The Dave Bliss Quintet (9 page)

The plan seems flawless as he runs and reruns it in his mind. If this doesn't flush out the bad guys nothing will, he realizes, judging his disappearance cannot be entirely ignored — even convalescent leave has its limitations. But, in order for it to have any effect, he will need to draw attention to his apparent disappearance. No one has contacted him during his first two weeks — but isn't that their plan? Out of sight …

What if he closes his bank account so his monthly transfer is returned to the admin office? he thinks, then shakes his head. No, they'll assume it's an error and contact Commander Richards. He will assure them there is no
problem. It could be months before someone starts asking questions and demanding answers — unless Samantha were to warm them up by putting a worried call in to the administration department. “I haven't been able to get hold of my dad since he told me he was going sailing,” she can say, with all the innocence of a defence lawyer asking a deviously loaded question in a major trial. And someone in admin will be on the phone to Richards wanting to know what's going on. “According to our records this man's off sick. How come his daughter doesn't know? And what's this about a yacht?”

That would work, he thinks, but what's the downside? An international search and rescue operation, perhaps. It'll be a good training exercise for someone, he reasons, then seriously considers the possible repercussions such an escapade could have on his career.

There are two possible scenarios, and both see him coming out ahead. If the Morgan Johnson case turns out to be genuine, he pops up and says, “What's all the fuss about? Of course you couldn't find me, I was working undercover — what did you expect?” But if the malfeasance of Morgan Johnson is a put-up job, then he surfaces and drops everyone in the shit — Edwards, Richards, and anyone else he can put the finger on.

But what about Commander Richards? Knowing the truth, what possible recourse could he have?

“You specifically ordered me not to tell anyone where I was, Guv,” Bliss can say, like butter wouldn't melt, and watch Richards seethe as he realizes he's been end-run.

With the perfection of the plan exposed, Bliss spends a few moments considering the possibility of taking it one stage further, and seriously contemplates actually disappearing completely, opening a bistro or a bar
on some remote Aegean island
à la
Shirley Valentine, but stops himself — I'm not going down that road again — the quaint English pub scenario. The only difference would be the climate and the prices. “How much?” they'd screech in disbelief, though it wouldn't stop them from getting plastered.

Marcia is waiting for Bliss at the bar L'Escale and can barely conceal her excitement.

“He's back,” she whispers as he sits.

“Where?” he asks, his eyes roving the harbour and not finding the large yacht.

“No, he's not here,” she explains. “He sailed into Cannes this afternoon. I couldn't find you. I looked everywhere.”

“I was dealing with a death on the beach.” He laughs, but doesn't elaborate. But what now?

All his plans have been thrown into turmoil. With Johnson uncovered he can go home — as soon as he is sure the Morgan Johnson on the yacht is the Morgan Johnson in the photograph. But what then? Case closed.
Bon voyage, Monsieur Burbeck.
But the detective in him wants more — wants answers. If this isn't a put-up job, then who wants Johnson, and what for? What about the information Samantha has gleaned regarding the huge investments? And where is Edwards in all this?

Maybe it is time to disappear after all, he decides, as he plans to visit Cannes the following morning. “Richards has no way of knowing I've tracked Johnson down so quickly,” he mutters, “so he can wait for a few days while I dig a little deeper.”

Hugh and Mavis seem a little out of sorts as they sit alone staring silently out over the harbour as Marcia leaves.

“So,” says Bliss, going over and taking a seat. “How was the beach today?”

“Never made it, old boy,” says Hugh, clearly prepared for the enquiry. “Surprised you even asked after what happened.”

“Sorry,” Bliss says, concerned that his dalliance with an old mat has caused him to miss news of a global catastrophe. “What's happened?”

“Storms, of course. Didn't you watch the news?”

“I try not to.”

“Don't know what you're missing.”

“Storms, apparently.”

“Half of France got washed away last night,” says Hugh, with a disaster-monger's delight. “Thunder and lightning like you wouldn't believe — dozens dead and missing.”

Bliss casually inspects their surroundings. “Seems to have missed us though,” he says, heavy with sarcasm.

