Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2)

by T. J. Middleton

  When I got back the doorbell was ringing. I hurried into the hall and flung open without thinking.

  ‘Sorry I kept…’

  The words died on my lips. Rump was standing on the doorstep, hat on his head, a little briefcase in his hand. His suit was all rumpled, like he’d slept in it. His eyes were pasty too.

  ‘Adam!’ I said, all friendly. ‘This is a surprise. What brings you this hour?’ He sniffed.

  ‘It’s Detective Inspector this morning I’m afraid, Mr Greenwood. May I come in?’

  12

  ‘Why not?’ I knew why not. I had his prize carp fish thrashing around the pond.

  I led him into the living room. He took his hat off, looked around.

  ‘Not so very different from when I was here last, Mr Greenwood, despite the untoward explosion. Extraordinary, wasn’t it, how little of Police Constable Stone they found.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Quite.’ He moved his hat in his hands. ‘Torvill is still in one piece I see, though I suppose it’s a sad reminder, seeing her dead on the mantelpiece when she should be alive, swimming in water.’ I looked over. Torvill was staring across at the two of us. These last few days I’d hardly given her a thought, and yet it seemed she’d been with me, one way or another for a whole lifetime. I felt guilty neglecting her, guilty too that I had a stolen fish living in her pond. It wasn’t right.

  ‘It’s what fish like her are built for after all,’ Rump was saying, ‘to swim in their natural environment, wherever that may be. Take a fish out of her habitat and what have you got? Galloping depression, Mr Greenwood. Eating issues. Withered fins. They don’t like being moved. But you know that, don’t you?’

  He turned. Through the window he could see the nymph in her T-shirt, Michaela’s hat on her head, flapping in the breeze. From the way the hat was angled, it looked as if she was looking down at what was going on in the pond. He seemed quite excited by it.

  ‘You have company I see.’

  ‘No, that’s just the nymph, you know the one with the bandy knee? Ever since she lost her leg, Carol likes to cover her up. Body issues.’ He looked non-plussed. ‘My daughter,’ I explained, ‘over from Australia, seeing that I get my feet back on the ground. Family eh? Now, is this a social call or…

  He put his hand up, like he was where he should be, directing traffic.

  ‘We have serious matters to discuss Mr Greenwood. Both, I’m afraid, to do with fish.’

  ‘With fish?’

  ‘Precisely so.’ He sat down and unlocked his briefcase, took out a crumpled piece of paper. Somewhere from inside came the smell of stale fishmeal. He ran the paper under his nose, like it was lavender. ‘There’s been a complaint taken out against you, Mr Greenwood. A Mr and Mrs Bowles have alleged that you committed a serious assault against Mr Bowles yesterday afternoon, in a public car park.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Such activity, if it was proved, would I’m afraid violate your parole.’

  ‘But I’m not out on parole. I’ve been pardoned remember.’

  ‘Part of your sentence, Mr Greenwood, was for causing grievous bodily harm on that unfortunate soldier by rubbing curry paste in his eye, though I must admit that there were mitigating circumstances, considering you were under the impression that he’d had a hand in the murder of your two…’ He let his voice trail. ‘Sorry to have to bring that up. However, Mr and Mrs Bowles are quite adamant that this was a wholly unprovoked attack. Apparently you also damaged the interior rear seat of their 1998 Volvo.’

  ‘Unprovoked! He was trying to steal my fish!’ He jerked forward, like he’d be poked in the stomach.

  ‘Your fish? You mean, you’ve re-stocked your pond?’ He looked out the window again.

  ‘No, just done it up a bit that’s all.’ Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. ‘No, my fish sculpture that I’d done. Remember what you said about artists, how they never did any fish? Well, I’m a fish sculptor now, remedying the situation, giving fish their rightful place in the artistic firmament. The first one I do and this Bowles character hops over the fence and nicks it.’

  ‘Hops over the fence and nicks it. That’s a interesting choice of words Mr Greenwood.’ He took out a little notebook, wrote it down.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t help noticing that this alleged assault took place very near where I live. Sometime yesterday afternoon, someone hopped over my fence and nicked my fish. You remember Mother Teresa, Mr Greenwood, my prize Kohaku, formerly known as Mini Ha Ha?’

