Things That Go Bump in The Night

"I understand, not so much the trauma, I know that you will tell me all about it, you probably need some form of closure first. I'm in a similar situation, my faith in men has been somewhat damaged by recent events. I think that I'll probably recover sooner than you, but, having said that, I'll not pressure you."

"Thank you for that."

Over breakfast a couple of weeks later, I said to her "I'll be spending some time getting ready for my next trip to the reef, so you won't see me until late this afternoon."

"When will you be leaving?"

"About three in the morning."

"Why so early?"

"I need to be out of sight of land. I don't want anyone following me and finding my secret fishing spot."

"Can I come with you?"

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I'd rather be with you on the boat than sitting at home waiting for you to come back."

"Are you sure that you can trust me?"

"I hope not." She had a smile on her face and her lips tasted nice.

Marcia walked through the back door of the shop just as Chris was beginning the pre-opening prep work. "Well, did baby brother behave himself?" She asked that question every day.

"Yes."

"You're not disappointed are you?"

"A little, but I'm not forcing the issue. I'm going with him tonight, just so you know."

"I hope that you're no squeamish."

"I used to go fishing with my father so fish guts don't bother me."

"You'll see plenty of those, believe me. Have you seen how many fish he catches?"

"I assume a lot, it would need to be to make it worth the while."

"Don't be concerned if you hear him apologising to the fish when he catches them, it's part of his recovery therapy."

"If it helps, I'm all for it."

"You fancy him, don't you?"

"Yes, is it that obvious?"

"Yep."

Marcia came down to the boat during that hiatus between the lunch time rush and the start of the evening rush. I gave her a guided tour of those parts of the Manta Ray, my fishing boat, that she hadn't seen before. She was ten metres long with a fly bridge from which hung two four metre high radio masts, one for radio communications, the other for the satellite phone through which I could talk to Brian or Chris, or if necessary, Bruce. A cabin took up the front third of the length. In there was a couple of bunks, two benches, a table, a galley and a shower and head (toilet).

Through a hatch were steps leading to the business part of the boat. A large freezer took up one side, while on the other side was a large tub that would be filled with crushed ice. When fish are caught, they are cleaned and dropped through a hatch into the tub. In the tub they are chilled slowly before being placed into the freezer. Being chilled beforehand, they froze quicker, a trick that I was taught by Old Tom, Brian's father, who had this boat built to his specifications. I had seen no reason to make any changes.

At four, Marcia and I took her around to get fuelled and loaded with ice. I taught her the different knots used to fasten her to either a rail or bollard.

"Are you going out to the reef with Rob tonight?" Chris asked Marcia as the finished cleaning up after we had closed.

"Yes, I asked if I could."

"How many nanoseconds before he agreed?"

"Two and a half."

"That long."

"Well, he did have to at least give the impression that he was trying to find a reason not to."

"You be careful, It's taken a long while for him to even think about making this move, I don't want to see either of you hurt."

"If I asked, would you tell me what the problem is?"

"No, that is for him to decide. I promised that I wouldn't tell anyone. He is a lot better than he was when it first happened and I think that you have had something to do with that."

"In what way?"

"He has begun to think about starting a new relationship with another woman and, in case you haven't noticed, that woman is you."

"So, his problem involves another woman who hurt him badly?"

"No, she didn't, any more than that I can't tell you. Please leave it to him to tell you all."

My alarm went off at three thirty and I nudge Marcia awake. "Time to make a move."

"Can't I wait while you get everything ready?"

"Everything's ready, now get out of this bed."

"Bloody slave driver." She got out of bed and I almost forgot all about what we had to do. My tee shirt and no knickers will do that to even the strongest man.

We walked the hundred metres to the wharf where she was moored. A quick check and I fired her up. Marcia untied the mooring ropes and jumped aboard as I eased the throttles open. We trickled out of the harbour on just the running lights and at a quarter throttle until we were well clear, before I switched on the lights.

Once clear of land, I set the heading to take us through the inner reef and out to the gap I used in the outer reef. We would pass through this in the morning to take up our position and hopefully catch our quota of fish.

