The Black Tide

The bar was crowded and while he was getting the drink, I was wondering why he was taking all this trouble, what possible use I could be to such a specialized firm of solicitors operating in the City. I said as much when he handed me my drink and sat down again. He smiled. ‘Yes, well, let me explain. We have forty or so partners. I’m never certain what the exact number is. They’re solicitors, all of them. They each have their own clients, their own reputations. Then there are a number of trainees, a mass of articled clerks, lots of secretaries. In addition, we employ over a dozen ship captains, men who can go off to any port in the world where we have a problem and by their training and long experience can ask the right questions of the right people and assess what the answers are worth. Some of them develop a remarkable nose for ferreting out the truth. And, of course, each claim being different, and therefore requiring an individual approach, we use any method we feel may be necessary to protect our clients’ interests. And that,’ he added with a slight emphasis in his voice, ‘sometimes includes the employment of people whom we consider have special qualifications for getting at the truth of a particular case.’

He sipped his port, the blue eyes watching me behind the thick-lensed glasses. ‘You know Karachi. You speak Urdu. And you’ve been a ship’s officer. I think you’re the man I need.’

‘For what?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘If I knew I wouldn’t need you, would I?’

‘But it’s not the Petros Jupiter.’

‘No, it’s not the Petros Jupiter. It’s another ship. In fact, it’s two now.’ And when I told him I was only interested in the Petros Jupiter, he said, ‘Yes, of course. I understand that.’ He was leaning forward, still watching me. ‘That’s why I wanted to meet you. Ninety per cent of the time I’m just a hardworking solicitor slogging through the paperwork. But there’s ten per cent of the time I’m operating by the seat of my pants, sleuthing out the truth like some amateur detective. That’s the fun side — or it can be when you get it right and a hunch pays off.’ He stopped there. ‘It’s not the ship you’re interested in. It’s the engineer, isn’t it?’ He said it tentatively, not looking at me now. ‘Did Ferrers tell you he’s changed his name, flown to Bahrain and is now on board a small freighter bound for Karachi?’

‘Yes, he showed me the telex. It was from the Lloyd’s agent in La Rochelle where the fishing boat landed him.’

‘Suppose we were to send you to Karachi, everything paid, and a fee … You fly out, you’d be there about the time the Corsaire arrives.’ He looked at me then. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want to talk to Aristides Speridion who now calls himself Henri Choffel.’ I nodded and he smiled. ‘One of our partners would be interested in that, too. He’s handling the Petros Jupiter case.’ He paused then, watching me. ‘Well, what do you say?’

I didn’t answer immediately. In fact, I was thinking

of Baldwick and his proposition. This, in a way, was even odder. Saltley misinterpreted my silence. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Afraid I’ve put it to you very abruptly. Let me fill you in a bit. First, the seat of the pants side of it. Back in November the Aurora B disappeared. We don’t know where. All we know is she missed her radio schedule when she should have been west of Sri Lanka and hasn’t been heard of since. Now, just a few days ago, another VLCC, the Howdo Stranger, misses her schedule.’

‘I was with Ferrers when the news came through,’ I said. ‘They both missed their schedules in the same area.’

He nodded. ‘With a twice-weekly radio schedule it’s just guesswork where they disappeared. But yes, the same area roughly. Both insured at Lloyd’s, and the lead underwriter in each case Michael Stewart. He’s a member here and a friend of mine. In fact, I was at his daughter’s twenty-first today. We both started our racing together, you see, in the Lloyd’s yacht Lutine.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Not the best day to pick for a party. And the poor fellow wrote the slip for the Petros Jupiter as well, all three of them for the same syndicate, including the Sinister Syndicate, which is hard luck on the girls. He took quite a slice of it for them.’

I suppose he sensed I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, for he said, ‘You know how Lloyd’s work do you? The Members — Names, we call them — operate in syndicates. There are around twenty thousand Names and their personal financial