Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom) Read online

  “It could sabotage the whole operation.” David’s accusing eyes met Kelly’s, and she slowly shook her head as if to say she had nothing to do with it. Dave asked, “Who would have enough know how to remove a seal from such a mechanism?”

  “Alandale and his crew of engineers—Houston Ford in particular, but they know every inch.” Swigart looked around as if to take note of every crewman near the winch and Max, as everyone called the sub. “Gotta be the winch. I’ll see to it Alandale gets his best man on it—if we can find him! Seems he’s gone missing; fear is he and Alandale for whatever mad reason have taken a collapsible lifeboat and have gotten off Scorpio.”

  “That’s… that seems so unlikely,” she said.“We were just talking about Alandale,” added Kelly, pushing back a strand of hair. “Was wondering where he might’ve gotten off to.”

  “Damn peculiar,” added David.

  Swigart, weather-worn face pinched,“No one’s seen either man, and there’s that small boat—gone! I’ve been asking around.”

  “This other man, Ford?” asked David. “He was on Alandale’s engineering crew, his top man, right?”

  Lou nodded. “Tech savvy fellow, yeah. Likeable heavyset, bearded, hair as long as a pirate—you know that Jack Sparrow look that I despise.”

  “Oh, yeah… dreadlocks and ponytail,” said Kelly. “I noticed him last night. Thought he was skulking about.”

  David shrugged. “Something odd about all this.”

  “I’ll put out a call on the PA for Alandale. If he doesn’t answer, we know he’s gotten off the ship and is adrift at our wake someplace in that small boat.”

  “He’s got to be here somewhere on board,” Kelly insisted.

  Swigart went in the opposite direction he’d been heading toward, now going for the bridge where he could put out an APB of sorts to direct Alandale to the bridge. He wanted to get to the bottom of the ominous oil slick on deck, and to get repairs underway before they lost time.

  Just then David noticed what Kelly was staring at, and he shouted, “Hold on, Lou,” David waved him back. Look here.” He pointed to a space behind an overhanging lifeboat on davits. Someone else stepped in the oil other than you, and obviously failed to report it.”

  Swigart and Kelly stared at the boot print outlined in oil. “A size smaller than mine,” Lou muttered. “Good catch, Ingles.”

  “Not me, the detective here spotted it. “He pointed to Kelly.”

  “Oh, well then, good eye, Dr. Irvin.”

  “There’s a pattern to every boot and shoe; you find a match to these indents and swirls,” she replied, “and you might have your saboteur.”

  “If it proves to be sabotage and not simply a breakdown, and if we have to, we’ll search every man aboard to find the oil-stained matching shoe. But who’d intentionally sabotage the mission? And why?”

  Again David shared a quick look between himself and Kelly that Swigart, usually an extremely observant man, missed. But David chalked it up to Lou’s being distracted by the oil leak as well. The leak appeared to be coming from the swivel arm of the davit that was to take the submersible to a position to lower it into the water, but not without hydraulic fluid.

  “Who aboard this vessel would do such a thing?” muttered David, frowning, shaking his head.

  “Whoever wears a size eight and a half N-sneaker,” she sharply replied. “See the misshapen N in the pattern.”

  “He looked closer. Could as well be a Z.”

  “Well… whatever you want to call the pattern—it’s not going anywhere.”

  “Unless it’s over the side.”

  For Swigart, she took out her cell phone and photographed the footprint. “Not a large person,” she said to David. She pointed out a vague design in the oily footprint. It took some straining, but David made out how she had determined his Z to be a wavy N in a circle. “Nike maybe… maybe New Balance?”

  “Most likely a boot; does Nike make boots as well as sneakers?”

  Swigart was already in the pilot house and on the horn, repeatedly calling out Alandale’s name, following up with Ford, asking both to report to the bridge. David and Kelly looked in every direction, expecting Alandale to pop up from a hatchway somewhere, and Ford to come from one of the holds to make their way to the bridge. But no one showed, and it seemed everyone on board noticed, and they all waited… and they waited but neither Alandale nor Houston Ford made an appearance.