  ‘You changed her name then?’

  ‘Most certainly I changed her name. A fish of her moral standing could hardly go round with a name synonymous with one of the principal symbols of twentieth century decadence, could she? Perhaps if I’d changed it sooner, she would have been spared this indignity. Still, I suppose, she’s used to suffering. Anyway, yesterday afternoon, someone “hopped over” as you put it and spirited her away, though spirit is not the quite the right word, as it suggests a vanishing trick, a disappearance into this air.’ He laid the notebook on his knee. ‘The thing is, I have it all on film.’

  Everything went very quiet. Film.

  ‘Yes, I can see that surprises you. I had a camera installed behind the Buddha’s eyes. Infrared thingy. Actually it was my wife Michaela’s idea, about the only good one she ever had, apart from leaving me four years ago vowing never to return. She suggested it for purely momentary reasons, being the grasping insensitive creature that she is, while I, of course, was more interested in protecting them from the thieves and extortionists who seem to abound in this part of rural Dorset.’

  He was playing with me, the bastard. Police do that you know, torment their victims with this kind of cat-and-mouse game. I wasn’t going to roll over that easy.

  ‘Funny you should mention that. I was thinking about security for the sculptures. Perhaps you could recommend someone suitable.’ He took no notice.

  ‘It’s all there, in black and white. Well not quite black and white, more a fuzzy green. The truth is, I’m not very good on faces. One human being looks very much like another don’t you think, unlike our fishy friends. I mean put Mother Teresa in a pond with a hundred others and I’d spot her immediately, that saintly look, that stern flip of the tale, suggesting the older mind in the younger body. But there’s a man there no doubt, your height, your build, more or less, hopping over the fence, skipping over to the pond, blackness in his heart. I’ve seen some odd things in my time on CCTV Mr Greenwood, but what he did next, takes the biscuit. Do you know what he did?’ I shook my head.

  ‘Would you like to guess?’ I shook my head again. I was beginning to squirm inside.

  ‘He tipped two giant bars of Toblerone out onto the decking. Why would someone do that?’ He fixed me with a stare. For the first time, he looked, well, like a policemen.

  ‘Why ask me?’

  ‘I’ll tell you why. Because you were married to Audrey Greenwood, who subsequently divorced you and took up with cross-country cycling and other activities my wife, Michaela, who is I understand, still currently residing somewhere in England. Michaela is very fond of Toblerone.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘Very fond. Not only could she swallow one of those miniature ones whole, she also used to drink a cocktail of the same name, a mixture of Kahlua, Frangelico, Baileys, cream, milk, cocoa liqueur and honey. She made me drink it on our honeymoon night, to help me loose my inhibitions, she said. All I lost was my stomach lining.’

  ‘Well honeymoons, they’re nerve-wracking times even for the most experienced of us. I spent most of mine in casualty, did I ever tell you?’ He ploughed on.

  ‘But while she loves Toblerone, my wife also harbours an unnatural hatred of carp and Mother Teresa in particular. She took exception to her poise, her unwavering state of grace, as if I thought more about my fish than I did of her. Which, of course I did eventually, but for clearly understandable reasons.�
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  ‘Ok. So your wife was unbalanced in the fish stakes, a bit like Audrey. Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I think it was you who stole her, and Michaela who helped you. Admittedly the film is very indistinct so I can’t get you on that score. But circumstances lead me to think that this must be the case. You were the last person to see her. You have an empty pond, now restored, you say. I think the fact that Michaela hates my fish, the fact that I tried to lock you up for twenty years for a murder you didn’t commit, might have brought you two together, despite your mutual antipathy. Crime makes strange bedfellows Mr Greenwood. Besides, you were clearly overwhelmed by Mother Teresa’s beauty when you saw her. In some ways I don’t blame you. Where is she? In the pond?’

