The Fish Kisser (20 page)

“What about that girl over there?” she tried, refusing to give up.

He looked. “She's at least forty. Come on. Let's go and wait for Margery.”

A dark ponytail bobbed in the distance—she struggled in its wake. “Stop it,” he commanded sharply, dragging her toward the restaurant.

“Nothing new,” the policeman said as they met a few minutes later. “I'm sure we'll find her easily once we've got the photo,” he added with a smile to Lisa, hoping to make up for his previous insensitivity.

“Roger might not know anything,” she replied coldly, refusing to get her hopes up. Disappointment had knocked her back into the old kitchen chair too many times already.

Peter stepped in. “We won't know if we don't try. Trudy has to be somewhere, and you know how mad she was about that computer. Maybe this guy will know something, or some of his friends might.”

Roger certainly knew where Trudy was, though had no idea what she was doing.

Trudy was typing again. Sending another message to her mother that would get no further than the little green screen. The first message in nearly five hours.

“MUM. WHERE ARE YOU. PLEASE HURRY …” Her fingers paused, the flurry of activity had sapped her energy. Every movement she made away from her breathing hole in the door now requiring more and more effort. She was already completely drained by the time she had crawled to the computer but, with her lungs screaming for air, she willed herself to stay just long enough to keep in touch with her mother.

“GET DAD,” she added, in desperation, and then she was gone again. Her painful pilgrimage starting once more.

“Do you like the herring?” Yolanda enquired, stuffing a large prawn into her mouth, peering at Bliss through the trio of tall white candles, which formed the only barrier between them as they sat in one of the few remaining Dutch restaurants in the tourist resort, a few miles to the north of the port. The ride in the BMW had taken twenty minutes but, as Yolanda explained, they had no choice, unless he preferred Indonesian, Chinese, or American; all of it fast and foreign. Bliss looked at the partially exposed fish skeleton on his plate, debating how and when to finish it; wishing he'd opted for a burger or chow mien.

“Every visitor to Holland must eat at least one raw herring,” she continued as if reading from a Michelin guide. “It is the law.” She kept a straight face and for a moment he could have believed her.

Then he laughed. “You're joking.”

She smiled, admitting nothing.

“Anyway,” he said, “if they are that good, why didn't you have one?”

She pulled a face and pretended to spit on the floor. “They're disgusting. We only give them to visitors.”

“Now you tell me.”

“If you are a good boy and eat all of your herring,” she said, slowly lifting a huge prawn to dangle tantalisingly in front of his face, “you can have another one.” Laughing, she quickly popped the prawn, whole, into her mouth.

The candlelight flickered between them as he studied her. Analysing her face carefully, without staring, trying to identify the one or two unique features that would distinguish her from any other woman. Fashionably unruly short blond hair, baby blue eyes, nicely formed white teeth and a pair of lips some men would kill for.. But such a description could fit thousands of similarly attractive
women. As a detective he searched for something more noteworthy, more uniquely identifiable, more defining: The deep dimple in her left cheek, not reflected in the right, was certainly striking, though hardly conclusive. Her nose was perhaps a little bulbous; not unattractively so. But the feature which struck him so positively lay either side of her mouth, where her flesh creased deeply, and perfectly, into a pair of delicately curved parentheses, bracketing her lips and accentuating her smile.

Tiredness dragged him down as his eyelids drifted together and, giving his head a quick shake, he renewed the conversation. “I wonder what has happened to LeClarc.”

“They threw him off the ship,” she replied casually.

“But why? They obviously planned to put him in the truck …”

She interrupted, laughing. “I know, but he was too fat and they couldn't get him in.”

Bliss laughed with her, “No, I don't think so … although …?”

Yolanda's face became serious. “What's he worth?”

“What do you mean?”

“He must be valuable or they wouldn't want him. People steal things because of what they are worth.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “Usually … But sometimes they take things because they are jealous, to get revenge, or … or lots of reasons.”

