The Fish Kisser (6 page)

“Well, I'd appreciate your assistance to be honest. Huh … I didn't catch your name?”

“Bliss, Sir. Detective Inspector David Bliss. Serious Crime Squad.”

His warrant card, produced from a black leather pouch, was brushed aside. “Fine, you go ahead. Oh, you'd probably like to start with the guy who saw him go over. I'd appreciate your opinion to be honest. He seems a bit vague.”

The chief officer led D.I. Bliss to the Officer's ward-room and found Nosmo King cleaning the gaps in his teeth with a fingernail.

“Mr. King tells me he used to be a policeman. Isn't that right, Sir?” said the officer with a condescending tone, leaving King squirming as uncomfortably as a patient with dirty underwear in a doctor's waiting room, and wishing he'd found some other way to stop the ship—sabotage perhaps? He started to rise, but Bliss waved him down. “What force?”

“Thames Valley, but only for awhile—Oxford.”

Bliss pulled up a chair and reminisced, “I did a course once with a bloke from Oxford …” then cut himself short. “Tell me what happened, what you saw, Sir,” he said, the policeman in him taking command.

King's account, now well practised, omitted only one detail; his meeting with Motsom in the bar following Roger's disappearance, before the fiasco with the life raft and his brush with catering assistant Jacobs.

“So where were you before you went on deck?” asked Bliss, unaware of the timing of events, recognizing King as one of the men in the bar.

“Just wandering around really. Here and there, you know.”

“In the bar?” asked Bliss, his tone offering no clue as to the correct response.

“No,” he shot back, much too quickly, much too aggressively. Instantly regretting the boldness of his statement, he tried to soften the punch. “I don't think so … I don't think I was in the bar … but,” he added, covering all his bases, “I suppose I might have popped in at sometime.”

Bliss, confounded, couldn't fathom a reason for King's wavering, or why he would lie—unless it
had
been a lover's tiff and King was embarrassed. “Funny,” he said, “I could've sworn I saw you in there with another bloke.”

Perspiration reappeared on King's upper lip, his mouth dried, and his legs crossed themselves without any conscious thought on his part. “You … you must be mistaken,” he choked, but as he said it, his right hand flew toward his mouth, attempting to gag the lie. Realising what was happening, King consciously diverted his hand, giving his ear an unnecessary tweak.

Gotcha! thought Bliss, recognizing the tell-tale gestures of a liar, and pressed his advantage, asking again about the bar. King eventually conceded he'd been in the bar just before he went on deck to throw the life raft. “I forgot,” he added lamely, “what with all the commotion—the bloke falling overboard and all.”

“And the other man?” continued Bliss, pushing King into a tight spot.

“No one … a stranger.”

“Didn't look like a stranger to me.”

King took a few seconds, his mind racing, then came out with a rambling explanation, putting Motsom down as a quidam he'd mistaken as an old school chum. Their “tiff,” he claimed, had been nothing more than a heated denial by the other man, annoyed at being disturbed.

Entering the SS
Rotterdam's
bridge twenty minutes later, Bliss walked into the same black wall that startles everyone the first time they visit a ship's wheelhouse at night. The captain spotted him immediately and beckoned, unseen, in the darkness. “Ah, Inspector, if you'd like to come over here, I'm about twenty feet to your right.”

Bliss turned, started walking, shuffling each foot forward a few inches at a time.

“Mind the …”

The warning came too late. He'd collided with a slender pole then reddened as a giggle ran round the bridge. Thank God it's dark, he thought as he side-stepped the pole and continued blindly, but his eyes gradually brought fuzzy shapes into view until he made out the pale sphere of the captain's face.

“Well, what do you make of our Mr. King?” asked a set of teeth, glowing like the Cheshire cat's grin.

“I'm not sure, Captain, to be honest. Although the good news from my point of view is that the man over-board isn't my man—at least I'm pretty sure it isn't.”

“How do you know?”

“It's a question of timing, Sir,” replied Bliss recalling his interview of King. “I don't know why he's lying, but I can vouch for the fact he was with someone in the bar for at least two minutes before he went on deck and saw the guy jump, or fall … Anyway, that pretty well lets my man out. It must've been someone else,” he concluded. “Assuming King hasn't made the whole thing up.”

