The Dave Bliss Quintet (16 page)

The harbourmaster's office,
la capitainerie,
is the only place that might have information about Johnson, he figures, and he stands at the public enquiry counter with an innocent face. “I was
s
upposed to be picked up by a friend,” he explains, having established that the squat, scruffily shaved assistant speaks English.

“His name?” the man demands, with a degree of hostility that catches Bliss off balance, and he nearly replies, “Morgan Johnson,” but holds back, wondering how well connected his quarry might be. The harbourmaster's assistant, with nicotine teeth and an eighth-month gut, looks to Bliss like a man with greasy palms and sticky fingers and, on an island where the provincial flag is a bandit's profile complete with spotted bandana, he decides to be prudent. What if the grubby little man picks up the radio microphone on the desk in front of him and announces, “Monsieur Johnson, on board zhe
Sea-Quester,
I have a friend here for you,” then adds, “Hold please,” and shoves it under his nose? So he resorts to the cover of vagueness. “I think the boat is the
Sea-Quest
or something like that.”

“He's gone.”

“Gone,” echoes Bliss, but gets no response as the man turns his back with a noisy fart and lights a cigarette.

For a moment he seriously considers breaking rank by pulling out his Scotland Yard ID, but quickly shakes off the idea. His interest in Johnson may already have jangled an alarm bell in the Corsican's mind. Also, he realizes, it is not helpful that he's left the card inside his passport, under the mattress, in his apartment in St-Juan.

Plan B sees Bliss catching the same ferry for a return run. But ten minutes later he exclaims, “Wow!” watching from the dock as she picks herself out of the water and flies, then he takes a look behind him and heads for Plan C, the mountains and the wide sweep of coastline he judges he'll view from up there — but he needs transport.

The notion of tracking down a donkey is amusing, though clearly impractical. Not only would the climb take too long, but he's yet to see a trace of one. There certainly haven't been any donkeys trundling tourists up and down the castle's steep ramparts in dinky wooden carts, and, as far as he can see, there are none trotting the kids along the beach. So he makes for a car hire establishment that is shutting shop just as he arrives. It's midday Saturday, and he withers under the glare of the scraggy teenager dragging on the complaining gate. Then he wangles his way into the showroom by feigning global deafness. How many languages does the office girl speak? he wonders, ducking the word “Closed” in at least six, but he has a trump card and he flashes it with the magic words, “I would like your most expensive car please.”

“Phew! Thank God the Rolls Royce Corniche was out,” he breathes later, checking the hire company's price list, but the rugged open-topped Jeep he's driving wasn't cheap, either. No matter, he thinks, as he rides the beast, with its baritone growl, up into the high passes and soars over the mountains with the sun on his face and the wind in his hair, purring, “This is the American Express life.”

Startlingly white sandy coves and deeply gouged natural harbours make themselves camera-ready as he
crests jagged headlands. As each spectacular vista opens, another primes itself beyond the next bluff and tantalizingly reveals a brilliant splash of blue sea or an ancient slate of red-tiled roofs.

Then, as the narrow carriageway plunges him into the intervening ravine, he snakes along the tortuously knitted road, skirting gorges and precipices that drop a thousand feet or more without even a line of paint for protection, his humming tires sending gravel and pebbles singing off into the chasms.

Four sweltering hours, and forty sandy bays and sheltered havens later, he chooses a remote cove carved into the cliffs and swims naked in the translucent water that runs over his desiccated body like a cool, clear salve. Swimming out into the emerald bay from the deserted white sand beach he delights in watching his bronzed arms and hands gliding effortlessly through the soft water, as opaque as liquid glass. A school of flying fish startle him, as they take to the air ahead, and he quickly scouts around for signs of a predator before realizing it is he who has scared the skittish fish.

This really is the life, he tells himself, and he lays back with his eyes on the crags above, watching gulls riding the wind, thinking this is the place where he should take flight. Forget it, he goes on. You stitched yourself up by using the credit card in Calvi. Even if Daisy kept quiet they'd soon track down the rented motor. You should have cleaned out a cash machine or two before you left the mainland if you were going to do that.

