The Fish Kisser (7 page)

The hands of her watch (”Happy sixteenth,” her mother had said giving it to her a few weeks earlier) were stuck at 6:23, the time she'd first crashed her fragile body against the door—Roger's door, the door to the outside world. Now, as she stared at the smashed watch, she found a mirror of her fragmented life in the few sharp shards of glass still held in place by the square gold frame, and screamed. Pain, torment, fear, and loss merged into despair with the subconscious realization that the last strand of her mother's umbilical cord had been severed.

The computer could have told her the time had she really wanted to know; the only lighting in the
room came from its screen; the only sound, its constant “shhhhhshing.” She stared at the screen, detesting it for what it had done, yet pleading with it to help. “What the hell is his password?” she shouted across the dimly lit room, then waited, almost expecting it to respond.

An idea eased her off the bed, drawing her to the computer, and she winced as she pressed a few keys. The message “ENTER PASSWORD” flicked onto the screen and she typed her name. “TRUDY”

“INCORRECT PASSWORD PLEASE TRY AGAIN”

“Shit,” she shouted, convinced she had been right. “What about, 'Trude'?” she asked, trying again. The computer responded soundlessly, “INCORRECT PASSWORD—PLEASE TRY AGAIN”

“This'll never work,” she muttered. “There must be millions of different words.”

After several more rejections, she quit. Without his password she would never be able to connect with the outside world. Finally, frustrated and angry, she typed. “ROGER—PLEASE COME BACK. PLEASE LET ME OUT. I'LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT. I LOVE YOU.”

Sitting back, drained, thoughtful, she changed the typescript to a larger font and wrote again. “ROGER— I LOVE YOU—COME BACK”

Roger was not coming back—not at the moment, anyway. His floppy body was still trampolining up and down on top of the life raft mid-ocean. He was alive, conscious, and still wondering why the SS
Rotterdam
had not returned for him. They threw me a life raft, he reasoned, so they must've known where I was.

Nosmo King felt the shift in momentum as the search was called off. No longer wallowing as it steamed slowly round the search area, the ship was now leaping and bucking as it ploughed through the water, back on course toward Holland; as anxious to make up the lost time as the passengers and crew. Ignorant of what was happening, and with a nagging feeling he were being deliberately shut out, King slipped out of the little office and poked his head around the bridge door.

“Come in Mr. King, I forgot all about you,” called the captain, noticing the tired, unshaven and dishevelled man, thinking now he would have looked at home in an airport following a crash—pacing amongst a crowd of worried relatives, anxiously awaiting news.

King moved toward the captain with his eyes captivated by the huge, green waves breaking over the bow. He jumped as a streak of lightning lanced down into the water right in front of the ship. Isolated from the mayhem by huge armour plated windows, the bridge seemed a tranquil place in comparison.

“It's like watching a movie of a storm,” he breathed, mesmerized, then turned to address the captain. “I was just wondering if you needed me any more. Only I'd like to get a bit of sleep before we arrive.”

“I don't think we need you Mr. King. Hang oh a minute though, I'll just check with our detective.”

D.I. Bliss, unseen by King, was in the radar cubicle, still studying the screen for signs of the missing life raft or the missing man.

“Inspector Bliss, do you need Mr. King for anything?” the captain sang out and Bliss emerged from the cubicle with a puzzled expression.

“Um,” he hummed, “I'm not sure,” and turned to King, “G'morning Nosmo. Ahh … Could you just hang on for a minute. There's one or two things I just want to check with the captain. Do you mind?”

The unspoken words hung in the air for a few seconds as King struggled for an answer. Did he mind? Yes, he minded, minded very much; minded being left out of the loop, minded being ostracized. There was a time … he was thinking when he realized that the epithet, “ex-police,” carried with it a connotation of exclusion incomprehensible to someone who had never been in the force. His mind was in turmoil; desperately wanting to know what was going on; what they were saying about him; what they thought about him; how they had taken his story. But Bliss and the captain were watching and waiting.

