The Fish Kisser

by James Hawkins

  “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.”

  A polite rap on the door interrupted them and the officer delivering the coffee took the photograph.

  “He’s going to get some copies out to all our men. They’ll make enquiries around the port and the bars. Usual routine. Motsom must be here somewhere.”

  He was wrong. Billy Motsom had left town nearly an hour earlier.

  “Right,” said Superintendent Edwards, clasping his hands together and thrusting them high above his head, “let me explain.” Then, pulling himself upright in the chair he took a deep breath as if preparing to deliver an earth shattering revelation.

  “What we are dealing with is potentially more dangerous than the atomic bomb.” Exactly the same words the Minister of Defence had used to him at a cabinet briefing two weeks earlier. “Let me repeat,” he continued, pulling himself forward in the chair, “potentially more dangerous than the atomic bomb.”

  His arms dropped. He lowered himself back in the seat and his eyes gazed skywards in their sockets, checking his brain to see if he had missed anything. The captain, feeling an answer was expected, if not demanded, could only manage an astonished, “Aaaah.”

  Edwards brought his fingertips together in front of his face, and toyed thoughtfully with the end of his nose. “The fact is, these nine people, together with half a dozen Americans, potentially pose a threat to world peace.”

  The captain was way behind, though catching up. “So you are suggesting, whoever controls these people, whoever’s kidnapped them, could somehow use them to control the world.”

  “Far-fetched, I know, Jost, but precisely. Together they could hold the entire world to ransom. Even a nuclear bomb can only be targeted against one country at a time. Information can destroy the world.”

  The captain slid off the desk back into his chair, then laughed. “You’re crazy.

  Edwards, for once, seemed unconcerned. “I said exactly same thing when they told me, but think about it for a moment, Jost. Do you remember what happened a couple of years ago when half the phone systems in America went on the blink for a few hours?”

  The captain’s face was a blank.

  Edwards continued without awaiting an answer. “Chaos, absolute chaos: Stock markets tumbled; emergency calls went unanswered; banks ground to a halt; transportation systems crashed; air traffic snarled up— took nearly three days to sort out.” He paused, leaned forward and added, conspiratorially, “Not to mention the interruption to inter-governmental communications and defence systems.”

  “Do they know what caused it?” asked the captain, lamely.

  “Publicly they blamed it on a power failure, but,” he lowered his tone to a stage whisper, “the people at the Pentagon have other ideas—a trial run. Somebody accessed the computer system of the telephone company, screwed the whole thing up just to see what would happen.”

  The cap
tain wasn’t convinced and risked Edwards’ ire. “This sounds, how do you say: Off the wall. I don’t believe a few computer people could do that.”

  “The right people could.”

  “But there are security systems.”

  Edwards sat back and dealt an ace. “Twice in the past three months the U.S. National Defence computer has been seriously compromised … Twice,” he added for emphasis.

  “But…” began the captain, losing confidence.

  “And,” continued Edwards without waiting for the captain to finish, “at least two communication satellites have been knocked off course in the past year alone.”

  “Yes, but as I was saying, were any of the missing people involved?”

  “We have no idea. We don’t know where they are or what happened to them.”

  “Inspector Bliss said two were dead,” responded the captain, attempting to weaken the superintendent’s case.

  Edwards slowly sucked in his breath, released it as an explosive “Pah,” and admitted, “We’re not sure now that they are dead.”

  “What about the woman who committed suicide? Bliss said she left a note.”

  His reply was guarded. “That’s true, there was a note …” Edwards hesitated as if holding onto something important, keeping Captain Jahnssen on a leash. “Dogs,” he added mysteriously. “I wasn’t involved in the case but apparently she lived on her own with a couple of Dalmatians and a snappy little terrier of some description. Anyway, it was about two weeks before a neighbour called the police, thought the woman was away on holiday, and when they broke in there wasn’t a lot left.”

  “I’ve seen a couple of cases like that.”

  “At the time nobody questioned it; they cremated the few bits that were left and the dogs were put down.”

  The captain figured out the possibilities. “So you think the woman they ate was a different woman?”

  “It’s possible. The same sort of thing with the bloke that smashed into the train—was it him, or was it some poor sod who had been picked off the streets and stuck into his car wearing his clothes?” He smiled wryly. “He was cremated right away, the train driver went up in flames with him.”

  The captain stuck his forefinger in his left ear, twisted it, and carefully examined the result before enquiring, “How sure are you these cases are linked?”

  “We’re not. In fact until we got a tip about LeClarc a few weeks ago we hadn’t even considered it. But, according to certain people, the biggest threat we face today is global destabilization. Whoever controls the telecommunication and computer networks effectively controls everything: commodity prices, money supply, what we see, what we hear, who talks to whom. Not to mention all our defence and transportation systems.” He warmed to his theme and continued as if he had worked everything out for himself. “You know what happened at the end of the last war?”

  Captain Jahnssen nodded obligingly, but his puzzled expression showed signs of information overload.

  “You know what happened to the German scientists and rocket builders? The Yanks snatched half of them and the Ruskies snatched the rest. Do you think anybody would have got to the moon if it hadn’t been for German scientists? Never.”

  “Yes, I know that, but what has that got to do with this case?”

  Edwards gave him the same look he might have given a ten-year- old school-kid with a snotty nose. “Brains” he shouted. “That’s what it’s all about. You don’t need to control the resources if you control the brains. The brains today are computers, and the way to control them is to control the programmers; they’re the rocket scientists now. Whoever has them is amassing an arsenal more powerful than all the world’s armies put together.” He relaxed slowly into the chair and closed his eyes. “I’ll have that Scotch now,” he said, his mission complete.