It was an easy run, clear skies, no wind to whip up the seas. Marcia stood next to me, very next to me. I could feel the warmth of her body and the smell of her perfume. I was very tempted to put an arm around her and draw her closer.

She must have felt that, she move even closer. "Rob."

"Yes?" On one hand I expected a perfectly normal question, while on the other hand my hopes were for something more personal.

"I have never fully rewarded you for saving my life."

"I don't expect a reward."

"But you'd like one, wouldn't you?"

"That depends on the reward, now a million dollars would be nice."

"Dream on. I was thinking of something more tangible." Her hand had reached the front of my shorts. "He has anticipated what it is." She said, stroking him.

"Maybe he's getting ahead of himself."

"I don't think so." She took my hand from the wheel, the one that I was tempted to wrap around her not that long ago, and pushed it under her tee shirt, still no knickers.

"Can you hold that thought for an hour?"

"What happens in an hour?"

"You may have a very good idea what is going to happen in an hour. The reason that I ask you to wait is that, in one hour we will be just inside the outer reef, anchored just inside the outer reef. I won't have to worry about you taking my mind off steering this boat, and I'll be able to concentrate on what I want to do."

"Okay, if what you want to do is the same as what I want you to do, then I can wait."

An hour later we were lying at anchor close enough to the reef to hear the steady rhythm of the waves crashing onto the coral reef. We were seated on one of the bunks. I took her hand in mine. "Marcia, dare I call you Darling?"

"Yes you may."

"Darling, you are aware that I want very much to make love to you, you've felt him rising to the occasion, but...."

"Why is there always a but?"

"Here me out, please."

"Okay."

"My problem is not physical, I know that, but it is a psychological problem that I'm having problems with. It all began ten or so years ago, I was a motorcycle cop and, apart from booking innocent people for minor infractions, at least that's what they thought, I was often a first responder to MVAs. Some of these didn't bother me much, they were minor and little damage was done, but then there were other accidents where there was loss of life. The ones that affected me most were those involving young kids. The final straw was one where a car hit a tree at high speed. There were four young kids killed in that crash. The car was a total write off, as were the kids. The couple in the back seat affected me the most. From the position of the bodies and the amount of blood lost, it was fairly obvious was the girl had her head resting affectionately in the boy's lap. The impact caused her to bite down hard, she bit his dick off. Neither of them were wearing seat belts. I could not erase that image from my mind."

"I understand, and I'm not just saying that to make you feel better. I've come to know you and I'm going out on a limb here, but I believe that I'm coming to love you."

"Hold that thought because what I'm about to tell you might change your mind. I sought of lost the plot for a while after that and applied for a transfer away from Traffic Branch. Because I was pretty good at Math at high school, I found myself in the Fraud Squad. I liked it, the problem was that I was still having these nightmares, seeing those mangled kids, over and over. Kate couldn't handle it and left me, she'd met this guy who seemed the be a nice enough bloke, at least he slept through the night. I was sad and depressed, but told myself it was for the best,"

"Were you still having these nightmares?"

"Yes. At least I wasn't keeping anyone else awake, just myself. I'd been working on a case and we were getting close to solving it when, I was driving home from work when I heard a call come over the radio about a domestic violence case. It was only a couple of hundred metres away so I responded. I wasn't the first on the scene. As I ducked under the crime scene tape to go inside, one of the constables stepped in front of me. "No Rob, you shouldn't go in there."

I pushed by him and have regretted it to this day. It was Kate, my wife, she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She had been hacked to pieces. "If I find who has done this I'll kill the bastard!" I screamed

I had to be restrained, and tranquillised.

I discovered later that forensics had established her new boyfriend had attacked her with a cane cutters' knife. This is similar to a machete but the blade is very thin (1mm) and very sharp

A witness heard a heated argument and her yelling at him that she was not prepared to have sex with him because she still loved me, she just couldn't live with me until I got better."

"Fuck. That is what you couldn't tell me before."

"Yes, I couldn't tell you, at least not until now. I couldn't contemplate making a commitment until I met someone that I could see myself with. Now I fully expect you tell me to take you home and that you never want to see me again."

