The Fish Kisser

by James Hawkins

  A profound change in engine noise signalled a transformation of landscape. “We are coming into the city,” declared Van der Zalm, hearing the exhaust reverberating off houses and walls. Wilson had just picked up the radio to tell the car driver to start closing the gap when the truck driver suddenly slammed on his brakes. Without warning, tires squealing in protest and bouncing off the road, the trailer slowed rapidly, shimmying from side to side as if trying to overtake the cab. The radio flew out of Wilson’s hand and Smythe looked up just in time—the pallet of boxes behind them was being forced over by its own momentum. He shouted a warning as he leapt to his feet and began pushing against the stack with all his weight. The others scrambled to their feet and together they held it, not upright but straight enough to stop it falling.

  “What the hell is he playing at?” shouted Smythe as the trailer ground to a halt and they were surrounded by an unexpected calm. The total silence, and almost tangible stillness, contrasted so sharply with the noisy motion of a few seconds earlier that the three occupants were temporarily stunned. Then Wilson thrashed his way past the boxes to get to a spy hole in the side of the truck. “We’re at a junction,” he called to the others still holding onto the stack. “I can see the traffic lights.” The lights changed, nothing happened. “Call the car,” he shouted. “See if they know what’s going on.”

  Van der Zalm had an animated discussion, in Dutch, on the radio, then turned to Smythe. “We’re completely blocking a main intersection. They don’t know what to do. They can’t drive by and they can’t see the cab.”

  “Shit,” shouted Wilson, angry at their lack of initiative. “Tell one of them to get out and see what the driver’s doing.”

  Almost a minute later the back doors rattled as the giant bolt slid back. A familiar face peered in. “The driver’s run away,” said the officer.

  Wilson leapt out and took control. “He can’t have got far. Split up and get after him. You,” he pointed to Van der Zalm, “get on the radio and ask for assistance.” He looked around—tall apartment buildings clustered at each corner of the junction; a dozen alleyways and driveways radiated in all directions. A plaza of six stores at the foot of one apartment block had attracted a small group of people and he ran toward them in the hope they had seen something. The other officers fanned out without any thought of organizing a proper search.

  Wilson reached the group to find a hostile alliance of prostitutes and junkies congregating outside an allnight pharmacy, seeking a snort or a shot from a legal addict. None admitted being able to speak English apart from one woman wearing an indecently short skirt over a seam-splitting backside. “You wanna good time big boy?”

  A cacophony of shrill sirens splintered the group and within minutes a dozen or more officers were milling around the truck. The junction was completely blocked, the driver had taken the keys and even locked the doors to make the task of clearing the obstruction as difficult as possible.

  “I guess this means Edwards will send us back on the next ship,” Wilson said to Smythe with a broad grin.

  Two hours later, the search abandoned but the truck still firmly in place, the six officers returned to the police station and reported to the captain in the control room.

  “Where’s the super?” enquired Smythe, who had been psyching himself up to expect a major meltdown.

  “Gone to bed,” replied the captain. “He’s had a bit of an accident.”

  “Nothing trivial I hope,” muttered Wilson.

  “You may as well get some sleep,” he said, equally grateful for Edwards’ absence. “I am sure he will want to see you in the morning.”

  chapter nine

  Billy Motsom placed himself squarely next to the skipper in the smelly wheelhouse of the herring trawler. No other boats were moving as they slipped out of the harbour at first light and headed slowly along the river toward the sea. The ancient skipper, as short and stocky as his boat, sporting an obligatory beard and embroidered peak cap, was adding to the fog with his pipe. The scented tobacco smoke hung listlessly about him in the still air, creating his own personal cloud of fragrant smog, which followed everywhere

  “Bad veather,” he spluttered for the nth time, and gave three short coughs as he did at the end of almost every sentence.

  “You got your money,” replied Motsom tersely, not eager to recall he had already paid ten thousand dollars and had promised a further ten if they found LeClarc alive.

  “I know you vant to find your brother Mr. LeClarc, but it will be difficult in this fog.”