“Whoever it is,” the captain responded, “I don't fancy his chances. Thirty minutes in this water is about all anyone can take. It's been well over an hour now.”

The chief officer, with an ear to the conversation, was anxious to continue the voyage. It would be his job, along with the purser, to deal with the complaints of passengers angry at missed train connections and delayed business meetings. “Should we call it off, Captain?” he asked, hopefully.

“We'll give it another fifteen minutes, Chief. One last sweep, and then we'll just pray no one's missing when we dock.”

Fifteen minutes later, the SS
Rotterdam
resumed her voyage and the pale glow of the sun, still far below the eastern horizon, started to lighten the sky, but no sun would shine that day, or the following two days—not on that part of the North Sea. The storm headed north, its sights set on the offshore oilfields and the coast of Norway, leaving in its wake a large bank of cloud, and a confused and jumbled sea. Roger unconsciously rode his inflated chariot, like a thrill-seeker on an inner tube behind a speedboat, face down, arms flung forward grasping the rope. He was on the canvas roof, his great weight forcing it down. Beneath him the raft was full of water, and had he scrambled inside, he would certainly have drowned.

He stirred, briefly, long enough to assess his predicament. Fearing he might tumble off, he gathered together several ropes and lashed himself into position as firmly as his frozen fingers would allow. Now, feeling safer, he let exhaustion take over, started to doze, and began thinking of his other life, the one he'd left behind just four hours earlier, wondering if he would ever
return. He thought of his the little green Renault, his beloved computer, and the house. His house. The little terraced house on Junction Road, in Watford; that would really send his mother crazy if she ever found out. He'd forgotten all about the house.

And then he thought of Trudy.

“Oh my God,” he screamed, suddenly wide awake. “What will happen to Trudy?”

A strident, demanding tone of a car alarm was echoing along Junction Road, Watford; the noise coming from an old Volvo abandoned on a patch of wasteland where number 33 had stood until a bomb had blasted the two-up and two-down terraced house to smithereens in 1940, at the height of the Blitz. The owners had never rebuilt. A volunteer fireman had found their mangled remains—still sheltering in the cupboard under the solid wooden stairs in strict accordance with the Ministry of Defence
Air Raid Manual.
But what to do if a direct hit collapsed the staircase on top of you? “Pray. And be damn quick about it,” was the only advice the fireman had to offer a scared sorrowful neighbour: a thirty-year-old housewife wearing the wartime cares of a fifty-year-old in her mother's polka-dot pinafore dress, with her prematurely greying hair pushed up under an old beret. “That's all you can do m'luv if they drop one right on top of yer,” he said. “Put your hands over yer ears and pray.”

The dead couple's nearest relative, a son packed off to his aunt in Australia—”For the duration,” in the jargon of the day—had intended to return home one day to sell the land, or even rebuild the house as a tribute to his parents. Now he was too old to bother, and too rich to care.

It was only 3:30 a.m. in Watford, a full time zone to the west of the SS
Rotterdam,
and the rising sun was still an hour shy of trying to brighten up Junction Road, with its tarnished terraces of turn-of-the-century red brick houses.

Finally, fed up with the constant whining of the car's alarm, Mrs. Ramchuran, at number 70, slipped a dressing gown over her silk pyjamas, tied on a scarf, and stepped into the chilly pre-dawn air. With uncanny timing, her next door neighbour, the “guardian” of Junction Road, readied himself with an arsenal of advice for the offender and snapped open his door.

“Is that your's, Mr. Mitchell?” his neighbour enquired, nodding to the Jaguar.

Caught off-balance, he laughed, and even his laughter had a clipped cockney ring. “Bugger off, will you. Nah, I've not seen it afore. 'T'aint anyone's round here.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Nah, waste of bloody time. They can't be boverred with this. Anyhow, they've got more important fings to do.”

Mrs. Ramchuran wondered, aloud, if either of the residents on the other side of the road, closest to the noise, had phoned the police.

