Airship Page 6

  Ashton looked at his wife and shrugged.

  ‘She has turned into a selfish little devil.’

  ‘She’s upset,’ countered his wife. ‘She’ll get over it, Ashley.’

  Ashton turned and took the suitcases out of the boot of the Daimler.

  ‘There’s simply no communication with her.’

  ‘Did you tell her … about America, I mean?’ asked Martha Ashton.

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes. It’s about time she stood on her own two feet, Martha. I’ve given her all I can. It’s time she started to find out what life is really like. I can’t keep helping her out of any mess she plunges into. I feel she does it to spite me. I’ve simply been too lenient with the girl.’

  Martha Ashton frowned at her husband.

  ‘I don’t think that’s the problem, Ashley,’ she ventured.

  ‘Of course it is,’ replied Ashton. ‘She has had everything she wanted in life and does she respect me for it?’

  Martha Ashton sighed.

  She vaguely felt that there was something wrong about her husband’s attitude: his lofty coldness, his telling Claire what was best for her instead of asking her, dealing with her on the same level; that would not be her way of parenting. But her loyalty to her husband made her uneasy in questioning, even to herself, his attitude towards their daughter.

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘I expect you’re right, dear,’ she said, turning into the house.

  *

  Garry Carson came off the New Fore River Bridge and along St. John, past the Union Station. His vintage 1934 front wheel drive Cord automobile purred along the highway, causing people on the sidewalk to gaze enviously after him. The white and silver Cord was Carson’s vice. He had spent a small fortune on its upkeep and drove it whenever he could. He loved the drive between the project site, by Portland’s airport, to his home, a three-bedroom villa on Fernald Street, by Edward Payson Park, overlooking Back Cove. It was a nice area, away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Portland. A lot of the project site executives had houses in the district. Westbrook and his wife used to live four blocks away on Cummings and … Carson sighed and shook his head, trying to dismiss the subject of Westbrook from his mind. He still found it hard to believe that Alec and Jane Westbrook were dead, let alone that their deaths were caused by a deliberate act. Who could have done such a thing?

  He turned from St. John into Devonshire, followed the road as it changed into Derring Avenue and then into Ocean Avenue before the railroad crossing. Ocean Avenue was usually a fast road and his speedometer edged dangerously over the speed limit as he coasted down towards Edward Payson Park.

  His wife’s automobile was not in the driveway and the garage door stood open, indicating that she was out. He wondered where Helen had gone to. He left his Cord in the driveway and entered the house. Helen had left a short note on the kitchen table. She was going out for the evening with Lesley Van Kleef, the wife of the project’s chief designer, and Garry would find a TV dinner in the ice-box if he were hungry. Carson sighed. He wondered whether kids would help the situation. If Helen and he had … well, maybe it would stop her going out so much. She always seemed to be off somewhere these days — bridge clubs, women’s golf tournaments, charity work and God knows what else. He went into the lounge, poured himself a bourbon and sank onto the couch. Hell! Helen was only twenty-nine years old, attractive, brunette and with a figure that produced wolf-whistles on the few occasions when she had visited him on the project site. What the hell was she doing living the sort of life that matrons of sixty-plus led?

  He suddenly felt angry with her and with himself. Something had been going drastically wrong with their relationship in recent years and he could not understand what it was. They had not had sex together in six months and then once in the six months before that. Those odd occasions were half-hearted ones, when he was desperate and Helen was too tired to ward him off as she nearly always did. God, but she had grown expert at that. Attempts to discuss things always ended in bitter words. Helen never lost her temper but she had an ice-cold, biting tongue Yet they could never get down to basics, never talk about why their relationship was floundering. They never seemed to be able to put their feelings into words — words were a language they did not understand or speak.

  Carson set down his drink as the telephone buzzed.

  It was Harry Maclaren.

  ‘Garry, I’ve just heard from Ashton in London about your man, Tom Saxon. It looks as though we might have a chance. A slim one. It will need your help.’

  ‘Oh?’ Carson tried to bring his mind back to the problems of the project.

  ‘You were right. Saxon left the RAF soon after his wife and kid were killed in an auto crash.’ Carson frowned in surprise.