  Motsom managed to look crestfallen, although the skipper could hardly have noticed in the poor light. “We must find him—his poor wife and children …” His voice, dripping with anxiety, trailed off, and the merest suggestion of a tear appearing in his right eye was swiped away with the exaggerated brush of a hand.

  The anchor-chain capstan, on the forepeak below the wheelhouse drifted momentarily into view as the fog thinned a fraction, then disappeared again just as fast. The bow of the vessel remained permanently out of sight, the other side of the murky wall into which they continually pushed. With dawn, just a hint of daylight had seeped through the gloom and changed the black of night to the smoky grey of day. Only the booming foghorns penetrated the thick fog. Their sonorous tones, muffled further by the water-laden atmosphere, came from all directions at the same time. Some from ships, others from lighthouses, and some from navigation buoys along the waterway.

  Stretching above his head, the skipper pulled a switch and the foghorn on the roof of the wheelhouse rumbled through the entire boat. Motsom reached up and flicked it off. “Too noisy,” he said, his tone daring the skipper to challenge him. Concern and anger met in the skipper’s eyes, but he said nothing, quickly turning his attention to the radar screen. The x-ray vision of the radar saw through the fog, mapped out the river-banks and marker buoys, and occasionally a large blip indicated a ship at anchor. Rows of little blips showed the location of a string of trawlers and pleasure craft firmly tethered to moorings, their skippers too wise to venture into the murk.

  The marine radio, humming quietly to itself on a shelf above the console, suddenly buzzed with the crackly voice of a coastguard. The skipper reached for his microphone to respond—Motsom seized the arm, “What are you doing?”

  “They vant to know why we are going out in this veather.”

  “Leave it,” he commanded, relaxing his grip.

  The skipper pushed his hand forward. “I must answer.”

  “Why?” Motsom’s grip hardened again.

  The radio cut in, the voice insistent.

  Glancing at Motsom the skipper jerked his arm free and reached for the microphone. “It’s the coastguard. They vant to know the boat’s name. They see us on radar.”

  Motsom smacked the arm away. “I said, leave it.”

  Deep concern spread over the skipper’s face as the atmosphere between the two men darkened, gloomier even than the surrounding fog. “I have to answer,” he said. “They will send a boat to stop us.”

  “In this weather,” said Motsom,” I don’t think so. We’ll take the risk.”

  Making up his mind, the old skipper grabbed the microphone and said two words before a single bullet ripped clean through the radio, embedding itself deep into the solid woodwork of the wheelhouse.

  In panic, the skipper spun the wheel and the trawler’s invisible nose veered shoreward as the vessel leaned on its beam.

  “Straighten up,” yelled Motsom, the muzzle of his gun in the skipper’s back and the gnarled, scarred hands gripped the wheel to a stop, then swung it back the other way. The small boat gradually hauled itself upright as the rhythmic puttering of the old diesel engine shook it from end to end, and dirty black smoke poured out of the chimney to mingle unseen with the fog.

  The muffled crack of the pistol shot penetrated the thick wooden deck timbers and alerted the only crewmember—Willem, the seventeen-year-old tidying ropes on the aft deck. Only three weeks at sea—s
till green, still finding his sea legs—he was drawn to the wheelhouse to report the noise and was surprised, alarmed even, to discover it locked.

  “What do you want?” the skipper shouted in Dutch, his voice hardly audible through the thick wooden walls and armoured glass, and his face barely visible in the gloomy light. Motsom slipped the gun back in his pocket and said, threateningly, “Tell him to go away.”

  The skipper started in Dutch, but Motsom stopped him with a hand gesture and commanded, “Speak English.”

  He started again, shouting this time, “Everything’s O.K. Go and make some coffee.”

  Willem’s young face clouded as he clambered down the short ladder into the tiny cabin. The two occupants, Motsom’s compatriots, glowered intimidatingly at him, and he bustled around uneasily occupying himself with the kettle and stove.

  The local news headlines the evening before had carried the story of the ferry’s missing passenger and it was quite understandable, he thought, that the man’s brother and two friends would be prepared to hire a boat to try and find him. Motsom, masquerading as Roger LeClarc’s brother, had gone straight to the wheelhouse to chart a plan of action, but Willem had watched with misgiving as the other two cased the boat: Peering into the fish hold, delving under the tarpaulin covering the dinghy on deck, lifting the hatch on the tiny engine compartment.

