The Fish Kisser (19 page)

“I love you, Roger,” she eventually replied, her resistance sapped by his persistence and her desire to escape. But he didn't take her. “I've got to go to work Trude, I'll take you tonight.”

Filled with hope and expectation she dashed off a note to her mother: “Love you mum—see you tonight.” But the day stretched to eternity as his promise gradually faded in the thinning air. Then, when she was close to despair, her heart leapt as a blast of fresh air revived her. But he had another excuse. “The car's broken. I'll have to take you tomorrow.” Each day a new excuse—then he started making demands.

“Trude,” he said one evening just after he came in from work. “If you show me your thingy I promise to
take you home.”

“No,” she shouted, firmly clenching her skirt between her thighs as she sat on the bed in the glow of the computer.

“I won't touch,” he pleaded. “I just want to look.”

“You looked before. You tied me up—remember.”

He remembered, but if only he'd looked closer— touched maybe. Rueing the missed opportunity, he implored, “Please let me have another look.”

“Will you really, really promise to take me home if I do?”

“I promise,” he lied. “Scout's honour.”

“And you won't touch?”

“Promise.”

With a sigh of condescension, she lay back and wriggled her knickers to her knees. “Promise?” she said, making one final check.

“Promise,” he said.

Like a stripper teasing a group of randy partygoers, she eased up her skirt, and, as his hand snaked toward her, kicked him in the mouth, leapt off the bed, and hauled up her knickers.

“I wasn't going to touch honest,” he whimpered through his fingers, his lip already swelling, then his tone changed to that of a spiteful brat. “I was going to take you home, but I'm not now.”
I'm keeping the ball if you don't let me play.

The four-minute taxi ride from Schiphol to the private airfield had been heavily weighted by Superintendent Edwards' presence, and sunk further when he spotted Yolanda's small plane.

“Doesn't look like a police plane,” he grumbled.

“Unmarked,” said Bliss, with a flash of inspiration.

“This way Edward,” Yolanda sang out, her voice bouncing with enthusiasm.

Edwards stopped and glared. “My name is Superintendent Edwards,” he stressed, dragging the mood even lower.

“Oh …” she began, confused. “I thought you said your name was Edward.”

Bliss strolled between them carting the senior officer's luggage and made light of the situation. “Where shall I put Superintendent Edwards' bags, Detective Pieters?”

“In here, Detective Bliss,” she responded, quickly catching on.

Bags loaded, the superintendent was on the point of boarding when he had second thoughts.

“Is there a bathroom here anywhere, Inspector?”

Relief swept over Bliss, he had almost forgotten his own desperate need. “I expect so, Sir. I'll come with you,” he replied, turning to Yolanda for directions, but she shrugged.

“Maybe in that building,” was the best she could offer, turning to the nearest Quonset hut.

“We'll ask,” shouted the superintendent, already ten strides away. Bliss caught up. The granite-faced superintendent sensed his presence and without looking, launched into him. “So, let me get this straight, Bliss. You were guarding LeClarc?”

“Me and the…”

“Shut up,” he ordered nastily, his teeth clamped tightly. “I'll tell you when to speak.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“As I was saying. You were guarding LeClarc— correction—you were being
paid
to guard LeClarc. And he disappeared under your fuckin' nose.”

Bliss considered the merit of interrupting further but lost his chance as Edwards spat. “You useless little
shit. Do you realize what they're saying about me at H.Q.?”

He didn't, but could guess.

Edwards stopped and stared him straight in the face. Bliss, a good six inches taller, shrank several feet. “You screwed up,” the senior officer barked, “and I suggest you start thinking of some bloody good answers for the discipline board. As far as I'm concerned this will be all your fault. You failed to do your duty. The press are lapping it up. It'll be all over the evening papers. Even the P.M.'s office has been on the phone wanting to know if it's true. 'Lost another one have we?' the bloody press secretary said, as though we lose one every day. Heads will roll Bliss, but I shall make sure your's goes first. Got me?” Then, re-enforcing his fusillade, he yanked open his fly and defiantly pissed on the ground.