  “We’d best check his compartment,” she said, going for the nearest hatch leading below—David on her heels. “He could be in some distress, a man his age!”

  On arriving at Alandale’s door, David knocked and when no answer came, he pounded the door, and finally he tore it open, calling out, “Doctor! Dr. Alandale!”

  But the room was empty, and eerily so; books, papers on the desk open, a candle-shaped lamp lit, a half eaten sandwich left atop the desk, the old fellow’s pipe resting on its stand, a final curl of smoke rising from it. “He can’t be far,” said David, pointing out the rising smoke. “Come on!” David started away, but she grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on. There against the wall on the floor. See it?”

  “See what?”

  She lifted the candle-shaped lamp close, adding, “See this brown-to-black debris on the floor. What is that?”

  David saw what she was alluding to, and he bent nearer to inspect it. “Looks like dust.”

  “Soil?”

  “Yeah… dirt—like soil only… I dunno, spilled tobacco?”

  “Dave—the wall…” she pointed to a vent panel. “W-What’s behind the vents?”

  There were parallel vents along the wall above the debris.

  “Dunno.”

  “I can smell it. Something’s behind that vent.”

  David found a grip on the large square panel and yanked. It came down in a crash, sending up the debris that had first attracted them. “Not dirt. Dust flakes, like wood mold—or darkened, hardened skin cells.” He coughed even as he realized they had discovered Dr. Alandale. His body had been stuffed into the vent, legs and arms broken and fitted to his torso with a cord so his body looked more like a laundry package than a body!

  In fact, if he’d had no head, it would appear a near perfect square. But the worst of it was that the entire body appeared the color of mahogany and was about as stiff as wood—precisely as described in Declan Irvin’s Titanic journal. Here was a body far too fresh to look this ancient. Nothing in David’s experience could explain it.

  “Oh my god, look! It’s your Z and my N on the shoes, David! It was Alandale who sabotaged the ship. It’s begun and far sooner than I’d expected; you heard Swigart. Besides Dr. Alandale, there’s still a missing crewman.”

  “Yes, Ford; perhaps he’s the one who killed Alandale.”

  “You don’t get it still, Dave; no one knows who or what the killer is until it gets hold of them.”

  “All right… OK, so, what do we do now?”

  “Put the wall panel back—cover him in his coffin here.”

  “What? Swigart’s likely on his way here now.”

  “And this thing could be inside Swigart, controlling him. Put the panel back; we have to play dumb. It’s imperative the thing continues to believe no one is onto it.”

  David did as told, quickly replacing the panel, Kelly helping out. They heard Swigart and the others coming down the corridor. They completed the task, stood, made for the door and met Swigart face to face, and behind Swigart stood Will Bowen and Lena Gambio, flashing her lashes. Mendenhall and Jens joined them. Kyle Fiske was conspicuously absent.

  “What’s going on here?” demanded Swigart.

  “We thought Alandale might be ill,” Kelly blurted out.

  “That he might need help, sir,” added David, shrugging, “you know when he didn’t respond or show when you called him on the PA.”

  “So where in Sam Hill is he?” Swigart bellowed, his eyes steaming. “Confound it!”

  “Not here,” muttered Kelly,
sighing heavily.

  “We called for him but no answer.” David looked about at the other six faces standing about here and in the corridor. “When he failed to answer, we stepped in to make sure he hadn’t collapsed.”

  Kelly added, “We feared a heart attack or something.”

  “My God, did we lose two men overboard?” Lou asked. “What the hell is going on around here?”

  Swigart expected no answers, and no one provided any.

  “I’ve got to report this to Forbes; we need to turn around, find those men in the water, and pray they’re treading water by the time we locate ’em.”

  Swigart turned to go back the way he came. Bowman passed by the other divers, all of whom stared at David and Kelly. Finally, David said, “What?”

  “This expedition’s already feeling cursed,” replied Bowman.

  “What’re you suggesting?”

  “Nothing,” muttered Bowman.

  “Look, I don’t like the idea of losing men overboard or turning the ship around anymore than you do, Will,” replied David. “But what choice do we have?”