"No, I'm not going to do that. I asked Chris what your story was and she told me that she had been sworn to secrecy, and that you would tell me when you thought the time was right. In one hand I'm horrified at what happened and fully understand you having problems with coping, while on the other hand I am pleased that you think the time is right. I, like you, desperately need closure from a traumatic situation. You have helped me so I will help you. What we are going to do now is the crawl into this bunk and I will hold you in my arms so that, if you wake up in the night, you can feel me with you, because my darling I am with you."

I woke in the early hours with her holding me. It felt so good, I hadn't experienced this for years. Her hand was on my cock, I put my hand over hers. "Mmmm, that feels nice." Her sleepy voice told me, "Now go back to sleep." My cock was emerging from his sleep, she tapped him with her hand. "Later."

She was still asleep when I raised the anchor and manoeuvred through the outer reef and dropped the first anchor about fifty metres from the drop off. I played out the anchor line for a hundred metres before dropping the second anchor. I took up slack until the boat was no more than fifteen metres from the drop off. From this position, I could fish for reef fish such as wrasse and deep water fish such a albacore, yellow fin tuna and trevally.

The water is a couple of hundred metres deep at the drop off where the coral reef is perched at the edge of the continental shelf.

Marcia was awake and had the kettle on. She was wearing yet another of my tee shirts and, by the looks of it, nothing else. "What are you going to do when we run out of tee shirts?" I asked.

"I guess I'll just have to wear nothing." In a foretaste to that experience, she raised the hem and spun around. "Like it?"

"I think that I'll donate all of my tee shirts to a charity shop."

"I don't think so. I think that you're more turned on by the me that you can't see, than if I was starkers (naked)."

A quick breakfast and work started for the day. I had set lines out for reef fish and trawl lines out for the pelagic fish. "What do we do when you catch something?" Marcia asked.

"The trick is to bleed them straight away, then gut them and drop them through that hatch into the ice slurry down below. This cools them down slowly before we put them in the freezer. The meat stays in better condition than if we whack them straight into the freezer. How are you at gutting fish?"

"Not my most favourite task, but I'm okay with it."

"Good, because I've got one. I'm not going to be like those in fishing videos and call out 'fish on' the bend in the rod tells me that it's bloody obvious that I've got a fish on."

Whatever it was fought strongly, stripping off a fair bit of line against the drag, before I began to haul it in. At last it was on deck, a good sized trevally. Marcia removed the hook and, taking a sharp knife, cut through the gills and held it by the tail while it bled out. She then slit it from the arsehole to the gills ad removed the guts before lifting the hatch and sliding it down into the ice bath. Seemingly from nowhere gulls began to arrive, each squawking its presence as it fought for the scraps.

We worked steadily through the morning before Marcia slipped below and came up with a couple of sandwiches, some fruit and a cup of coffee. She was making a good impression, unlike Kate who would not come out with me.

Late afternoon we transferred fish from the ice bath to the freezer before going back on deck. "what I usually do about now is, strip off and dive overboard to get rid of the blood and guts. I don't expect you to do the same."

Marcia dropped the shorts she was wearing and lift the tee shirt before diving into the sea. I followed, surfacing in front of her. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me. "I don't usually do that."

"Why not?"

"I've never had anyone to do it with."

"I'm glad, I'd hate to think that you made a habit of inviting young ladies out here so that you could have your wicked way with them."

I climbed out and held my hand for her, pulling her on board. "I'll have you know that you are the first woman that I have ever invited to come with me. That's not entirely true, I did invite Kate but she declined."

"I hope that I will be the last."

"We shall see. It's looking pretty good that it'll be the case." I gathered up the discarded clothing and stuffed it in a bucket that I filled with water from the slurry tank.

"I suppose that now you're going to suggest that we cover up."

"Not really, although I do find you sexier with a tee shirt on."

She grabbed a tee shirt ind slipped it over her head. "Is this what you mean?" She said, spinning around.

"If you keep that up I'll just have to go below and jerk off."

"Can I come too, I'll lend a hand."

"Marcia, I am not yet ready to make love to you. I have to have closure from my demons before I can reach that point, anything other than that will be just sex and I'm not into just sex."