Thought of cash reminds him he has very little, although he has his credit card. I need some food, he thinks, realizing that he's eaten nothing since the croissants on the ferry. Drink has not been a problem; natural
springs gush straight out of the rock at regular intervals along the roadside and he's stopped at several. I'll give it another half an hour, he decides, climbing back into the Jeep, then I'll head for the nearest town and dinner.

The
Sea-Quester,
when Bliss finds the yacht ten minutes later, is easily identified by the luminous yellow submarine on deck. As it floats quietly in a narrow sound, two crewmen manhandle a large container into the aft hold. What's in that box? wonders Bliss, as he watches from a rocky peninsula above the peaceful cove. Then he does a mental take on an atlas and puts everything into perspective. The island of Corsica — slap bang in the midst of the trading routes between the Orient and ancient capitals like Genoa and Marseilles — must be a wreck diver's dream.

“Sunken treasure,” he muses knowingly, guessing that many sailing ships were driven aground — lured in with false lights set by entrepreneurial locals on stormy nights, like the West Country wreckers back home. Sounds like Samantha was right, he admits to himself, remembering the Roman amphorae in the museum on Île Sainte-Marguerite and thinking that many Roman galleys must litter the Mediterranean.

But would the French let an English privateer plunder a valuable wreck? Bliss questions as he watches Johnson's yacht. Then he shakes his head. No, this wouldn't interest Johnson — too much hard work — too much risk for the return — too much red tape. A ship the size of the
Sea-Quester
must cost a couple million a year just to keep afloat, what with fuel, fees, crew, and refits — and, from what he's seen in the shipbroker's windows in St-Juan, she must be worth ten million,
at least. I wonder if that's where the investors' money has been sunk, he thinks.

Bliss focusses his binoculars and finds Morgan Johnson in his crosshairs. “Bingo,” he breathes. “Got you — and I bet I know what's in that container.”

The place Bliss rolls into several hours later is undeserving of the epithet “town,” but, no matter, he has found the
Sea-Quester
. Now all he needs is a good meal and a place to sleep, then first thing Sunday morning he can start his homebound journey.

A young girl, saying, “I speeka Engleesh,” puts herself forward as Bliss looks around the dismal antechamber of a cramped terraced house overlooking the quaint harbour of the small town. With eyes screwed in skepticism, he asks, “Is this a hotel?”

“
Si, Signore
,” says the smiling six-year-old with a rascally face. “Zhis hotel.”

The only comforting thing about the place is the American Express sign on the counter. The only other hotel in town, in the whole district, apparently, took “cash money only” according to the woman who guarded the front desk.

Smiling back at the young girl, as her father hovers watchfully — extraordinarily watchfully, half-concealed by a thick door curtain — Bliss enquires if they have a room.

“
Si, Signore
.”

“With a bath?”

Her face clouds, but he doesn't know whether he's overstepped her linguistic capability or the hotel's plumbing, so he turns to the father.

The man's rigid stare and straight face say only one thing, “One false move on my little girl and …” And what? wonders Bliss, but has a fairly good idea the fierce-faced Corsican is not holding a loofah behind the curtain.

“Forget the bath,” he says, realizing there's a crystal lagoon just steps away from the front door. “I'll take the room.”

“
Si, Signore
.”

Ten minutes later he's still at the desk. His credit card has apparently lost its lustre no matter which way the young girl swipes it.

“This doesn't make sense,” he fumes, taking back the card. “It worked when I hired the Jeep.” Perhaps I've blown the limit, he thinks, puzzling over the barely scratched card, but there was no limit when he'd checked. Maybe Commander Richards has cancelled it. But why? He hasn't been extravagant — the ferry and car hire were the only big items, and the rest were essentials: groceries and the odd restaurant meal. “Never mind,” he says, reaching for his personal MasterCard, then he pales. His own card is hiding in the apartment with his passport.