  “Coffee?” Willem enquired as pleasantly as his taut face would permit, showing the container. Both shook their heads.

  “Rather have a scotch. This stink’s making me fuckin’ sick,” snarled Jack Boyd, the taller of the two, a man in his mid-fifties who might have blended at a criminal lawyer’s convention, though the dark stain of stubble shadowing his long chin and his gritty diction would have put him on the defence bench.

  “Haven’a got any,” replied the other, his speech heavy with a rough Glasgow accent.

  “You’ve never got fuck-all.”

  Willem felt the eyes of the two men boring into him as he made the coffee. The water took forever to boil on the single propane burner with its dancing blue flames, but a sense of normality and consolation returned with the pleasant aroma rising from the percolating grounds. Thankful when it was ready, he climbed from the claustrophobic cabin juggling three stained cups, a coffee pot, and a metal jug of milk. The heavy wooden wheel-house door was still locked so he gave It a vicious kick. The skipper looked at Motsom questioningly.

  “Open it,” he ordered, tapping his gun pocket. “And no funny business.”

  Keeping one hand firmly on the wheel the skipper reached over, unlatched the door, and drew Willem in without speaking.

  The skipper’s uncharacteristic coldness immediately caught the youngster’s attention. The old man was usually so chatty, more like a good mate than someone old enough to be his grandfather: Football, the Spice Girls, and a new movie could often keep them going to the fishing grounds, and the old man wasn’t beyond recounting hair-raising tales of long past sexual encounters or wartime exploits when he’d smuggled the odd allied serviceman to a rendezvous with an MTB off the coast under the German’s guns. Now his worried eyes flicked nervously back and forth, ever watchful of Motsom’s hands, and he said nothing to his young assistant.

  “Where shall I put it?” he asked the old man in Dutch, and the skipper caught a rebuke from Motsom as he started to respond.

  “English.”

  “He doesn’t speak much English,” he lied, glancing repeatedly at the smashed radio in the hope the boy would notice.

  “Don’t say anything then.”

  “I must tell him to check the engine, if that’s alright.”

  “O.K. but no tricks.”

  The skipper spoke, leaving Motsom in the dark, but the boy left with a cracked smile, apparently satisfied.

  “Are there any other radios?” asked Motsom as soon as the boy had gone.

  “No. None at all.”

  A red navigation buoy the height of a house suddenly loomed alongside the wheelhouse, coming sharply into view and then disappearing in an instant as the tide and engine swept them past. The skipper yanked hard on the wheel, cursing himself for taking his eyes off the radar.

  “What was that?” asked Motsom, unaware of their brush with disaster.

  “The channel marker. We are now in the sea.”

  Motsom pulled his gun. “Keep straight and don’t try anything—I’ll be just outside.”

  Sidling out of the wheelhouse door, his eyes and the gun focussing hard on the skipper, he shouted, “McCrae. Where are you, you Scots git?” but his free hand remained grasping the wheelhouse door, ensuring the skipper couldn’t slam it shut behind him.

  “Here Billy,” said the shadow of a head popping up almost at his feet. “What’s up?”

  “Where’s the boy?” he demanded urgently.

  “Don’t know. He made some coffee …”

  Motsom cut him off. “Find him and stick with him. Be nasty if you have to. They know something’s going on so he might try to be clever.”

  Motsom slid back into the wheelhouse, never having completely left. “O.K. Captain. Let’s get going,”

  The skipper looked confused. Motsom realized that he did not understand. “Hurry up,” he insisted, his right hand whizzing around and around like a windmill, the gun twirling dangerously on his fingers. “Go fast.”

  “I can’t,” replied the skipper nervously. “It is impossible. I can’t see.”

  “Use the radar. That’s what it’s for.”

  “We might hit something.”

  “I’ll risk it. Now get going. Full speed ahead, or whatever you say.”

  “But where are we going?”