  “Two men just don’t go over the side,” said Lena. “One maybe, but two?” Lena looked around and added, “Something definitely smells about all of it—the screwed up machinery and now this.”

  “And you two getting so chummy,” added Steve Jens.

  “What about Bowman and Lena!” countered Mendenhall.

  “That’s our business and none of yours,” Lena defended, staring down anyone who might challenge her.

  “And it’s got nothing to do with missing men,” added David.

  “You sure of that?” asked Mendenhall, eyeing David as she spoke. “Tell me, Dr. Irvin, was Ingles here perhaps defending your honor the other night when he got into it with the missing crewman? Then Alandale maybe tries to break it up, and he gets tossed over the side as well? All an accident of course?”

  “God, Jacob, you’ve got an imagination after all!” said Kelly, smiling.

  David agreed, facing Jacob and saying, “The first time you open your mouth beyond a grunt, and you write a soap opera.” David stepped back. “Hell of an imagination. Too bad it’s confused. I’m going to sack out for awhile.”

  Lena Gambio snickered and said, “You need company in that sack?”

  “Later,” he said, “as in another life!”

  “You could do a lot worse, Davey boy,” she countered, flashing her big eyes before she broke into derisive laughter.

  This made Bowman laugh and the tension was broken. The other divers dispersed, grumbling, upset at the prospect of turning the ship around and losing valuable time.

  Kelly watched as the passageway was cleared. Once everyone else had disappeared and she was alone, she ducked her head into David’s compartment and saw that he’d gone back to reading the journal again. “Good,” she said, making him start. “Read on! You must know the whole story… the whole truth.”

  FIFTEEN

  Private Investigator Alastair Ransom stood before Titanic, now sitting in her slipway at 401. Aside from the enormity of the ship which made him feel the size of an ant, there was the gaping cargo hold looking like the mouth of Poseidon himself.

  Ransom studied her graceful and gigantic contours, and he watched workmen at her open cargo bay this evening going in and out with coal cars, filling the lower depths with tons of the black rock. The giant’s needs, like those of her sister ship before her, had kept hundreds of miners working the mines in and around Belfast. Coal to fuel the huge boilers to turn the turbines and give Titanic her power.

  But Ransom’s eye was trained on the workmen—miners like McAffey and O’Toole. Not a single workman appeared the least bit sick or wobbly. No one bent over, no one complaining of illness, no one vomiting. Working late due to a push on to launch Titanic as soon as possible, this bunch paid no heed to Alastair or the man suddenly behind him.

  Without turning, Alastair spoke to the man at his back, “No doubt it’s a huge expense to have Pinkerton agents being paid each day.”

  “Likely as not bleeding the shipping company dry.”

  “Atop all the other expenses incurred, you mean?”

  Ransom shrugged. “Cost millions to build this monster alone; imagine three.”

  Back of Ransom, Chief Constable Ian Reahall watched the man’s manner, the way he looked the ship over, the way he took in every detail, and the timber of his voice. Not the least shaky. Nor had this Wyland fellow made an attempt to flee Reahall’s jurisdiction.

  As if he had eyes in the back of his head, Ransom said to the Belfast constable, “She’s a wonder, isn’t she, Constable?”

  “That she is.”

  “What a target for anarchists, eh?”

  Reahall came to stand alongside the man he suspected of being a fugitive from the US. The two career detectives stood silent for a time, rocking their heels, studying the monster ship now, side-by-side. “I am giving you fair warning, Wyland… or Ransom… whatever your name is. Leave Belfast before I get reports back from Chicago.”

  Ransom looked at the other man, realizing it was indeed a fair warning he was being given—and that if he did run from Reahall’s jurisdiction there would be no chasing him after a point. It was an alluring option.

  The fact was that Ransom had used the alias Wakely in London during his time there. “Still fishing, Constable? You’ll find nothing on me in Chicago. Boston, yes, Chicago no,” he lied with a slight chuckle. “But I admire your tenacity.”

  “With the Marconi wireless and Morse code at my disposal, you do realize that I will have information in my hands in a matter of hours—sometime tomorrow. Best get out ahead of it.”

  “I’m impressed, Constable; I didn’t know you’d gotten the wireless. Smart of you.”