“I'll just have another look at the radar.” King acquiesced eventually, breaking the stalemate, and he wandered toward the cubicle, his head pounding with the knowledge that somewhere on the ship, Billy Motsom, his client, his tormentor, would be searching for him, desperate for news about LeClarc.

“Something's going on,” Bliss whispered, nudging the captain to the far side of the bridge. “He knows more than he's saying.”

“How do you work that out?”

“Well… Did you tell him we'd called off the search?”

“No.”

“Exactly. So how come he didn't ask? All he asked was, did we need him 'cos he wanted to get some sleep. So why's he suddenly lost interest in what happened to our man?”

The captain grasped the point. “I agree, but I don't see what we can do. He's stuck to the same story right from the beginning.”

“Do me a favour, Captain. Just keep him here for about ten minutes, will you, then make sure he leaves by that door over there.” The captain nodded as Bliss continued, almost to himself, “I've got to make some arrangements.” Then, as an afterthought added, “I've also got to find LeClarc before we dock.”

Precisely ten minutes later, Nosmo King left the bridge, following a compulsory guided tour. “He was as jumpy as a jib in a hurricane,” the captain told Bliss later. “I've never known anyone turn down a chance to have a few minutes at the helm before.”

“You were right, Sir. He's gone to a cabin,” D.C. Wilson's voice crackled over the radio a few minutes later, as Bliss was back at the purser's office, still trying to find LeClarc on a list—any list.

“What number?” he called back. “I'm at the purser's office, I'll look it up.”

“2042.”

Running his finger down the list he found the cabin number. “The name on this list says “Motsom” but I wouldn't guarantee it,” he said, then caught a nasty look from the purser as he added, “These guys don't seem too sure what they're doing.”

“What do you want us to do, Sir?” asked the other detective, sobered by time and the sergeant's accident.

“I don't know. Just find out what's going on. Use your loaf if you've got one.”

Bliss snapped off the radio and turned back to the purser who had decided he may as well take command of his office early. Roused out of his bunk in the middle of the night, like everyone else, he wanted to make sure his records were straight, just in case there was an inquiry.

“O.K., Sir,” said Bliss. “So how soon will we know for sure if someone's missing?”

The purser scratched his stubbly chin, realised he'd forgotten to shave in the upheaval, and thought deeply. “Hum. It's not quite that simple. You see, in theory we know exactly how many people are on board, but, aah,” he hesitated, “in practice …” Pausing, he threw up his hands, shrugged his shoulders, and picked his nose before committing himself. “Anybody's guess really.”

“What are you saying?” Bliss questioned, incredulously. “Are you saying you wouldn't miss the odd one?”

“Oh no …” he started, then stopped, tilted his head to one side, threw open his hands, and disclaimed all responsibility. “Well yes, I suppose so, if you put it like that. With nearly two thousand passengers you can never be sure. It's not like an aircraft—we don't assign seats, and we often get strays.”

“Strays?” enquired Bliss. Dogs, cats, what? “Strays?”

“Yeah … friends of crewmembers smuggled aboard for a freebie; hitchhikers in the back of trucks, even people hiding in car's trunks so they can avoid the fare. The vehicles aren't searched by British Customs on the way out, and the Dutch authorities don't care if you bought a ticket as long as you've got a valid passport.”

“So, how will we know if you lost someone in the night?”

The purser's shrug told the story, but Bliss heard him out. “You won't. Not unless a friend or relative reports them missing, or we find luggage in a cabin, or a car on the car deck after everyone's left.”

Billy Motsom, cabin 2042, tired, furious, and very worried, was having similar thoughts and had a spotlight on King. “So, Mister, what are you goin' to do if the poxy little shit did go over the side, eh?”

“Look, I was hired to follow him that's all. Nothing else—nothing dodgy. I don't know why you want him and don't care. You paid me …”

“Correction,” cut in Motsom. “We was going to pay you.”

“You'd bloody better. I've done my job. I followed him around for three bloody weeks. It was me that found out about this trip. There's nothing else I can do.”

King rose toward the door but was forced back with a snarl. “You ain't goin' anywhere until I tell you—now sit down.”