"Truth be known, neither am I. I'm prepared to hold out for the real thing. Let's eat." She went into the galley and placed a pan on the gas ring. "Will you grab a fish for me?"

I went below and selected a fish big enough for two starving people and took it up to her.

After dinner we sat on a bunk, the tee shirt rode disturbingly high up her thigh as she curled her legs under her. "I think we should try to get a good nights sleep." I told her. "If we work together as well as we did today, we'll have the freezer filled by lunch time and can start our trip back a day earlier than usual."

We shared a bunk, and our closeness to each other in a platonic manner.

"I don't want to get ahead of myself, but Rob, I'm in love with you, of that I'm sure, Please, hurry and find the closure you need to fall in love with me. How long do you think it will take?"

"I promised my self, when I saw Kate, that I wouldn't rest until I found the bastard that did it and kill him."

"Are you close to finding him?"

"I thought I had him, I knew who he was, but the bastard had a watertight alibi. He was in New Zealand when it happened."

"Are you sure about that?"

"He produced an airline ticket for a flight the day before it happened, from Coolangatta to Auckland. We checked, he was on that flight."

"Fuck."

"That's what I said."

We had docked and completed the unloading when Bruce arrived. "Who's been a sneaky boy then?"

"What are you on about?"

"It seems as if, when the company that Marcia worked for, and the nominal owner of Windrush, applied for an insurance payout for the loss of said yacht, the insurance company denied payment on the basis that the information that they provide concerning the yacht did not fit the registration details held by the authorities. When they checked the registration number and HID (Hull Identification number), it belonged to a yacht called 'Far Canal" owned by one Robert Brinkworth of Mackay. I was asked to provide the insurance company with photograph evidence of the yacht showing the name, the registration number on the hull, and the HID. Someone is not a happy person. I have seen a man sniffing around, checking her out."

"Thanks for the warning. Are you coming over for a drink when you finish work?"

"I've finished now."

"How convenient, come on, we haven't had a drink for four days."

"We?"

"Marcia came with me."

"And you caught some fish? If she was wearing what she has on now, if it was me, fishing would have been low down on my list of priorities."

"Some of the time she was wearing less and yes, despite the distraction, we did catch a freezer full of fish."

"Rob was wonderful, he didn't pressure me into doing anything that I didn't want to do."

"I note that you haven't actually said that you didn't do it. Chris had money on the pair of you having it off while you were out there."

We were on our third or fourth drink when Bruce made the announcement that got me thinking. "You remember the guy that we thought carved up Kate?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well, it seems as if there's a hole in his alibi. It seems as if he has an identical twin brother. What we think, and I have to add we can't prove it, happened is that his brother, using his ID caught a plane to Auckland the day before all of this happened."

"So that means that this wasn't a spontaneous act, but a planned act."

"It looks to be the case."

"That makes me even more determined to kill the bastard."

"You were a cop, technically you still are a cop, you know what happens to guys that take the law into their own hands. It doesn't end up well for them."

"Yeah, I know. Just when I find someone who I potentially want to spend the rest of my life with, I don't want to be looking at her through bars at the visitors room of some rat infested prison."

"Are you serious?" Marcia asked.

"About what?"

"Spending the rest of your life with me."

"Yes."

Marcia launched herself at me, smothering me with kisses.

"I'll let myself out then." Bruce said as he headed for the door.

We both managed to have a good nights sleep, and it was just after nine when we surfaced. Marcia was standing looking out the front window. "Rob, come here."

"What is it?"

"Do you see that man standing on the other side of the road?"

"Yes, he seems to paying close attention on the shop front."

"That man is Benson, I'm certain of it."

"You mean the Benson that left you to die?" I took a closer look at him. "Fuck."

"Do you know him?"

"It's only the man that I promised myself I'd kill, the one who carved Kate into little pieces."

"What are we going to do?"

"I need to get access to police files." I took out my phone. "Bruce, Rob, we have a man paying undue attention on the fish shop. Marcia has identified him as the man who set her adrift in the Windrush. What makes it worse is, I'm certain that he is the bastard that killed Kate. We are going down to the boat to clean up after the trip, can you arrange for someone to pick us up and take us to the station. I want to check some records."