  He didn’t even wait for an answer, but was down the hall and into the conservatory before I could stop him. The shark brought him up short for a moment, then he saw my second sculpture sitting on the wall. He walked round it, ran his hand down her back. They’re all the same.

  ‘You have a real feeling for them, Mr Greenwood, the silky smoothness, the swell of the belly, the pouting, suggestive lips. If it hadn’t been for this unfortunate incident, I might have commissioned one for my extended water feature. I’m spending quite a bit of money on it at the moment. But you know that, don’t you?’

  He walked down the garden towards the pond. I trotted behind. I saw Michaela’s back door open then bang shut very fast. Perhaps I could lay the blame on her, impress on him how she’d led me astray, point out to him how the suppressed desires a man in prison has to contend with, can be exploited by a devious sex-obsessed harpy like her. The nymph had her back to us, but her head, well it seemed to be turning, like she could hear us coming. If anything she looked more provocative in the T-shirt than she did in the all-together, pert and full of promise. Then he was standing at the water’s edge, me right behind him. He looked around nodding. Show time.

  ‘You’ve made it look very nice Al, I must say. Very nice. If only you hadn’t…’

  He put his hands to his mouth, ready to make the call. I stepped back and with a quick flip of my hand, whipped off the nymph’s t-shirt. There was a sudden flash of water, like the flick of a tail, like a Geisha girl snapping her fan shut, too fast to see, impossible to miss.

  ‘What was that?’ Rump was on to it, eyes darting like a fox. I’d never seen him like this before. He was practically a detective.

  ‘Just the pump working through a small blockage.’ I ventured.

  ‘Pull the other one,’ he said.

  He put his hand to his mouth and called. I put my hand to my mouth, unable to breathe. Not a ripple. He took another lungful and tried again, the call running up and down the water, Still there was nothing, just the sun and the light breeze and the nymph’s two lovelies pointing out over the unbroken water. He called and he called and he called. Hiawatha dancing up and down the banks of wherever it was, couldn’t have done any better. Somewhere under one of my rocks lay Mother Teresa, torn between piscatorial affection and an unwillingness to compromise her integrity. What, as Miss Prosser would say, an unswerving moral compass this fish possessed, even though it was a moral compass I didn’t wholly see eye to eye with. Rump began walking round, getting more and more agitated, more and more desperate by the minute, but it was no use. She wasn’t coming out, not in a million years. She might have been made out of stone, she might have got a bandy leg, but when it came to sheer wanton nakedness, there was no one to touch my nymph. She was one in a million. I patted her bum.

  After about fifteen minutes Rump gave up, looking distinctly sheepish.

  ‘Well?’ I said. ‘Found her yet?’

  He shook his head

  ‘That’s because she’s not here, Inspector. That’s because you put two and two together and made three, Me, Audrey and your wayward missus. That’s because your bitterness against your wife, your feelings of guilt concerning my incarceration and Audrey’s four years of unlicensed sexual freedom have been playing havoc with your head. I know it’s fashionable to think so, but life isn’t all triangles, Inspector, all joined up like one long bar of Toblerone.’

  ‘No. I see that now. It looks like I owe you an apology.’

  ‘Damn right you do. I’ve a good mind to write to the Complaints Commission. Harassment, that’s what this is.’

  I started to walk away. He practically ran after me, pleading, the tables well and truly turned.

  ‘I’d be very grateful if you didn’t. Mr Greenwood. It’s unhinged me, I must admit, losing her. Then when I heard about you and the little contretemps in the car park, yes, I admit it, I did put two and two together and make three. And any doubts I had of course, were set aside when I saw that hat, there.’ He pointed back to it, lying at the nymph’s feet. I went back and picked it up. It wasn’t going back on the nymph, not yet. Actually it wasn’t going back on her ever again. Naked as nature intended that was how my nymph would live the rest of her days. No more hats and – one more time excepted – no more t-shirts.

  ‘What’s this hat got to do with it?’

  ‘His accomplice was wearing something like it.’

  ‘He did have an accomplice then?’ He nodded.