Bliss, fuming, could think of nothing worthwhile to say and they walked back to the plane in silence to find Yolanda sneaking a cigarette. Squeezing it out, she dropped it on the ground and opened the passenger door.

“Where's the pilot?” Edwards blared, baulking at the doorway. He was not having a good day—why should anyone else?

Bliss and Yolanda looked at each other, but were saved the need to explain as Edwards spotted a uniformed man walking toward them. Satisfied, he climbed into the rear seat and was still fidgeting himself into place when the man, a security guard, veered off to continue his rounds.

In the air, eventually, Yolanda concentrated on the flying, while Edwards concentrated on quelling his stomach. Bliss sat quietly, entranced by a white carpet of greenhouses and the endless ribbons of canals and roads, while steaming under the threat of disciplinary action.

“How much longer?” Edwards queried gruffly after ten minutes in the air; ten minutes of edgy silence when neither man had said a word.

“Fifteen minutes,” Yolanda replied cheerily, glancing at him in the rear view mirror, thinking: He looks awful. Mr. Bliss looks pretty rough too, she thought, stealing a look at his darkly pensive face out of the corner of an eye. “We might run into some turbulence soon,” she continued. “We often do around here.” Her right eye winked at Bliss and he caught the look. “It's something to do with the sea,” she added for effect, noticing just a touch of brightness around his lips.

Edwards moaned, saying nothing.

Thirty seconds later her right hand eased its way across the short gap in between the seats and slid over the top of Bliss' thigh. Her fingers gently squeezed into the soft flesh near his groin and all hell broke loose.

The plane dropped like a stone and started spinning wildly. Her grip on his thigh increased. A scream came from the back. The plane crashed against an invisible cushion of air, then bounced off in the other direction. Her fingers bit into his flesh an inch from the end of his growing member. She stabbed at the controls and the nose shot upwards as Edwards was smashed back in his seat. Then the plane skidded onto its side forcing Bliss' body to slide across the cockpit in her direction. Her fingers held his leg tightly as his world tumbled upside down. Bliss wanted to scream— terror or excitement? Before he could decide, Yolanda gave his thigh an extra little squeeze, let go, put both hands on the controls, and resumed level flight.

“A bit bumpy,” she said nonchalantly.

Superintendent Edwards slumped in the seat, a paper tissue held firmly over his mouth. He said nothing, the fear in his eyes said everything.

Captain Jahnssen was waiting on the tarmac as they touched down. Yolanda had alerted him on the radio. “Pleased to meet you, Sir,” said the captain, unsure of the correct address to use for a foreign officer of equal rank—sticking with “Sir” as the safest bet.

“Michael,” he snapped, gratefully collapsing onto the rear seat.

“We'll see you back at the port, Detectives,” the captain addressed Bliss and Yolanda together. “Why don't you stop and get a meal. You two haven't eaten all day. I'll bring the superintendent up to date.”

“Any news?” enquired Bliss, hopefully.

The captain shook his head as he climbed in beside Edwards, and the car sped off with Yolanda slumping in relief and Bliss dancing on the spot.

“What's up Dave?”

“Won't be a minute,” he shouted, running for a nearby building.

Lisa McKenzie paced frenziedly outside the Flightpath restaurant at Stanstead airport, a few miles north of London, not far from Watford. Her exhusband sat inside chatting to the police constable who had come with them to meet Margery. Peter poked his head out the door for the fourth time. “Come and have a cup of tea, Luv.”

A smile failed in the attempt and she shook her head. “I'm alright.” Abstinence had become a penitence:
How can I eat when my baby is …?
And to have eaten or drunk when not in her chair would have been doubly sacrilegious.

The moment she'd left her chair in the apartment in Leyton the feeling came over her that she was doing the wrong thing: Believing that leaving the chair would somehow break the bond tying her to Trudy's spirit and that, without a tether, the spirit would simply drift away.

“You don't have to come if you don't want to,” the officer had said, detecting her reluctance. “Me and Mr. McKenzie can get her and bring her straight back here.”

