LITMIR.BIZ

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her, the bruised and bleeding body was in agony; hands and arms the worst: Blood and pus oozed from a huge blister on the side of her fist where she’d pounded against the rough brick walls; her shoulders and upper arms were blue from being repeatedly slammed against the solid wooden door—a living battering ram which had rebounded as readily as a tennis ball off concrete—and the wreckage of her nails, used as screwdrivers on the door hinges, stung constantly. But, at least Roger had left her unbound and had even pulled off the tape—once she’d promised not to scream for help or try to escape.

      The hands of her watch (”Happy sixteenth,” her mother had said giving it to her a few weeks earlier) were stuck at 6:23, the time she’d first crashed her fragile body against the door—Roger’s door, the door to the outside world. Now, as she stared at the smashed watch, she found a mirror of her fragmented life in the few sharp shards of glass still held in place by the square gold frame, and screamed. Pain, torment, fear, and loss merged into despair with the subconscious realization that the last strand of her mother’s umbilical cord had been severed.

      The computer could have told her the time had she really wanted to know; the only lighting in the room came from its screen; the only sound, its constant “shhhhhshing.” She stared at the screen, detesting it for what it had done, yet pleading with it to help. “What the hell is his password?” she shouted across the dimly lit room, then waited, almost expecting it to respond.

      An idea eased her off the bed, drawing her to the computer, and she winced as she pressed a few keys. The message “ENTER PASSWORD” flicked onto the screen and she typed her name. “TRUDY”

      “INCORRECT PASSWORD PLEASE TRY AGAIN”

      “Shit,” she shouted, convinced she had been right. “What about, ’Trude’?” she asked, trying again. The computer responded soundlessly, “INCORRECT PASSWORD—PLEASE TRY AGAIN”

      “This’ll never work,” she muttered. “There must be millions of different words.”

      After several more rejections, she quit. Without his password she would never be able to connect with the outside world. Finally, frustrated and angry, she typed. “ROGER—PLEASE COME BACK. PLEASE LET ME OUT. I’LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT. I LOVE YOU.”

      Sitting back, drained, thoughtful, she changed the typescript to a larger font and wrote again. “ROGER— I LOVE YOU—COME BACK”

      Roger was not coming back—not at the moment, anyway. His floppy body was still trampolining up and down on top of the life raft mid-ocean. He was alive, conscious, and still wondering why the SS Rotterdam had not returned for him. They threw me a life raft, he reasoned, so they must’ve known where I was.

      Nosmo King felt the shift in momentum as the search was called off. No longer wallowing as it steamed slowly round the search area, the ship was now leaping and bucking as it ploughed through the water, back on course toward Holland; as anxious to make up the lost time as the passengers and crew. Ignorant of what was happening, and with a nagging feeling he were being deliberately shut out, King slipped out of the little office and poked his head around the bridge door.

      “Come in Mr. King, I forgot all about you,” called the captain, noticing the tired, unshaven and dishevelled man, thinking now he would have looked at home in an airport following a crash—pacing amongst a crowd of worried relatives, anxiously awaiting news.

      King moved toward the captain with his eyes captivated by the huge, green waves breaking over the bow. He jumped as a streak of lightning lanced down into the water right in front of the ship. Isolated from the mayhem by huge armour plated windows, the bridge seemed a tranquil place in comparison.

      “It’s like watching a movie of a storm,” he breathed, mesmerized, then turned to address the captain. “I was just wondering if you needed me any more. Only I’d like to get a bit of sleep before we arrive.”

      “I don’t think we need you Mr. King. Hang oh a minute though, I’ll just check with our detective.”

      D.I. Bliss, unseen by King, was in the radar cubicle, still studying the screen for signs of the missing life raft or the missing man.

      “Inspector Bliss, do you need Mr. King for anything?” the captain sang out and Bliss emerged from the cubicle with a puzzled expression.

      “Um,” he hummed, “I’m not sure,” and turned to King, “G’morning Nosmo. Ahh … Could you just hang on for a minute. There’s one or two things I just want to check with the captain. Do you mind?”

      The unspoken words hung in the air for a few seconds as King struggled for an answer. Did he mind? Yes, he minded, minded very much; minded being left out of the loop, minded being ostracized. There was a time … he was thinking when he realized that the epithet, “ex-police,” carried with it a connotation of exclusion incomprehensible to someone who had never been in the force. His mind was in turmoil; desperately wanting to know what was going on; what they were saying about him; what they thought about him; how they had taken his story. But Bliss and the captain were watching and waiting.

      “I’ll just have another look at the radar.” King acquiesced eventually, breaking the stalemate, and he wandered toward the cubicle, his head pounding with the knowledge that somewhere on the ship, Billy Motsom, his client, his tormentor, would be searching for him, desperate for news about LeClarc.

      “Something’s going on,” Bliss whispered, nudging the captain to the far side of the bridge. “He knows more than he’s saying.”

      “How do you work that out?”

      “Well… Did you tell him we’d called off the search?”

      “No.”

      “Exactly. So how come he didn’t ask? All he asked was, did we need him ’cos he wanted to get some sleep. So why’s he suddenly lost interest in what happened to our man?”

      The captain grasped the point. “I agree, but I don’t see what we can do. He’s stuck to the same story right from the beginning.”

      “Do me a favour, Captain. Just keep him here for about ten minutes, will you, then make sure he leaves by that door over there.” The captain nodded as Bliss continued, almost to himself, “I’ve got to make some arrangements.” Then, as an afterthought added, “I’ve also got to find LeClarc before we dock.”

      Precisely ten minutes later, Nosmo King left the bridge, following a compulsory guided tour. “He was as jumpy as a jib in a hurricane,” the captain told Bliss later. “I’ve never known anyone turn down a chance to have a few minutes at the helm before.”

      “You were right, Sir. He’s gone to a cabin,” D.C. Wilson’s voice crackled over the radio a few minutes later, as Bliss was back at the purser’s office, still trying to find LeClarc on a list—any list.

      “What number?” he called back. “I’m at the purser’s office, I’ll look it up.”

      “2042.”

      Running his finger down the list he found the cabin number. “The name on this list says “Motsom” but I wouldn’t guarantee it,” he said, then caught a nasty look from the purser as he added, “These guys don’t seem too sure what they’re doing.”

      “What do you want us to do, Sir?” asked the other detective, sobered by time and the sergeant’s accident.

      “I don’t know. Just find out what’s going on. Use your loaf if you’ve got one.”

      Bliss snapped off the radio and turned back to the purser who had decided he may as well take command of his office early. Roused out of his bunk in the middle of the night, like everyone else, he wanted to make sure his records were straight, just in case there was an inquiry.

      “O.K., Sir,” said Bliss. “So how soon will we know for sure if someone’s missing?”

      The purser scratched his stubbly chin, realised he’d forgotten to shave in the upheaval, and thought deeply. “Hum. It’s not quite that simple.

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