“Luck if you ask me, dear boy. Mavis was petrified, weren't you dear?”

Mavis nods on cue. “Petrified.”

“Wouldn't risk the beach today, would you, old dear?”

“Not likely — not with all those storms about. But there's always tomorrow.”

Hugh shakes his head solemnly. “Not tomorrow, dear — you're getting your hair done.”

But what of Jennifer and John? Bliss looks along the promenade. “Are you expecting the others?”

“Wouldn't know,” says Mavis, with unconcealed chagrin. “They can do what they want. They don't have to ask us. Do they, Hugh?”

“Of course not, dear.”

I guess they went to the beach, then, Bliss figures, but sees no point in asking.

Jacques is also conspicuous by his absence, just like his wind —
la tramontane.
What a day, thinks Bliss, wondering if any other relationships have been destroyed by contrary meteorological conditions, and he sets off along the promenade, determined to extract some information from Marcia's husband in the first stage of his plan to uncover the truth — the whole truth.

The evening's breeze dies, and the moon — another full moon — picks its way across the harbour, highlighting the masts of yachts while perfectly mirroring the vessels in the still water. Bliss sits in a comfortable canvas chair opposite L'Offshore Club readying himself to ambush Greg the potter when he has finished his work for the day.

Midnight on the quayside and the families start thinning, leaving little gangs of girls flaunting their sexuality like gaudy fluorescent signs while fending off those attracted with a nasty glare. The body allures — face repels. This is the game — this is not a game — this is war. If you don't know the rules of engagement — you're dead.

Will I ever learn the rules? wonders Bliss, his mind returning to the sensual woman on the jetty.

The crowds may be winding down, but the pots keep coming; Greg is having a heavy night. How can you not be busy when you have nothing to sell? thinks
Bliss, realizing the prospect of receiving something for nothing, even something as useless as a wet clay pot, turns almost everyone into a child.

The menfolk, standing back, or wandering to a nearby bar, scowl at the delicate pots won by their womenfolk, and laugh, mockingly. “And just how much did you pay for that?”

“Absolutely nothing — the nice man just gave it to me.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Well, I did tip him a few euros,” they admit under continued scorn.

“A few euros' tip for two cents worth of cheap clay —
une merde!
”

“But you don't understand ...” they complain, and they're right.

“Want a beer?” asks Bliss, apparently catching Greg's eye by chance. “Burbeck,” he adds, holding out a hand at the passing man. “Dave Burbeck.”

“Greg Grimes,” the potter replies, but waves off the handshake, his hands still caked in clay.

Promenaders still toting their pots nudge each other as if they've spotted a film star as they pass. “That's him — that's the potter,” they whisper, just loud enough for him to hear.

“You're something of a celebrity around here,” says Bliss, grateful for an opening gambit.

But celebrity is not on the potter's mind as he mocks the stupidity of gullible foreigners. “There are a thousand potters better than me up there,” he says, giving a nod to the wooded hillsides shrouded in darkness above the port. “Picasso himself lived up there — did you know that?”

“I saw a sign,” admits Bliss, “but I thought he was a painter, not a potter.”

“He was an artist,” screams Grimes, his hands clenched in passion. “Painters slap whitewash on walls — artists create masterpieces.”

Bliss drops the temptation to say he'd visited the Picasso exhibition in Antibes at which he personally thought whitewash slapped on walls would have been an improvement.

“Picasso was a master in ceramic art,” continues Grimes, winding down. “He lived and worked up there in the hills after the first war.”

“Oh …”

“And did you know,” he goes on with reverence, “that he used to eat just over there — in Le Bistro?”

“Imagine that,” replies Bliss, turning to seem interested as he tries to come up with a way of levering the man away from the Master.

Playing him along until he can throw in the hard questions, while fearing Marcia might show up any minute and put a spoke in his wheel, Bliss chats of England, beer, football, and the monarchy, without comment or dissent from Grimes, although the mention of marriage clouds his face, and the question of children only makes things worse. “I used to have a daughter,” he grieves, staring out over the harbour to the distant bay.

