chapter six
“Ze captain has called a meeting in twenty minutes at the port.” Yolanda glanced at her watch. “At two-thirty.”
Detective Inspector David Bliss followed her gaze and his eyes popped: chunky gold—inlaid with rubies and diamonds. “Carder,” he mused, praying she’d not noticed his Timex.
“It’s still only one-thirty in England,” he mumbled, more to himself than her, his battered old watch still behind the time. “God. No wonder I’m tired I’ve been up since six o’clock yesterday morning, that’s …” his eyes closed in concentration, “that’s more than thirty hours.”
“The ship’s gone,” she said, confirming the obvious, as they drove down the narrow cobblestone street, overlooking the port, a short while later.
“Nice leather,” he muttered, sliding his hand over the BMW’s white doeskin seat squab.
“A bit foggy,” she replied.
He let her misunderstanding pass with a smile and scanned seaward, looking out over the salt marsh to the wide estuary. But the SS Rotterdam had already dissolved into the thick moisture laden air.
The cobbled street was almost deserted, as were the three bars, which they passed just before the rail tracks. “Heineken, Carlsberg, and Royal Dutch,” proclaimed their towering signs without need of further explanation. On any normal day each bar would have been packed with its supporters. But today was abnormal. Although the hubbub of the ship’s departure had died, groups of disgruntled workers were still gathered on the damp quayside awaiting further instructions. Rumours had spread from one group to the next that every truck and container off the ship would have to be unpacked and physically searched. Carefully circumnavigating deep pools from the night’s storm, Yolanda parked on the edge of a large gravelled area amongst clumps of spiky sea-grass, polystyrene cups, and cola cans. Driftwood signposts, eaten by wind and wave, warned of the tide’s upper reach.
“Zis is an old castle,” announced Yolanda, indicating a heavily fortified beachside bunker. “The meeting is here.”
Captain Jahnssen was waiting for them. “Detective Bliss,” he called excitedly. “We’ve got Motsom’s car.”
“What about Motsom?”
“He can’t be far away,” he replied, sheepishly dusting off his shoes with a handkerchief, knowing that one of his officers had been sitting on the information for an hour in the hope of catching Motsom single-handed. “We will soon have him caught.” added Jahnssen with more confidence. “We have detectives watching him now … This was built by the Germans in the first war,” he went on, segueing conveniently to a more comfortable subject as his right hand swept around the concrete blockhouses.
“Impressive,” agreed Bliss, pointedly checking his watch, anxious to move on; anxious to start a proper search for LeClarc; anxious to have some answers for the dreadful Edwards on his arrival at six.
“This is the outer defences, where the guns were,” Yolanda explained as they reached the seaward side. “Look,” she instructed, pointing to horizontal slits where gun barrels had once dominated the Rhine estuary.
“The wall’s three meters thick …” Captain Jahnssen started, when Bliss headed him off.
“Captain—the meeting … shouldn’t we …” Then the voice of a junior officer came to his aid, calling insistently that everyone was assembled and waiting.
“Thank God,” sighed Bliss, eager to have the investigation in full swing ahead of Edwards’ arrival. They were ushered into the armoury, which had been transformed into a modern conference room. A hundred or more men and women, drawn from half a dozen stations, chatted amiably, renewing old acquaintances, catching up on gossip—“You’ll never guess who she’s screwing now … Have you heard about…”
“Alright gentlemen,” the captain began, attempting to gain attention, but the commotion persisted until someone plunked a chair heavily on the old wooden floor and the meeting brought itself to order.
Bliss understood none of the captain’s address, and was idly examining the intricately patterned brickwork of the huge vaulted ceiling when he heard his name mentioned. “Detective Bliss from Scotland Yard will speak to you now.”
Shit! he thought, caught unaware—I wasn’t prepared for this. Raising himself nervously, mind churning, he furtively glanced around and was immediately struck by the number of people crammed into the circular chamber. Yolanda had taken a front row seat directly facing him, and he sought inspiration and reassurance in her face. She smiled and gave a little nod, as if to say, “Go on.”
“You were very good,” she whispered later, as he sat down after outlining the circumstances of LeClarc’s disappearance.
Very good—very good?. What does she mean? he wondered, trying to evaluate the strength of her words, worried that his address had flown over many of the officers’ heads. But they’d smiled … it couldn’t have been too bad.
“Mr. Bliss …”
Yolanda nudged him.
“Sorry,” he said, realizing that Captain Jahnssen wanted him again.
“I was asking … Do we have pictures of Motsom yet?”
Bliss rose. “Not yet Captain. I’ve asked criminal records to fax them over. But I’ve got some background on him.” He paused, shuffled through his papers, found what he was looking for, and gave details: “William John Motsom. forty-eight years old; a few minor convictions, not serious, but he has a bad reputation. Nothing provable, but his name has cropped up in several gangland hits.”
“I have information about his car,” continued the captain, thanking him, then speaking to the audience in Dutch for a full two minutes, leaving Bliss with the distinct impression he was telling them what bungling idiots this English detective and his colleagues had been in losing LeClarc.
As Jahnssen sat down an impatient voice barked in English, “How do you know he’s been kidnapped?”
The question forced Bliss to his feet once more.
“First,” he answered, “a crewmember named …” He flicked through his notebook, desperately seeking a name, but failed to find it, so repeated, “A crewmember was on deck when King claims LeClarc fell overboard. The crewmember,” the catering assistant’s name came back in a flash—“Jacobs, didn’t see anyone else, only King. So we’re fairly certain no one fell off the ship. King told me he didn’t know Motsom, but I saw them together. And King went to Motsom’s cabin after reporting LeClarc missing. Finally,” he said, his voice rising in a crescendo, “King drove LeClarc’s Renault off the ship.” Feeling it was time to take some credit, he continued, “They knew their plan had gone wrong when I spoke to King. He knew I’d linked him to Motsom, so the only thing to do was to get LeClarc’s car off the ship without anybody noticing. That way everyone would assume LeClarc must have arrived safely. Everybody would be happy, and no more enquiries would be made until LeClarc failed to turn up in The Hague for the conference.” He sat down triumphantly, the case for the prosecution complete.
“But where is LeClarc?” enquired a spoilsport in the front row.
Bliss stumbled, “We … ah. We … ah … think he’s been put inside a truck or container. Drugged probably.”
The captain was quick to step in. “We’ve searched every car, but he’s a very big man …”
“Fat man,” sneered Bliss, getting