“What about the other eight missing people?” she asked, changing tack. “How many of their bodies were never found?”

He thought for a moment while the waiter collected their plates. The herring's eyes had been staring accusingly at him for at the past five minutes and he was pleased to see it go. “Only one for sure—the woman; the one who committed suicide. There were a
few burned bits left from the guy who hit the train, but it must have been like trying to identify a pig by examining a barbecued pork chop.

She shuddered. “Dave, I'm eating.”

“You asked,” he said, and continued, in revenge for the herring. “I've seen the photos. All the identifiable bits were so badly burned you couldn't be sure they were human.”

“DNA?” she enquired, knowing he would understand.

He shook his head slightly. “Doubt it; they might have tried, but they had no reason. His wife said it was him, recognized his clothes and car. The inquest said it was an accident: lost control and crashed through the fence. It was just bad luck the train was there at the same time.”

“Bad luck or very good timing,” she mused. “Zo, the other six,” She leaned forward earnestly, seeking information in his eyes, a balloon glass of Chardonnay cupped in both hands like a crystal ball suspended midair between them. “Where are they?”

He shook his head again, but his eyes remained riveted to hers. “No one knows,” he replied. Their eyes stuck. His face tingled. Her lips parted, just a fraction. Time stopped.

Then the waiter broke the spell and they leaned back while he scurried around removing bits and pieces of unwanted cutlery to make room for the main course.

“Steak and chips,” Bliss had insisted, having been coerced into the herring; feeling one native dish would be sufficiently politic. She had chosen a warm chicken salad with an unpronounceable name for herself.

“Nobody really took any notice of the disappearances until we got the tip about LeClarc,” he said, as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

“Why not?” she enquired, then pushed a forkful of food in his direction. “Try this it's wonderful.” He opened his mouth, almost involuntarily, and she slid the fork in.

“Mmm, that's good,” he mumbled, though was glad he had chosen the steak. “Lots of people disappear,” he continued, returning to his theme. “Most turn up sooner or later. If they are adults and there is no real suspicion of foul play, we don't go out of our way to look for them.”

Considerately, she held her next question until he had eaten a few chunks of steak. “But these people were important. Somebody should have made enquiries.”

The implied criticism stung and he went on the defensive. “It's not that simple. Two of them, the woman and the guy hit by the train weren't missing: they were dead. One man disappeared in the Atlantic. The loner who lived in the Welsh mountains was eccentric.”

Yolanda's head cocked to one side. “Centric?” she questioned.

“Weird—a bit crazy,” he explained.

“Okey dokey. But that leaves four.”

He chewed thoughtfully trying to remember what had happened to the others. “The two men in the boat,” he said, between bites, “could have been an accident. It could've sunk, caught fire, hit by a whale …”

“Eaten by a herring,” she proposed, and made him laugh again.

“Seriously,” he continued, straightening his face, “anything could have gone wrong.”

“And the other two men?”

He shrugged. “Run off with their secretaries; scarpered with the social club Christmas fund; fell in love with each other and started a gay bar in California.”

Yolanda laughed.

“Who knows,” added Bliss, “but the point is, nobody linked the cases together. The M.O. was different in each case.”

He stopped—checking her face for comprehension—then carried on. “All the informant said was LeClarc was going to be kidnapped, nothing about the others, they might not be connected at all.”

Yolanda stared meditatively into her wineglass for sometime, then began slowly. “This was well planned; would have cost a lot of money. King, Motsom, and the driver had to be paid, and the special truck had to be on the right ship. If that crewman …”

“Jacobs?” suggested Bliss.

“Yeah … If he hadn't been on the deck at the same time as King, it would have been another accident— like the others.”

Bliss tried to interject but her mind was pre-occupied—the answer seemingly at her fingertips. “Whoever took them went to a lot of trouble and, in most cases, wanted you to believe they were …” She paused. “Dave, Dave.”

He had fallen asleep, his head slouched on his chest. Thirty-six hours of uninterrupted wakefulness had finally taken its toll.