She was torn, desperate for news, desperate to see Roger's photograph and even desperate to see Margery, who at least embodied some link between her and her only daughter. “I'll come,” she decided at last, after declining twice. “What time does she arrive?”

“The plane's due at seven twenty-eight,” the policeman said, with annoying precision. “We've arranged for Margery to be brought straight through immigration and customs, so we should be back here by half past eight at the latest.”

It was now nearly eight-fifteen. “Delayed,” was the only information provided on the huge arrivals board, but they already knew that. The constable had contacted the control tower as soon as they arrived a little after six-thirty. “Two hours late leaving Avignon due to a puncture,” he had told them. “They might be able to make up a little time but they said we shouldn't expect her much before nine-thirty.”

“Damn,” swore Peter, well aware a couple of national papers had promised to run Roger's photograph, as long as they had it before ten.

“Let's keep our fingers crossed shall we,” continued the policeman. “Anyway, another day won't make much difference.” The immediate look of horror on Lisa McKenzie's face alerted him to his faux pas and he fumbled to correct himself. “Ah … I mean. I know it does make a difference. But, um … It would give us more time to make sure the picture's printed properly.” Her face was unmoved. “Anyway,” he placed his trump firmly on the table, “more people read the papers on Saturdays than they do on Friday.”

Lisa McKenzie, convinced they were already too late, buckled under the weight of yet another setback. Her face scrunched and she started to cry. Peter flung a sympathetic arm around her and pulled her to his chest.

“Sorry,” mumbled the policeman.

“It's O.K. Not your fault Constable. My wife's very emotional at the moment.”

Looking up, she caught the innocence in his vacant expression and realized the possessive term was just a slip; his troubled thoughts a banana skin for his tongue. Another wave of emotion rippled across her face and she wept more loudly.

They had spent the first hour at the airport in the depressing waiting room at the police office, but had run out of conversation in the first five minutes. Aside from Trudy, any other topic would have been facile. The constable, an infatuated chrysanthemum grower, longed to tell them about the propagation of his latest creation, a huge double pink he was certain would win major prizes.

“Do you like flowers Mrs. McKenzie?” he asked, with a bounce of brightness in his voice, hoping to take her mind off Trudy.

“Not much.” Her apartment was overflowing with bouquets from well-meaning well-wishers—three since Margery's call at lunchtime—and mention of more flowers immediately crumpled her face in thoughts of funerals.

Lisa had spent most of her time in the waiting room staring bleary-eyed at a bulletin board, strewn with pictures of missing people, culled from the
Police Gazette.
Some bore inscriptions that terrified her:
“Missing since October 15th 1982”
was boldly printed under the smiling face of one little boy, forever four years-old in the minds of his distraught parents.
Another said. “Last heard of in 1991—stated intention of visiting friend in Morocco.” “That's ten years,” she mused, biting furiously at the quick of her nails.

“She's not here,” she screamed suddenly, “Trudy's not here.”

Peter leapt at her scream, flinging aside the seven-year-old
National Geographic
he'd been scanning.

“Look,” she ordered, her head zipping back and forth in a desperate search for her daughter's likeness. Peter looked.

The constable came up behind them. “It's too soon,” he said, with quiet authority. “It takes at least a month for the photos to be in the
Gazette.
Anyway,” he lightened his tone, “I'm sure we'll have found her by then.”

Finally, after refusing an offer of tea from a grumpily indifferent sergeant, who had made it clear he would be sacrificing some of his own personal supply, they decided to take a walk around the airport. Everywhere she looked Lisa saw Trudy; every girl with long dark hair grabbed her attention; every female face, and some male, had familiar features. And what if she'd disguised herself? What if she'd cut her hair, bleached it, changed style, altered her entire appearance? No one escaped scrutiny without at least a cursory inspection, irrespective of age, size, or colour. The airport lounges were filled with potential Trudies and an embarrassed Peter eventually dragged her, fairly forcibly, away from the busiest areas.

“She won't be here Luv,” he said, firmly taking her arm. “The constable has gone to enquire if there is any more information, I said we'd meet him in the restaurant.”