  ‘I didn’t realise both his wife and kid were killed.’

  ‘No? Anyway, he had a good record with the RAF and, as you said, worked a lot with rigid hull airships. When he left he went to an airship company as test pilot. However, he’s no longer there. In fact, he’s had a few jobs since then. Maybe his wife’s death unsettled him. Anyway, he is currently a flying instructor at a place which goes by the crazy name of Middle Wallop … it’s near Andover in Hampshire.’

  ‘A flying instructor?’ Carson was surprised. ‘I can’t see Saxon settling into that sort of routine.’

  ‘Apparently he has,’ returned Maclaren. ‘Ashton managed to ring him and put the proposition but he wasn’t interested. Okay, so Saxon is playing hard to get. At the moment we need him. We need his experience with airships. So what I propose is this: you take a trip to England to look up your old Air Force buddy and do your damnedest to convince him to join us.’

  Carson hesitated.

  ‘It has been some years since we were last in touch, Harry. I told you. It may not be that easy. If he’s not interested … well, what can I do?’

  Maclaren ignored him.

  ‘I’ll get Jean to book you on a Delta flight for tomorrow. Why not persuade Helen to go with you and make a long weekend of it on company expenses?’

  ‘She isn’t here right now.’

  ‘No problem. Ring Jean first thing in the morning if Helen wants to go along and she’ll get the ticket. I’ll also have Jean type up a copy of Ashton’s comments, Saxon’s address and resumé. Okay? See you before you go.’

  For a moment Carson stared at the buzzing receiver before replacing it slowly on its hook.

  He went into the kitchen and opened the ice-box, gazed in distaste at the TV dinner and suddenly slammed the door shut. He left the house and climbed into the Cord, starting it with an unnecessary roar of the engine, and raced down the road. He turned north onto Route 88 and put his foot down, feeling the vintage car’s engine throb with power which fifty years had not diminished. Soon he turned off the highway before Yarmouth and raced along the road which led him to the Westcustogo, his favourite eating-place. But the steamed clams and seafood Newburg, which he threw down with a carafe of some unmemorable Californian white wine, did not alter his depressed mood.

  When he returned Helen was watching television.

  ‘Have a good day?’ she greeted him, hardly glancing up from the quiz programme.

  ‘Not very,’ he said shortly, going straight to the drinks cabinet and pouring himself a bourbon. ‘Drink?’

  She shook her head and raised a still full martini glass.

  Tm going to England tomorrow on company business,’ he said without preamble.

  Helen raised her delicately arched eyebrows.

  ‘What sort of business?’

  ‘We need a new airship pilot on the project,’ Carson said, swallowing a large part of his drink. ‘I’ve got to interview a guy. Why don’t you come with me, Helen … we could make a holiday of it? It would do us good … you know, maybe we could start getting things together and … ‘

  He hadn’t meant to put the invitation that way. Helen was already shaking her head.

  ‘I’ve already made plans, G
arry. The day after tomorrow I have arranged to take Maria Terrasino to Niagara to see the Falls.’

  ‘The Falls? Can’t you put that off?’ Carson’s voice was almost a snarl.

  ‘We’ve booked the hotel. I can’t pull out now.’

  ‘Hell!’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re drinking too much, Garry?’

  Carson had poured himself another drink.

  ‘I don’t see why the hell you can’t alter your plans for me just once. What the hell is happening to us, Helen? We’re growing further and further apart.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Her voice was cold and brittle.

  ‘Like hell you do!’

  ‘Are you drunk, Garry?’

  ‘Sure, oh sure. That’s the easy answer, isn’t it? Garry must be drunk. Hell, Helen, don’t you realise that there’s something wrong?’

  ‘I’ll get you some black coffee.’

  Carson slumped into a chair and reached out for the automatic control to turn the television off.

  ‘I thought you’d like a few days in London, Helen. We haven’t been there since we were stationed … ’

  ‘No one goes to England these days, Garry,’ called Helen from the kitchen. ‘It’s too expensive and the service is awful.’