He sat, sensing the simmering violence. Not that he hadn't been warned. “Real nasty piece of work,” one of the few ex-colleagues still prepared to talk to him had said, “though he hasn't got any serious convictions.”

“O.K., let me put you in the picture,” continued Motsom, sounding helpful. “This ain't no game of hide and bloody seek, it's big business and you're part of it, like it or not. So we may as well be friends. O.K.?”

King said nothing, unsure whether to be more fearful of Motsom as an employer or a friend, and he buried his head, mumbling into his hands, “Why did I get mixed up in this?”

“Money—Nosmo. Just like me.”

“No. Not like you …” he started, but Motsom cut him short.

“The only difference between you an' me,” he sneered, “is you've done time. You're an old lag, an excon, a bent cop.”

King, stung by the suggestion, stared into his fingers, thinking: First I get shut out by a snotty D.I., then a piece of dog turd calls me bent. Who's the criminal here? I didn't take back-handers; I wasn't shaking down drug addicts for part of their stash; I'm no crook. But he had no answer, he was trapped by his past.

Motsom took his silence as agreement and, with the air seemingly straightened, softened his tone,
“LeClarc has some computer stuff the Arabs want, that's all, and we was hired to get it, O.K.”

King tried to butt in, “I wasn't hired …”

But Motsom held up his hand, now the cop, saying, “Wait, I ain't finished,” and he continued firmly. “We was hired, both of us. It's just that I only told you what you needed to know.”

“Bollocks! You knew I wouldn't do it if you told me the truth.”

“Maybe yeah. Maybe no. Who knows. Anyhow it's too late, you've lied to the captain.”

“And the police,” added King, absentmindedly.

“The police?” Motsom exploded, shooting upright, nudging over a beer, which flipped onto the floor and rolled back and forth, spilling drops on the mottled blue carpet.

King quickly bent to pick up the bottle, but Motsom grasped his shoulder and hauled him upright.

“Leave it,” he ordered. “What did you say about the filth?”

King winced at the derogatory term, then shrugged, matter-of-factly, “There's a bunch of cops on board and one of 'em, a snotty inspector, was making noises about the missing bloke, that's all. Just routine. Couldn't resist poking his nose in.”

“Why didn't you tell me you idiot?” he shouted, “What are they doing here anyway?”

“They're going on some sort of visit,” he shrugged, his imagination running away with him. “Stop worrying, I didn't tell 'em anything. They've no idea who's missing and even if they did, they couldn't connect him to us.”

It was true that D.I. Bliss didn't know who was missing, if anyone, though he shivered at the idea of any man
struggling for survival in the ship's wake. From his perch in the first class restaurant, high in the ship's stern, he stared pensively at the evil sea, then slit open another croissant (baked on board every day according to the waiter) and poured coffee for the two contrite constables.

“Drink,” he ordered, and they drank.

Sergeant Jones had not joined them, his purple swollen wrist making movement of any kind painful. He was, in any case, pre-occupied—working up a story to cover his backside.

“Right, you two,” said Bliss, noticing how well the green of the sea reflected in their faces. “We're docking in half an hour. I've looked everywhere on this damn ship and I can't find LeClarc, so he's either hiding 'cos he spotted us, or it was him who went over the side and that private dick is lying about the time.”

“So what's the big plan, Inspector?” asked Wilson, with caustic undertone.

Bliss picked up the sarcasm and twisted it around, “I could always follow your example … get legless, break my wrist…”

“You lost him …” Wilson started, accusingly, but Smythe touched his arm. “Leave it Willy, let's wait and see. Anyway, what are we going to do about the sergeant?”

Bliss picked up his coffee. “An ambulance will be on the quayside and he'll be going back on tonight's ship once he's been plastered.”

“Good old Serg,” sniggered D.C. Smythe. “Plastered two nights running.”

All three laughed—like a team.

A hollow “boom” from the tannoy system echoed throughout the ship and a singsong voice rang out, “Will all car drivers and passengers please re-join your vehicles for embarkation.”

“That's us,” said Bliss, downing his coffee as he rose. “Grab our bags and chuck them in the car, then wait for me. I'm going to see if I can spot him getting into the Renault.”