  “Like I told you. Follow the ferry route to England.” Then he pointed the gun directly at the skipper’s head and continued, menacingly, “You have ten seconds to speed up. One … two … three …”

  The old skipper leaned on the throttle and the vessel lunged for the open sea. An instant later the door was whipped open and McCrae dragged a simpering Willem into the wheelhouse, throwing him to the floor at Motsom’s feet.

  “Got a fuckin’ radio.”

  “Where?”

  “In the lifeboat on deck. Sending a message.”

  The skipper screwed his pipe into his mouth and sucked fiercely to stifle a smile.

  Motsom swung on the boy and pressed the muzzle to his temple. “What did you say?”

  The skipper answered for him, his eyes glued firmly ahead into the fog, “He doesn’t speak English. I told you.”

  “Take him below and tie him up,” shouted Motsom waving his gun at the figure on the floor, “I’ll deal with him later.” Then he turned on the skipper with a malevolent sneer, “You had better pray he didn’t say nothing.”

  As the last echoes of land slipped slowly off the edge of the radar, the trawler, engine at barely half throttle, headed due west out into the smooth waters of the North Sea—a journey it had made several thousand times in search of herrings, but never before in search of a lonely, cold man on a life raft.

  chapter ten

  Ashrill buzz pierced its way into Yolanda’s sleep and stung her sluggish limbs into action. Fighting her way through the duvet she came close to identifying the source of the noise when it stopped, and she sank back toward sleep, hoping it had been part of a dream, knowing it was not. A second buzz brought a slender arm, snake-like, groping for the phone, and she seized the handset and dragged it under the duvet. “Hello.”

  Two minutes later she slipped out of bed, replaced the handset on its cradle, flicked on the bedside lamp, and stretched naked in front of an expensively framed full-length mirror—a masterpiece in glass. What a mess, she thought, horrified at her sleep-tousled hair and yesterday’s face. Shower first, she decided, but changed her mind. I’d better wake Dave. Captain Jahnssen had sounded unusually agitated on the phone, “Get Detective Bliss here right away—Edwards wants him.”

  The bathroom’s fluorescent light was less forgiving than the bedside la
mp and one glance in the harsh mirror convinced her to make hurried repairs before waking him.

  “Dave,” she whispered, but thirty-six hours of high tension needed more than one night’s recuperation, and she stood quietly, studying the sleeping face in the half-light, listening to the peaceful song of his gentle breathing. She bent closer. “Dave,” she cooed, watching for movement in the laughter lines etched into the side of his face; listening for a change in his breathing. His fair skin showed the shadow of a beard in the dim light, and the crooked nose, seemingly at odds with an otherwise symmetrical face, tempted her to reach out and smooth it straight.

  “Dave,” she tried, a touch louder and smiled, amused by the thought of this man sleeping in her guest room. “Dave,” she called, then leaned in and brushed her mouth lightly against his. The tip of his tongue darted out to run along his lips.

  “Dave,” she sang, laughingly, in his ear.

  His eyes opened slowly. “Ah—hah.”

  She moved away a fraction so he could see her. “Dave, you have to get up. Superintendent Edwards wants to see you.”

  “Shit,” he shouted, then, looking up into her face in the soft dawn light found an angel. “I must get up,” he said, hoping to break the spell and was half out of the bed before realizing he was nearly naked and, looking down, found a morning swell beneath the bedclothes. One inch further and she may have seen everything.

  “Here, have mine,” she said, turning from him to slip the dressing gown off her shoulders, and he watched, mesmerized by the two humps of her buttocks wriggling beneath her filmy nightgown as she made her way out. Peeping provocatively from around the door, her body now hidden from view, she joked, “It’ll look better on you than me.” Then she was gone.

  Fifteen minutes later, wide awake, showered, dressed in his own clothes—found neatly folded on an antique dressing table—he entered the cathedral-sized living room, its movie-screen sized window staring out over the ocean. Drawn inquisitively to the window, he swiped his hand across the glass to clear the condensation then stopped, feeling foolish, realizing the moisture was on the outside where the impenetrable fog was blotting out both sea and sky. His movements caught her attention. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she shouted from her bedroom. “The coffee’s hot. Get it yourself.”