  ‘The trip would be on company expenses,’ returned Carson.

  ‘So you said. Why did you say you are going?’

  ‘Remember Tom Saxon?’

  There was a clatter from the kitchen.

  ‘What have you done, Helen?’

  ‘I … I just dropped a saucer. What about Tom Saxon?’

  ‘He’s a qualified airship pilot. Harry Maclaren says we desperately need a qualified man as second pilot for the Albatross. We just haven’t time to train our own personnel, even with the simulator.’

  Helen had come to the door, looking at Carson with a slightly odd expression.

  ‘You mean that you’re being sent to ask Tom Saxon to come here and work on the project?’

  Carson apparently did not hear the curious tone in her voice. ‘Why not? We need him badly. It’ll be nice to see that sonofabitch again. It’s been a couple of years. We used to have great times in Norfolk — remember, honey?’

  She nodded slowly.

  Carson suddenly set down his drink, stood up and caught her by both hands.

  ‘Look, honey, it would be really great if you could cancel this trip with Maria Terrasino. Come with me to London. We could do the town — do a little shopping — all on company expenses.’ He frowned as he noticed that Helen was trembling.

  ‘I’m sorry, Garry. I can’t. I simply can’t.’

  She broke away and turned into the kitchen.

  ‘Damn it to hell!’ he swore. Then he turned, picked up the bourbon bottle and stomped into his den, slamming the door behind him.

  *

  Ed Budmeyer unfolded his copy of the Portland Press Herald and settled down to read. Budmeyer was one of the two security guards whose job it was to patrol the structure which shielded the gigantic 1,100 feet long airship from public gaze. The structure consisted of a 350-feet high scaffolding, covered by tarpaulin, which formed four walls around the colossal aircraft. The structure acted not so much as a hangar — the top was open — but merely as a windbreak in which the men working on the shell of the airship could do their job with the minimum of hazard.

  As security jobs went, Ed Budmeyer thought working for Anglo-American Airships was an easy one. He had usually been on payroll guard jobs for the Casco Bank and the Portland Savings Bank. He hated payroll jobs — sooner or later some punk hoodlum was bound to try his hand at knocking off the shipment he was guarding. It was the law of averages. Budmeyer had seen a couple of his friends gunned down doing payroll guard over the years and he felt, fatalistically, that one day his turn would come. He had a wife and four kids to take care of and just paying insurance was not exactly a comfort. That was why he had jumped at the chance offered when Anglo-American Airships had started recruiting security guards for their project site. Hell! Who would want to knock over a goddam airship?

  Budmeyer glanced at the clock on the desk in front of him. It was 1.30 a.m. He was in the guard hut at the north end of the giant construction. His routine was to patrol the area around the airship once every two hours, varying his routine as he thought fit. He swallowed the remains of a cup of coffee and decided he would do his patrol now. He stood up, stretched and yawned, putting on his hat, slightly askew over his grizzled curls. He hitched up his gunbelt and hooked on his nightstick, then flicked his hand radio.

  ‘Silver Three to Control. Come in.’

  There was a crackle of static.

  ‘That you, Ed?’

  It wasn’t the official response that the chief night security guard should have made but Ed, usually a stickler for routine, let it ride.

  ‘Yes, sir. Just about to start my walkabout.’

  ‘’Kay, Ed. Take it easy.’

  ‘Silver Three to Control. Out,’ retorted Budmeyer primly.

  He left the hut and switched on his flashlight. He let it play for a moment over the enormous silver hull of the mammoth before him. He shuddered. The sight of the airship, resting like some great sleeping monster, always made him shudder. Scaffolding enclosed the long silver cigar-shaped creature which, for the most part, was shrouded in blackness. The airship, Budmeyer knew, was 220 feet in diameter and 1,100 feet in length. It dwarfed everything around it. He stood shaking his head slowly.

  ‘Ain’t gonna fly,’ he muttered, as he had muttered every night for the last twelve months. It had become a ritual with him. ‘Anyway, if it does fly they’ll not catch me going up in it. Ain’t natural.’