  An urgent knock at the door interrupted the momentary peace.

  “Enter!” shouted Edwards—force of habit, forgetting he was a guest.

  “We’ve found Motsom, Sir,” babbled the uniformed officer as he burst into the room flourishing the photograph. He spoke English, but his eyes flicked back and forth between the two men, unsure which of the senior officers he should be addressing.

  “Where?” they both questioned at the same time.

  The officer, a tall young man in a smartly pressed uniform, continued in Dutch until the captain stopped him with the command, “English.”

  He switched immediately. “The barman at the Rhine Tavern recognized him from the photograph. He’s been there all afternoon.”

  “Is he still there?” asked the captain, taking the photograph and examining it with interest.

  The officer’s face fell a little. “He left about seven o’clock. But the barman remembered the car—a black Saab. I’ve put the description out to all forces. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Let’s eat Michael,” said the captain, seizing the opportunity, “and I can explain what we are doing.”

  chapter eight

  “GIVE ME A DRINK,” demanded Trudy, her bloodied fingers taking more than two minutes to select the correct letters from the dyslexic jumble on the keyboard. Another bout of coughing doubled her over and left her gasping for breath. The rancid air had rasped her throat for more than a week, but at least it had been freshened a couple of times a day when Roger visited. Now, for nearly thirty -six hours, she had breathed the same stale air, supplemented only by what she could laboriously suck through the keyhole. The constant effort of sucking was itself painful as her swollen and cracked lips kissed the cold metal escutcheon. Yet, she instinctively knew stopping would mean certain death.

  “WATERS GONE,” she added slowly on the next line, without troubling the apostrophe key.

  Roger had left plenty of water, but she had used it more to ease her pain and discomfort than to quench her thirst; splashing it liberally onto her face to cool sore lips and flush away salty tears; bathing blistered and bloody hands; washing herself after peeing. Following her abortive and painful efforts to escape, it had been too much effort to use the bucket. In any case, the only time she was really aware of wetting herself was when the acidic fluid ran down her legs, aggravating the cuts and sores on her knees. An entire bottle of water had been used to rinse out her knickers the first time she failed to reach the bucket. Too wet to wear, she had draped them over the computer where she hoped the warmth would dry them. Without underwear, the wet, course, denim of her new skirt rasped the tender flesh of her behind with every movement.

  “MY BOTTOM HURTS, MUMMY,” she typed, with the tears of a toddler suffering diaper rash. Crying again she decided it was time to go, slithered to the floor, and let her lungs drag her back to the life-sustaining hole in the door.

  Superintendent Michael Edwards and Captain Jost Jahnssen dined alone in the imposing staff room, the highly polished floor and oak panelled walls acting as a sounding board. Almost everything in the room remained the same as it had been when the original owners left, hurriedly, in 1944. Only the chairs and language had changed. The Senior Officer’s Mess, as it had been, would have been instantly recognizable to any of the German soldiers stationed there at that time. Indeed, several had returned over the years, greeted politely as guests, though never as friends, by the new inhabitants of their barracks on the hill overlooking the port.

  Superintendent Edwards salivated over the menu. Twenty-five years experience of British police canteens had never yielded Coquilles St. Jacques Ostendaise or Rognons de Veau en croute avec sauce Bordelaise. Greasy fish and chips or liver and onions with mash was as close as they’d come.

  The captain caught the look of astonishment. “It is from the restaurant next door.”

  Edwards relaxed and lied, “I guessed it was.” Then he settled on the fish and chips masquerading as Filet de Sole (au Mer du Nord), Meunière avec Pommes frit.

  “Let me tell you what we have done,” began the captain, their dinner orders taken by a surly filing clerk with a ring in her nose and a hairstyle from
hell, making no pretence of being a waitress. “We’ve interviewed King, he will say nothing. We will keep him overnight then take him before a magistrate tomorrow on charges of murder and stealing a car.”

  Edwards’ head jerked up. “Murder?”

  “Well. That’s how it looks at the moment. If he didn’t push LeClarc over the side why was he driving his car?”

  “Good point,” replied Edwards, “What do we know about King?”

  “He say’s he is a private detective but can’t prove it. He didn’t have a car on board and we have not found any of his belongings. There was no cabin booked in his name but we think he was travelling with Motsom.” Reminded of Motsom, the captain retrieved the photograph from his file and studied it for a second. “I think this man is the key to the case, Michael; what can you tell me about him?”

  Edwards sifted through his papers and came up with a single sheet. “Born 1955, Birmingham, England. William John Motsom, alias Billy. 5’11”, brown hair, brown eyes, muscular build.” He glanced up. “This was ten years ago Jost, he might have gone flabby since then.” He returned to the page. “Right ear-lobe missing,” then pulled a face, “Tattoo: naked woman on left forearm.” What is it with villains and tattoos of naked women? he thought to himself.

  Scanning the page, he skipped to the pre-cons section. “A few juvenile convictions: possession of weapons, robbery,” then mumbled, “that’s interesting.”

  “What?”

  “He was interviewed in relation to one of the missing computer people. The one who disappeared on his bicycle. Motsom’s car was seen in the area that day.” He flipped the paper over, the blank side stared at him. “It doesn’t say what happened, just that he was interviewed. I’ll get someone to look into that. Now what’s happening with LeClarc.”

  “We’ve asked shipping to look out for the body, but the fog’s quite thick I understand,” said the captain, splashing another shot of whisky into each of their glasses.

  “I got the forecast before I left England. There’s a fog warning in the North Sea for at least twenty-four hours. Maybe longer.”