“Odd reply,” suggests Bliss, knowing it isn't at all odd, considering the plight of so many parents whose children's lives have been stolen by drugs, but Grimes catches him unawares with his response.

“Yeah.... She ran off with an asshole.”

That's interesting, thinks Bliss, as he takes a few seconds over his drink and notices that the wayward
Jacques has been blown off course and is having a nightcap in the next bar. The fisherman looks away as Bliss tries to connect; too embarrassed, assumes Bliss, and he turns back to the potter, wondering why he'd not mentioned the heroin. “Asshole?” he queries, opening a chink, and Grimes heads for it full throttle.

“Morgan fuckin' Johnson,” he spits, asking, “Have you heard of him?”

“No.” Bliss lies, but Grimes isn't listening as he rants.

“Big-shot fuckin' bastard. He'd pinch the scum off a cesspit if he thought he could make it smell sweet enough to flog.”

So what about this Johnson? Who is he? What is he? Where is he? Bliss desperately wants to ask, but doesn't dare for fear of alerting Grimes to his mission. When Marcia told him she'd lost her daughter to Johnson, he assumed she meant through drugs, not physically. Now he has to string her husband along for the rest of the information. “So — how old?” he asks, showing a glimmer of interest.

“Eighteen.”

“No — Johnson.”

“Buggered if I know. Fifty-something, probably — slimebag.”

“I can see why you'd be upset,” sympathizes Bliss, but it backfires as Grimes lets off a broadside.

“You have absolutely no idea. You don't know the half of it — not a fraction of it.” Then he clams up.

“What about you — what are you doing?” Grimes asks when he's calmed.

“Holiday,” says Bliss, adding, “I write a bit.” It is a shot in the dark — based on what Samantha told him — but he carries on: “Actually, I'm researching for a book
about expatriate villains who rip off British investors and bunk off to Shangri-la.”

Grimes's face lights up knowingly. “You've come to the right place then,” he says. “This joint is full of them.”

“You think so?” asks Bliss, then he enquires with the innocence of an incognizant, “And Johnson — is he one of them?”

The potter's watchful stare probes Bliss's eyes inquisitively as the mind behind them seeks to connect — telling him what? Bliss wonders, maintaining the stare. An opportunity to get something out in the open, perhaps? Marcia had that same look, leaving Bliss with the feeling that both husband and wife were ready to explode with information, but for some reason were keeping it in.

“You'd have to ask him yourself,” says Grimes, as the moment is lost.

It's two o'clock in the morning by the time Bliss leaves L'Offshore Club. Finally fed up with “Guantanamera” and his lack of progress with Grimes, he puts on his CD player and listens to Brubeck's “Look for the Silver Lining” as he strolls the deserted quayside, thinking that he may as well positively confirm Johnson's identity, and whereabouts, before he puts his disappearing act into gear. He will take the train to Cannes in the morning. The yacht, the
Sea-Quester
, according to Marcia, should be easy enough to spot.

With the apartment in sight, and Johnson virtually in the bag, Bliss decides the time is ripe to pick up the fallen lemon, and, with the full moon to light his path, he creeps around the back of the building and sneaks up on the tree. With one eye on the door to the ground
floor, he bends and picks up the fruit, but a faint glow from the apartment window draws him like a magnet as he goes to pocket the lemon. Nothing could have prepared him for what he sees, and he drops his prize as he inches closer and peers into the apartment's kitchen. The long-haired young man is there, naked, together with his dog, curled as one in sleep, in a large steel cage in the corner of the room.

Wednesday blossoms as sharp and bright as a sunflower and rouses Bliss from his sleep on the balcony's lounger. The temptation to rush to the ground floor, batter down the apartment's door, and release the young man is almost overwhelming, and has kept him out of bed since the early hours. The risk of blowing his cover holds him back, but so does the fact that he saw the young man in the garden the previous morning, and has felt his prying eyes for the past two weeks — although that isn't strictly true, since he's only seen the boy once — the click of the door on prior occasions might have been the jailer, whoever the jailer may be. Furthermore — notwithstanding the fact he can't get his mind past the large brass padlock on the cage door — there seemed to be an air of warm innocence about the scene.