  He turned and began to pace his beat in the blackness of the tarpaulin construction, the long slow beat to the far end of the ship where Pat Driscoll, his fellow guard, would probably be sitting in his hut, feet up with a good book. If Pat wasn’t there, it meant he was patrolling the far side of the airship and Budmeyer would have to contact him by radio.

  It was just a brief flash, a flicker behind the plastic of one of the portholes high up on the Albatross’ s side. A small flicker of light.

  Budmeyer halted and frowned.

  Someone working late? Hell! They should have told him. Anyone working late in or on the airship, even the chief designer Van Kleef, had to sign a duty roster booking themselves in and out of the construction. So far as Budmeyer knew, no one had signed in to work that night. It meant that he would have to climb into that infernal thing to find out where the light had come from and who was not following security regulations. He flicked on his hand radio.

  ‘Silver Three to Control. Come in.’

  ‘What is it, Ed?’

  ‘Going aboard the Albatross. Thought I saw a light. Anyone working tonight?’

  ‘No one has let me know, Ed,’ returned the imperturbable voice of the chief night security guard. ‘Check it out and when you find out who it is give them a moan. They should let us know if they’re working on the ship. Security regulations. Those damned scientists are all alike. Don’t know the time of day.’

  ‘Silver Three to Control. Out.’

  Budmeyer walked to a gangway which led from the ground to the interior of the airship, whose belly nestled on ground zero. He walked up the slight incline into the ship. He presumed the area he was in was one of the cargo holds and peered round wonderingly. In spite of the darkness, he felt surrounded by a great spacious area. He stood and scratched his head. A few months ago, after the hull and the internal sections had been fitted, all the project site workers, including the security guards, had been given a tour of the ship, primarily in order to show them the extent of the creation. Now Budmeyer tried to visualise where he had seen the flicker of light. It had been the sort of flash one saw from a pocket torch momentarily reflecting against metal.

  He made his way to a hatchway and opened it. There was a soft red glow from the ship’s running lights. He climbed up a
ladder to an upper deck and left the well by another hatchway. By the light of his flashlamp he made his way along the corridor and came upon a companionway ladder leading to another deck — one of the spacious passenger lounges, he could tell by its rich furnishing. He paused and reflected before climbing upwards. The spot from which the light had come must be somewhere along the next corridor. He halted and switched off his torch. For a moment his world was plunged into blackness as he stood listening and straining his eyes for a tell-tale sign.

  Yes, damn it! There it was! A faint flicker of light from the far end of the corridor, a flicker as if someone had swept a torch around a cabin and the ensuing light had shone momentarily out of a cabin door.

  Budmeyer grunted.

  He strode along the corridor, observing that he was in the electronics control section of the ship. Halting outside the cabin he found the door marked with the words ‘Personnel Only: Back-Up Computers’. He pushed the door fully open and switched on his flashlight.

  A man was crouched over a pile of wiring spewing from one of the computer control boards.

  ‘What … ?’ began Budmeyer.

  He did not have the chance to finish the sentence.

  As swiftly as a cat and with equal agility, the man wheeled round and threw, with all his might, the heavy torch in his hand. It struck Budmeyer straight and true between the eyes. The security guard’s world exploded into a million coloured shooting stars before he slipped down a helter-skelter into a pool of velvet blackness.

  Chapter Eight

  Charles Renard swung his Mercedes off the main highway just past the village of Torigni-sur-Vire, dominated by the rebuilt Château Martignon, and headed down a narrow road towards the river. Before reaching the tiny hamlet of Troisgots-la-Chapelle-sur-Vire he turned along a rough trackway which wound through a forest of cedars before emerging, almost abruptly, onto a level stretch of ground on a small hillock. On this stood a large building whose façade resembled an enormous log cabin. The Restaurant de Roches de Ham was one of Renard’s favourite eating-places, especially when he had to entertain. It was not overly expensive and, because of its setting, almost in the middle of nowhere, it was very discreet. The frontage of the restaurant, consisting of floor to ceiling windows, looked out across the Vire valley, across the thin strip of the river, towards the famous tourist attraction of the Ham Rocks, a magnificent escarpment of ancient shale rising to 150 metres.