She drove delicately back to the port, easing the powerful car gently around the sweeping curves of the narrow road on top of a polder, more than fifty feet above the sea. Below her, the mist was condensing into fog, and the huge breakers had been crushed into a low undulating swell by the weight of the heavy still air. Only the remnants of the storm remained, smeared across the sky in thin grey streaks and tinged pink by the setting sun. Bliss slept motionless on the reclining seat by her side.

Captain Jahnssen was waiting for them and came flying out of the back door of the police station the
moment he saw the white BMW.

“Yolanda, Yolanda,” he shouted, his hands forming a megaphone around his mouth, as she started to get out. She stopped, somewhat startled, and stared. He shot twenty words of Dutch in her direction and, without a word, leapt back into the car and drove away.

Slipping calmly back into his seat in the staff dining room a few moments later, the captain returned to his chocolate gâteau with the nonchalance of the innocent.

“Was it them Jost?” enquired Edwards.

“No … No. I expect Ms. Pieters will take him straight to a hotel. He'll be here in the morning I am sure.”

“I wanted that little snot back on board the ship tonight,” Edwards snapped icily, feeling cheated.

A chill had permeated the relationship between the two senior officers from the moment they had driven away from the airfield. Superintendent Edwards was on the offensive before the captain had even fastened his seat belt.

“Captain,” he had started, formally.

“It is Jost.”

“Very well, Jost,” he said, sounding like a sergeant major, “I think we should understand each other, start off on the right foot, keep everything square. D'ye know what I mean?”

“Yes, Michael,” he replied, concern immediately detectable in his voice.

Edwards continued forcefully. “I want to make it clear. I am the only person who gives orders to my men. Bliss should be working, not gallivanting around with some …” he nearly said “tart,” but switched in time to, “woman,” adding, “Even if she is a detective.”

“Superintendent,” responded the captain, visibly shaken by the attack, “that man has done a terrific job. I'm not sure about the others, especially the sergeant,
but you shouldn't criticize Inspector Bliss.”

“It was his bloody fault they lost LeClarc in the first place. Where are the others anyway?”

“Your sergeant with the broken wrist has gone back on the ship. The other two, we have taken to a hotel.”

Edwards snorted his disapproval, fuming at the notion his men were luxuriating in a hotel when, if he had his way, they would have been on jankers—shackled in a guardhouse on iron rations.

“Can you tell me more about this case, Michael?” Captain Jahnssen asked, attempting to fill the awkward void.

Edwards shot a glance at the back of the driver's head. “I'll tell you in private. You never know who you can trust these days.”

Five minutes later Superintendent Edwards had flung himself into an armchair in the captain's office and started dragging papers out of his briefcase.

“Drink, Michael?” offered the captain.

“Coffee—milk, two sugars.”

“I have some excellent Scotch,” he said, flourishing a bottle of single malt, like a parent trying to placate a fractious child with the offer of a toy.

“I am on duty, Jost,” Edwards replied stonily, refusing to be bought—then relented. “Maybe later … What a bloody fiasco,” he said as he slapped a thick file onto the captain's desk. Have you any idea …?” He paused. “How much do you know about this case?”

“I know a few computer specialists have disappeared, or been killed, and this LeClarc man was a target. It seems they pushed him off the ship for some reason. That's about all really.”

“Do you know why they wanted him, or the others?”

“Not really. But if you would excuse me for a moment, I must order your coffee. Oh, do you have a
photograph of Motsom? We still haven't received one by fax.”

He picked up the phone as Edwards rummaged through his briefcase, turning up a photograph stamped “Central Records 1986.” “The only one we've got,” he said, handing it to the captain.

Edwards shuffled a few papers, waiting while the captain finished his call then asked, “What's Motsom's role in this?”

Jahnssen put the phone down and perched on the corner of his desk. “We don't know, but we do know that the main suspect, David King, was in touch with Motsom on the ship, and Motsom's car is still at the port.”