scattered bits of mattress on to the bunk, he sat down on them with his head between his hands. Over an hour drifted past during which he could do nothing but berate himself in abject misery. He was roused by the clatter of a bucket outside. Jumping up, he again shouted and pounded on the window. A seaman heard him, came to the window and stared through it at him with a puzzled look, then unlocked the door.

Angrily Julian demanded to be taken to the Captain, but the man clearly did not understand English. After searching his mind Julian found enough Japanese words to convey his meaning. The man made signs to him to stay where he was and went off along the heaving deck. Five minutes later he returned with a thick-set middle-aged
man, in rough but somewhat better clothes. Frowning at Julian he said:

‘Me Captain…. Kano Dosen…. You stowaway.' Then, pointing at the ruined mattress, he added angrily, ‘What for? What for?'

Ignoring the question, Julian indignantly protested that he was not a stowaway but had been locked in.

The Captain tried the handle of the door and said, ‘Accident. He go snap, snap.' Forbearing to argue, Julian demanded that the ship should return to Osaka. With a scowl the Captain replied, ‘No possible. No possible.'

In vain Julian argued, pleaded, threatened. Then, seeing that his efforts were useless, he asked, ‘How soon shall we reach a port?'

The reply he received was shattering. ‘Days sixteen. Bad weathers twenty. Make no stop. Ship go Honolulu.'

Julian was utterly aghast. At worst he had expected to be carried off to Korea, Formosa or back to Hong Kong; but Honolulu! And to be cooped up for over a fortnight in this miserable little tramp! Again he pleaded with the burly Captain to put the ship about and land him at Osaka, threatened him with an action for kidnapping if he refused, and finally offered him a year's pay to turn in towards the coast and land him anywhere from a boat. Captain Kano Dosen could not be moved.

In his very limited English he maintained that Julian's having been carried off to sea was entirely his own fault. Dosen said that as he had been up on the bridge when the pilot boat put off he had supposed that when young Mr. Urata had left Julian had left with him. The ship, it transpired, was one of the Urata line, otherwise they would not have been allowed to come on board when she was actually on the point of sailing. And Bill had telephoned the previous evening to say that he wished to see one of the cabins before she sailed, but had arrived an hour later than he had said he would. Why Bill Urata should have left without Julian, Dosen could not explain. He could only suggest that it was owing to some misunderstanding between them. Presumably, Urata had expected to find Julian already in the boat, but it had had to leave without him because, owing to the bad weather, to have delayed longer to look for him would have endangered its return to harbour.

Although such an explanation was conceivably possible, Julian did not believe it for one moment. Had that been the case Bill could, on getting ashore, within a very short time have radioed the ship to return to harbour; but he had not. In addition, Dosen denied all knowledge of Mr. and Mrs. Ling and their daughter. His refusal to admit that he had brought such a family from Hong Kong to Osaka convinced Julian more firmly than ever that the Uratas were hand in glove with Hayashi, and had deliberately shanghaied him; so that he would be out of the way when the Kuan-yin arrived and by some trick Hayashi could get possession of it without handing over Merri.

After twenty minutes of futile argument the Captain summoned the steward, whom he ordered to find another mattress to replace the one Julian had ripped to pieces and make him as comfortable as possible with soap, towels and borrowed gear, including oilskins for the voyage. Then he told Julian that he could stay where he was or, if he preferred, accompany him to his quarters.

Julian elected to do the latter, and staggered along the heaving deck to a stuffy day cabin where, having turned on a television set, Dosen left him.

All through the long afternoon the weather worsened. Julian was a good sailor but, after attempting to share the horrid fare of which the Captain's evening meal consisted, he could hold out no longer and a bout of violent seasickness added to his misery. By seven o'clock he was stretched out on the hard mattress in his cabin feeling absolutely ghastly; and, as the small steamer pitched and rolled while battling her way through huge seas that constantly crashed on the deck outside, he had to cling to the side of the bunk to prevent himself from being thrown out.