Nudging the little girl aside and feeling her father's face darkening as the curtain twitches, he desperately tries the card himself. “Insufficient Funds,” the electronic wizard repeatedly claims, and he curses technology, wishing they'd stuck to the old-fashioned manual swipers and the subsequent paper trail that would take longer to trek back to his bank than he.

But his encroachment on the young girl brings the old man into the open and, without taking his eyes off Bliss, he stealthily tucks his daughter behind
him, from where she peeps, now smileless, as though sheltering from a potential explosion. Bliss considers offering her a few coins as mollification, but fears he'll be misunderstood, so he smiles solicitously and uses sign language to indicate that he wants to use the phone.

The 1-800 enquiry number on the card works perfectly, and the cheerful attendant speaks English perfectly. The only thing that doesn't work is the card.

“It has no limit,” he explains, and she agrees. The problem appears to be the fact he's overstepped his daily threshold of fifty thousand euros. “Purely for your own protection,” she adds.

He doesn't need protection, he agitatedly explains, he needs a bed, bath, food, fuel, and a stiff drink.

“Did you buy a car?” she soothingly enquires, calming him with her charm school manner.

“No — I rented —” he starts, but is cut off.

“Then, it is simple — I see the problem.”

Apparently, in her haste to close shop, and still struggling with the switch from francs to the European currency, the girl in the car rental office mistakenly took a security deposit of fifty thousand euros, instead of a measly five thousand.

“It is easy to see how it happened,” says the pleasant girl on the phone.

Bliss blows out a sigh. “Thank God. So, can you straighten it out?”

“Certainly — of course. As soon as the garage opens on Monday we will confirm the mistake and voilà — your card will be freed.”

“Monday!” he bristles, then calms. “It's OK. I'll just wait 'til midnight.”

“Aah …” Her hesitation warns him of a technical hitch. “When I say a limit of fifty thousand a day, it is twenty-four hours of which I speak.”

“That's preposterous,” he retorts.

“It is for your own protection, Mr. Smith.”

“If you say that one more time,” he breathes, with the mouthpiece partially covered. He then keeps her hanging while working out how to make the best of the situation. Checking his watch, he solves the problem. With a slap-up dinner, drinks at the bar, and a soft bed in mind, he realizes he hired the Jeep at roughly twelve o'clock that day.

“If I put the hotelier on the phone will you explain the card will be good at midday tomorrow?” he asks.

It is foolproof — almost.

“What?” he explodes when she refuses, explaining that, purely for his own protection, she has now put a hold on all transactions until the dispute with the car rental company has been resolved on Monday.

He tries — entreaties, pleas, demands, and threats — but Miss Charm School coolly rebuffs all suggestions, repeatedly reassuring him that it is entirely for his own protection. “If the card is stolen,” she purrs, “and the thief has already taken fifty thousand euros, you would not want him to steal another fifty thousand tomorrow, would you?”

“The card is not stolen.”

“Then there will be no problem, Mr. Smith. Monday —”

“But surely there is some way.”

Apparently there is a way, she agrees, after a consultation with her supervisor. All he needs to do to get a temporary release of a few hundred euros is correctly
answer a number of very personal questions, beginning with his mother's maiden name and date of birth.

He slams down the phone in disgust. How the hell is he supposed to know what Richards dreamt up to procure his alter ego's card?

Any thought Bliss may of had of sleeping on the beach is squelched by the hostile stares of locals as he sits on the rustic stone harbour wall waiting for nightfall, so he heads back into the mountains.

Now, parked on a terrace of an apparently abandoned olive grove, he tots up his cash, then fumbles under the seats and rummages through the glovebox.

With the two euros he finds under the carpet, he has enough money to buy a meal, providing he's willing to physically push the Jeep two hundred kilometres over the mountains back to Calvi. Alternatively, he could spend a second day and another night in the open and hope his card is cleared Monday morning. Plumping for a speedy return to civilization he chooses to starve, although finding fuel on Sunday might be a problem. He would have filled up in the small town, but the only filling station had already closed for the day. Was it too much to pray that the Corsican owner would be an atheist?