floor corridor.
The apartment door slams with enough force to shake the walls, but not fast enough to prevent him from glimpsing a long-haired woman. Youngish, he thinks, and blond; it’s more an impression than an accurate assessment, but it’s a start, and he resolves to try again later when she’s lost her jumpiness.
The early morning beach still tingles with the freshness of dawn, and the lazy swell gently sighs as it falls onto the shore. Parallel lines pattern the sand where students have earned their croissants and coffee, raking away all trace of the previous day’s fun in the sun before taking up their posts as mattress purveyors and beach waiters. A serious-faced couple wearing headphones swing metal detectors ahead of them as they search sightlessly for yesterday’s pocket change.
Bliss has hardly taken in the scene when his quarry rushes breathlessly along the beach. “He’s gone. He’s gone,” screeches Marcia, her silk scarf still flying.
“Slow down — slow down,” he implores. “Who’s gone? Why are you telling me?”
“Aren’t you …?” she begins, her eyes questing deeply.
“Aren’t I whom?” he demands, determined to force her hand, mindful of Richards’s warning to give away nothing without the password.
Marcia, looking confused, starts to turn away. “Sorry, I —”
“Hang on,” says Bliss, and the expectancy in his look gives her a clue.
“Bingo,” she explodes, almost shouting the prearranged codeword.
The meeting is brief, leaving Bliss with more questions than answers. Marcia will say little beyond the fact that the man he seeks has suddenly upped anchor. “He’ll kill me,” she repeats several times, her eyes as skittish as a doe’s on a freeway verge.
“Let me help,” he starts, taking a firm grip on her arm to stop her from running.
“Tonight,” she says, pulling free. “Go to the same bar tonight and if it’s safe I’ll talk to you.”
“It was you!” he exclaims, but she’s gone, walking purposefully away.
A couple of sixty-year-olds skip along the promenade with the agility of teens, rejuvenated by the newly risen sun, their years whisked away on the sea breeze, and Bliss smiles. But his smile is in relief that, after two weeks of soaking up the sun and ridiculously cheap vin rouge at the taxpayers’ expense, there is finally some substance to the case.
His customary morning stroll to the boulangerie for un petit pain au raisins secs — a sticky bun shaped like an escargot and stuffed with soft raisins — takes him along the beach road, and he walks in a daze, meditating over his meeting with Marcia. She’s scared shitless, he is thinking, when a car skims by, close and fast, and startles him. “That’s Edwards,” he breathes in disbelief, instantly recognizing the driver. Or was it? The car, speeding like all others, has rounded the bend before he’s pulled himself together sufficiently to take the number. Disorientated by concern, he passes the bakery and heads directly for the supermarket.
The cart finds it own way as he idly plucks groceries from shelf and bin. Three jars of salted anchovies end up exchanged for a tub of caramel ice cream, and four varieties of Camembert all make it to the cart when he can’t choose between them. Several inviting packets with unknown contents seem to select themselves, but he’s careful to pick a twelve-pack of fat-free yogourts. His mind should be on Johnson, but what is Edwards doing here? This is serious, he thinks, putting back the yogourts and taking the crème brûlée instead. Was it him? he wonders, adding a second pack.
Why didn’t Richards warn me that Edwards was here? he worries, and, searching for something sweet, he wanders away from his buggy. Later, reaching the cash desk, he comes to his senses when the young assistant gives him a quizzical look as she scans a pack of incontinence pads.
“What the —” he starts, catches on, grabs the package, buries it deep in the cart, and scurries out of the lineup.
Further back in the store, an elderly spinster stands next to Bliss’s cartload of comfort food with a tube of hemorrhoid cream in her hand and a lost look on her face. Bliss rounds the corner of the pharmacy aisle, sees her, and scoots off. Try explaining that in Safeway let alone Le Supermarché Géant, he reasons, dumping her buggy in the wine department, and, empty handed, he hurriedly makes for the bar next door.
The possible presence of Chief Superintendent Edwards is enough to drive him to order a double Scotch as he deliberates on the suspended officer’s motives.
He could be on holiday, says his inner voice.
He’s suspended, facing dismissal — for what? Abuse of authority and neglect of duty. Doesn’t sound like much, but he nearly got me killed trying to protect his own backside.
So … he could be on holiday.
He’d only be happy if I were dead. Perhaps that’s the plan. That’s why I’m here on my own — no backup, no witnesses.
“You are not to tell anyone of this mission. Do you understand? Not anyone.” Richards repeated, his face saying he meant it. “As far as everyone is concerned you are on indefinite convalescent leave and no one else will know — not even the force admin officer. If anyone enquires they’ll be told — honestly — that you are sick,” he said, before adding forcefully, “This is very big case.”
Big or dodgy, Bliss thinks, downing the Scotch, seeing Edwards’s fingerprints everywhere. Set Bliss loose on some risky adventure where the best possible outcome is an anchor around his neck ten miles out in the Med.
He might just be on holiday! screams his inner voice again, desperately wanting him to believe it. Then, with a sudden realization that he has absolutely no idea what is going on in the rest of the world, he finds a pay phone and calls Samantha.
“How are you? Have you found him yet?” she blurts out as soon as she hears his voice.
“Shhh — you’re not supposed to know.”
“What’s up? Do you think my phone is tapped? Dad you’re just a cop, not James Bond.”
What to say? My last will and testament is under the mattress in the spare bedroom. You can keep the car.
“I’m OK, love. Just thought I’d give you a call,” he says. There is little point in burdening her with worries of Edwards. Particularly as he may be mistaken — hopes he is mistaken.
“There is something you can do, though,” he says, realizing that now the informant has surfaced, Morgan Johnson is a huge step closer to being real. “Maybe you could ask a few discreet questions — who wants him and why. Make sure I’m not chasing a wild goose.”
Samantha senses there is something else. “And …?” she queries.
Warning himself he is getting paranoid, he tasks her to phone Edwards on a pretext. “Just to make sure he is home,” he says. “Tell him you’re doing a survey on the police suppression of free speech. That should get him going.”
“OK. If I’ve got time.”
“Please, Samantha,” he begs, then warns in afterthought, “Make sure you use a pay phone.”
