“Captain, I’ve got a police inspector outside who reckons he knows the victim,” the deck officer was saying to the captain’s shadow in the gloom.
“That’s interesting—must be some sort of outing,” he chortled, “I’ve already got three in my office.” He snapped the last thread of tension as he raised his voice, “Anyone else got a policeman? We’ve got four and want to make up a set … Take over, Chief,” he continued, stifling a few sniggers, “I’ll be in my office if anything happens. Try to keep her head in the waves, bos’n, or we’ll be up to our necks in vomit.”
Sergeant Jones, together with his fellow drinkers, had fetched up in the captain’s office in search of salvation, but had found little. Every lurch of the ship pulled his face into another grimace; the alcohol was wearing thin, just hazy vision, bad breath, and the persistent reek of vomit remained. He should have been hovering, contentedly, but the searing pain in his wrist and strong coffee had brought him down to earth. No doctor had come forward and the captain, dealing with lost sleep, a missing passenger, and an approaching storm, had kept the lock on the medicine cabinet. “No time for self-inflicted wounds,” he’d muttered to the chief officer with a wry smile, thinking: A little suffering is good for my soul.
“After you, Inspector.” said the captain, ushering Bliss into his office. “Do you lot know each other by any chance?”
Sergeant Jones looked up sheepishly and, with his good hand, pointed to his broken wrist, now in a sling. “Had a bit of an accident, Guv. Fell down some ruddy stairps.” He should have said steps or stairs, but the words coalesced somewhere in the great void between his brain and mouth. The other two sat hunched, silently counting carpet squares.
“Captain, I wonder if I could speak to you outside. Would you mind?” requested Bliss, without acknowledging his sergeant.
“Bliss, old chap …” pleaded the sergeant, but Bliss was already in the corridor.
“There’s some cocoa and doughnuts in the Officer’s mess if you’re interested,” said the captain, sliding the door shut behind him and cutting Jones off.
“Thank you, Sir. A cup of cocoa would be very welcome. Sorry about the Serg and the others, I think they’ve had a drop too much. I’ll sort them out later, but I thought you would want to know that I believe the man you’re looking for is named Roger LeClarc.”
The captain stopped mid-pour. “Could you tell me why you think it’s him?”
“Well, it’s pretty hush-hush but, basically, we’ve had him under surveillance for the past week or two. He was on the ship but disappeared just about the time this guy went overboard. I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find him.”
“Is he dangerous?” enquired the captain, getting the wrong end of the stick.
“Oh, no … He’s not in trouble … Well, maybe he is,” Bliss added reflectively. “But he’s not wanted—not by us anyway.” He paused, sensing the confusion on the captain’s face. “Sorry, I can’t really tell you more at the moment, but with your permission I’d like to make some enquiries, see if I can find out what happened, that sort of thing.”
“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