The Land God Gave to Cain by Hammond; Innes Read Free Book Online

couldn’t be serious. “All I wanted,” I murmured, “was for you to have a word with him … find out what he thought of my father, whether he considered him sane. You can take those notes and—”
    â€œLook,” he said. “If you’re convinced your father was sane, then these notes”—he tapped the sheet of paper—“all the messages, everything—including that final message—are fact. They happened. And if that’s what you believe, then you must go over there yourself. Apart from the question of whether Briffe’s alive or not, you owe it to your father. If I go to this guy Ledder, he’ll just answer my questions, and that will be that. You might just as well write him a letter for all the good it’ll do.” And then he added, “If you’re really convinced that your father did pick up a transmission from Briffe, then there’s only one thing for you to do—go over there and check for yourself. It’s the only way you’ll get the authorities to take it seriously.”
    I was appalled at the way he was putting the responsibility back on to me. “But I just haven’t the money,” I murmured.
    â€œI could help you there.” He was watching me closely all the time. “I’m checking out on a west-bound flight at O-seven hundred to-morrow morning. We’ll be into Goose around four-thirty in the afternoon—their time. I might be able to fix it. You’d have about two hours there and I could radio ahead to Control for them to have Ledder meet the plane. Well?”
    He meant it. That was the incredible thing. He really meant it. “But what about my job?” I was feeling suddenly scared. “I can’t just walk out—”
    â€œYou’d be back on Friday.”
    â€œBut …” It was all so appallingly sudden, and Canada was like another world to me. I’d never been out of England, except once to Belgium. “But what about the regulations and—and wouldn’t the extra weight …” I found I was desperately searching for some sort of excuse.
    He asked me then whether I had a British passport. I had, of course, for I’d needed one for my holiday in Bruges and Ghent the previous year, and it was at my lodgings, with the rest of my things. And when he told me that my weight wouldn’t make any difference to the safety margin and that he was good friends with the Customs and Immigration people both here and at Goose, all I could think of to say was, “I’ll have to think it over.”
    He gripped my arm then, and those baby blue eyes of his were suddenly hard. “Either you believe what your father wrote, or you don’t. Which is it?”
    The way he put it was almost offensive and I answered hotly, “Don’t you understand—that message was the cause of my father’s death.”
    â€œOkay,” he said tersely. “Then it’s time you faced up to the implications of that message.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    He relaxed his grip on my arm. “See here, boy,” he said gently, “if Briffe really did transmit on September twenty-ninth, then either there’s been some ghastly error or—well, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.” His words reminded me of the shocked expression on the Flight Lieutenant’s face when I had suggested the pilot might have made a mistake. “Now do you see why you’ve got to go over and talk to Ledder yourself? What that message says”—and he jabbed his finger at the sheet of paper he had laid on the bar counter—“is that Laroche was wrong when he said Briffe and the other guy were dead. And I’m warning you, it’s going to take a lot to persuade the authorities of that.” He patted my arm gently and the blue eyes were no longer hard, but looked at me sympathetically. “Well, it’s up to you now.