  “One must keep up with technology.”

  “Protective of your city; you remind me of someone.”

  “I’m no fool, Ransom; I know it’s you, and I know your crime, but I’m Protestant, you know.”

  “Whatever does being an Orangeman to do with it?” Ransom had to ask.

  “The murder of a priest, of course! Look, I’ve no love lost for that faith or their bloody priests, so why should I care that you dismembered one in Chicago?”

  “I’ve done no such thing to no man ever.”

  “I know about the Catholic priest you killed there in Chicago.”

  “Priest killed? Dismembered? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about and my only name is Wyland. I know no Ransom.”

  “What was it you called yourself while in Edinburgh? Cameron was it? Like Smith in America. Not awfully original. As for the rest, we shall see… we shall see—unless you should heed me and disappear.”

  It was an old game. All Ransom had to say was yes to Reahall’s suggestion, run, and he’d be giving himself away—admitting guilt. Once he did so, in word or deed, Reahall would by God chase him down like a dog, regardless of whom he had killed. As for the priest, he died of his wounds when someone shadowing Ransom that night finished what Ransom had started, doing what Ransom wanted to accomplish that night the priest was making his escape, but he hadn’t followed through. At the last moment, he’d stopped himself. Someone else had picked up where he’d left off. Ransom’s only guilt was having brought the horse shears to the party.

  It might have been anyone in the city whose child had been molested. Everyone wanted a shot at Father Franklin Jurgen. But while the priest was relieved of his offending penis, he’d not been otherwise dismembered, and he’d died not of his wound—which was considerable—but of hospital infection while under the best of care at Cook County Hospital. Due to a cruel twist of fate and the reputation that Alastair Ransom had spent years cultivating and maintaining, he helplessly watched himself be jailed for the Father Jurgen’s murder. His years on the force had come back to haunt him as they had automatically placed him under suspicion. All a perfectly lovely tale in what Charles Dickens would surely have called irony.

  “At t
he moment, sir,” Ransom finally replied to the constable, “we have a more pressing mystery, and Alastair Wyland does not walk out on a mystery unsolved.”

  “Then I can count on your being here when I get my answers from Chicago?”

  “I am going nowhere, and I will be anxious to prove you wrong, sir.”

  “So what do you hope to find here at Titanic, Wyland?”

  “Not sure; perhaps nothing. I went to the watchman’s cabin up there.” Ransom pointed his cane at Anton Fiore’s watch tower. Reahall, nodded and said, “Lovely workmanship on your cane; you know this fellow in Chicago had a wolf’s head cane.”

  “They are easily found in many a shop the world over.”

  “True… true.” Still nodding, Reahall yawned. “Find anything useful in the old man’s shack up there?”

  “Nothing whatsoever.” Ransom turned back toward the huge ship he’d been ogling. “But you know, Constable, something tells me he’s somewhere in there.” Ransom indicated Titanic—again with his cane as pointer.

  “And that leprechaun-natured Francis O’Toole?”

  “You know the man then?”

  “Aye, in passing. Ha, yes… I knew them all. Part of me job to know who runs things, who guards things.”

  “And they would’ve known one another then?”

  “Pretty much so, yes.”

  “Then suppose they were hatching something together.”

  “Hatching what?”

  “I dunno, lunch maybe… exchanging moonshine recipes—or explosive timers, perhaps? How much TNT do you imagine required for a ship the size of which no one’s seen before, eh, constable? What a bloody splash it’d make in the headlines as well: Titanic Sunk While in Port!”

  “That’s quite a leap.”

  “When-when-when,” sneezed Ransom, “do… hear me out.” After using his handkerchief, making sure Reahall saw the initials AW embroidered in green, he continued. “These men clearly had a falling out, the three of them.”

  “Over sabotaging Titanic? Look at her. Do you really think that for a moment… I mean really?”

  “One charge at her bow timed as she’s being launched man! Can you not picture it? The crowd, the explosion, the damage, death, and destruction. An anarchist’s wet dream, sir—and she—this lovely monstrous creature, she’s doomed before her maiden voyage…”