“Doubt it,” said Mr. Mitchell, an elderly widower who could have turned his knowledge of the street into an entire category of
Trivial Pursuit.
“There's no one in at 34, and old daft Jack at 35 would never hear anyfing. He's as bloomin' deaf as a post.”

The alarm stopped, mid-sound, as if an unseen hand had wrenched off the battery. Mrs. Ramchuran was startled by the sudden silence. “Oh,” she gave a tiny jump. “Thank God for that.”

Mr. Mitchell, George to his friends at the British Legion, was uncharacteristically wrong about his neighbours—there was someone in at number 34. Trudy was there, Roger's Trudy. She'd been there nearly a week, although George had not seen her and, as he and Mrs. Ramchuran went back to their beds, hoping the noise would not recur, Trudy was lying in bed, Roger's bed wondering where Roger was and what he was doing.

“I'll only be away for a couple of days, Love,” Roger had said the previous evening, “I'll miss you, Trude.”

Sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, sorting through computer discs, choosing those that might come in handy as he prepared for his Dutch trip, he repeated, tenderly, “I'll miss you.”

She didn't reply.

“I'm sorry … I know you hate being on your own but I don't have any choice,” he continued, still shuffling discs. “The company says I have to go. I wish you could come with me though. Maybe next time, eh? When you're feeling better.”

She nodded slowly. Her sad young eyes pleading, “Take me … Don't leave me here alone.” But she could not ask.

“I'll be back Friday,” he explained, as he packed selected discs into an old brown briefcase.

She'd been alone before—most days—with Roger at work in the city. But this wasn't just another day at the office; this would be three days and two nights—it would seem like a week, or a month.

She projected a silent plea to the back of his head, but her thoughts failed to sink in, and he continued,
“I'm getting the ferry to Holland tonight. That'll get me there tomorrow morning about seven …” Pausing to examine the label on one of the discs his brow furrowed in concentration, then he blew down his nose. “Hum … What do you think, Trude?” he asked, showing her the disc. “Do you think I should take this?”

She looked away, fraught with fear—every young partner's fear: fear of abandonment, fear of someone else—someone prettier, sexier, more exciting, more willing, perhaps; fear he might never return.

“Don't go—please don't go,” she willed inwardly, knowing she could not ask.

“I'll have plenty of time to drive to The Hague,” he continued, unaware of her desperation. “I don't have to be there until eleven. My speech is at two. Then I'll get the ship back tomorrow night and, bingo, I'll be back before you've even missed me.”

As if suddenly aware of Trudy's needs, Roger paused in his task, brought his face close to hers and ran his fingers across her cheek. Perfect, he thought, absolutely perfect, as he sensed the softness of her fresh, young skin, then stroked her long dark hair and exposed a delicate ear. He loved her ears, adored them—could play with them for hours, gently stroking, teasing, and squeezing, as he controlled his computer with his other hand. But now, as he bent to kiss her ear, she twitched, like a horse bothered by a fly and lashed his face with her ponytail. He shrugged off the rejection and turned back to sorting his computer discs. “It's exiting isn't it,” he said, meaning his trip, the tone of his voice matching his words. “Are you excited, Trude?”

She nodded again, but her dark brown eyes swelled with tears.

Roger packed the last of the discs, gave Trudy a triumphal glance, then turned back to his computer—more
important things on his mind. Behind him, Trudy's silent tears kept flowing, glistening droplets trickling down her cheeks, congregating into little puddles on the wide band of foul-tasting sticky tape plastered over her mouth.

Trudy, now wide awake, felt disembodied—her thoughts hovering in mid-air, refusing to be part of the carnage that lay below her on the filthy bed—wondering what had hit her, and how she'd been stupid enough to get in the way. Beneath her, the bruised and bleeding body was in agony; hands and arms the worst: Blood and pus oozed from a huge blister on the side of her fist where she'd pounded against the rough brick walls; her shoulders and upper arms were blue from being repeatedly slammed against the solid wooden door—a living battering ram which had rebounded as readily as a tennis ball off concrete—and the wreckage of her nails, used as screwdrivers on the door hinges, stung constantly. But, at least Roger had left her unbound and had even pulled off the tape—once she'd promised not to scream for help or try to escape.