  ‘I talked to a couple on the beach who were there at the time. Apparently there was this woman, waiting on one of those paddle boats. Big white hat like that, big dark glasses, a bit like Audrey Hepburn.’

  ‘They’re quite common, these. If you start accusing everyone who’s got a hat like this, well…’

  ‘I know. I was wrong to jump to conclusions. I feel so bad about this, Al, may I call you Al, questioning your honesty, a fellow carp enthusiast of all people. If there’s any way I can make it up to you.’

  I led him back inside, made him a cup of tea, gave him a biscuit. He sat on the sofa like a limp balloon.

  ‘Just for interest’s sake, have you told anyone else in the force of your suspicions?’

  ‘That’s one of the things that’s unsettled me a bit. You see it’s a bit difficult for me to go to the police.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You are the police.’

  ‘I mean my superiors, my colleagues. The thing is, I was supposed to have been on a training course the last few days. But I called in sick. Said I’d come down with one of those nasty flu things.’

  ‘You were there when it happened?’

  ‘No. I did go to a training course, but not a police one. There was this seminar in Nottingham, advanced koi breeding techniques. Dr Wang was there.’

  He caught my blank expression.

  ‘Dr Wang is the expert in koi reproduction Al. Food, temperature, ambience, they all play their part, just like with us humans, although carp don’t have to bother with unnecessary conversation or love trinkets, flowers, chocolates, that sort of nonsense. According to him, a supplementary daily diet of avocado and watermelon does wonders for male fertility. An intensive two week course produces prodigious amounts of sperm.’

  Sounded interesting.

  ‘Do you know if it works for humans?’ I said. I wasn’t going to force myself on her, but if I played my cards right, I had a potentially heavy weekend ahead of me. He didn’t understand.

  ‘I’ve no idea. But he’s full of insights like that. I met him afterwards. Charming man, even though he is Japanese. He gave me his card. Look.’

  There was this black and white picture staring at you, big bug eyes, blotchy drinker’s skin, lips like a camel with a peanut allergy.

  ‘Ugly looking cove, isn’t he?’ He snatched it back.

  ‘That’s not Dr Wang. That’s his famous scarlet koi, over one hundred and fifty years old, one of the oldest carp in the world. I always thought that Mother Teresa might be a contender in the age stakes, considering her background. Not that I’d live to see it of course. But this kidnapping could change everything.’

  He stared out the window towards the pond again. He was bonkers, but you know what, I felt sorry for the bloke. I might not have Torvill or
Dean any more, but I had Carol now, I had the memories of Miranda, and with a bit of luck I’d soon have Emily. There was a time when I was like him, when I only had my fish, when they were all that I lived for, that and a bit of seasonal blunt end, Weymouth way. It was what drove me to try and push Audrey off a cliff in the first place I guess. I knew what that was like, that empty feeling, like your blood was as cold as theirs, your eyes as unblinking.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ll help you if I can. Perhaps come over one night, look at the film. It happened yesterday you said?’

  ‘The afternoon I think. Around the time you were there. That’s why I thought…’

  ‘Yes, yes. Don’t let’s go into all that again. All I was doing was driving out to have a bit of a paddle with Carol, do a bit of father-daughter bonding. Would have done too if I hadn’t had that run in with…’

  A little thought had crept into my heart. I could feel it, warming the cockles.

  ‘You can do something for me as a matter of fact. Do you have a copy of the Bowles’ complaint on you?’

  ‘I do, but it’s not really done for me to show you.’

  ‘Just this once. You owe me, like you say. One carp lover to another.’

  He burrowed in his briefcase, then handed it over, at least a copy of it. I brushed away the fishmeal. Police Statement 101, made this day July the 23rd, da-da-da by one Frederic Bowles, currently residing in 32 Marbella Avenue, Wool. I didn’t bother to read the rest.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ I said, handing it back, ‘the two could be connected? Your fish and my fish?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ he said.

  ‘Well there’s this couple who’s stole my fish and there’s this same couple riding about in their clapped out Volvo, in the vicinity of your home the exact time that your fish is stolen.’