Ten
One week later: Mulinsart
It started as a game, but escalated quickly. It always did. Everything started small, until one of them got a good idea. Then the fireworks came out and they had a great time, until someone came along and told them to stop blowing up the rhododendrons. This time, fireworks weren't involved, which could actually be seen as a blessing. This time, it was water.
The summer had started to boil over. It was an effort to lie in a deck chair and complain, but somehow the Captain was managing it. Snowy, small and hairy, was having a hard time. He was a twitchy dog by nature, and was always looking to play. By mid-morning he was panting hard and lying flat out on the grass, trying to cool his belly.
That was why Tintin had filled a bunch of water balloons. The game was simple: he'd throw them; Snowy would chase them like he always did; they would burst and the water would cool the dog down. He was carrying them outside in a basin of water – to stop them from bursting prematurely when they rubbed against each other – when he noticed his shoelace was untied. With a sigh, he put the basin down, knelt, and started to tie it.
Which was when the Captain dumped a bottle of water over his head. Tintin gasped as the ice-cold water froze his head and shoulders, and trickled down the back of his neck. "Why?" he asked plaintively. "Why would you do that!"
"Funny," the Captain replied between snorts of laughter.
"Oh?" Tintin asked. He seized a water balloon and threw it at the Captain. It exploded off the man's arm. "How's that for funny?"
And it was on. They scrambled for balloons and took cover. Tintin dashed behind the garage while the Captain simply upended the patio table and ducked behind it. That was a half an hour ago. Now, the lawn between their hiding spots was awash with water. There were actually puddles, they were pleased to note. But now, Tintin also had a problem.
He was out of water balloons: the Captain had two left. That wasn't the worst of it because the Captain didn't know he had an advantage. But what the Captain had that Tintin didn't have was handy access to a garden hose. It was still plugged in to the small tap a few yards behind the Captain, from when Nestor had watered the flowers early that morning. Once the Captain threw his last balloons, he would resort to the hose, and he would be unmerciful. Tintin needed a weapon.
He had a choice. He could wait it out until the water balloons were gone, then run to the house before the Captain got the hose – probability of success: slim. The Captain could have the hose turned on before Tintin was halfway to the house. He'd get soaked. The other option was to run now, let the Captain use the last of his water balloons, and reach the house before he got the hose. If Tintin was able to reach the house, he could also reach his water gun, which was huge and more like a canon than a pistol.
Tintin took a deep breath. He could hear the Captain. He was intoning a solemn poem about the sea and death in a dreadful voice. Tintin peeked quickly out from behind the garage. "Stop it!" he shouted. "That's really putting me off!"
"Good!" the Captain retorted. "It's supposed to. 'Yeeearrrgh, the waves as they break upon the hull!'"
Go! Tintin dashed out from behind the garage and tread water as he turned and headed to the house. From the corner of his eye he saw the Captain pop up from behind the overturned table, so he put on a burst of speed. The first balloon hit the wall of the garage behind him, but close enough to shower him in sun-warmed water. He had almost reached the French doors when the second balloon hit him full-on in the side of the face and exploded. His own burst of laughter – it really had been a spectacular shot – joined the Captain's, and although he stumbled at the threshold he managed to stay on his feet and speed into the house. He didn't bother closing the door; he just ran straight into the corridor.
His water gun was just inside the front door, leaning against the wall. It was already filled – he'd been using it to tease Snowy ("No, Captain, I'm just cooling him down, honest.") – so all he had to do was grab it and head back out to the fight.
"Ah-ha!" He seized it and held it against his chest like a rifle. "Pay back time!"
Ding dong!
He turned, wide-eyed, and stared at the door. It was solid wood, but highly coincidental that someone would be on the other side at that exact moment. He reached out and opened it.
And did a double-take.
For a second, he thought it was the Captain and tried to duck out of the way of the hose. When he blinked and looked again, he saw that it wasn't the Captain at all. But the caller looked remarkably like the Captain, there was no denying it. They had the same nose, the same mouth, the same black hair… This man had stubble but no beard, and was about a half a head shorter than the Captain was. He was also accompanied by a tall teenage boy who shared the Haddock-y features.
"Can I help you?" Tintin asked. He knew he was staring, but the resemblance was uncanny.
"I'm looking for Archibald Haddock," the Haddock-like man replied.
"Right. Right. Uh, he's out the back. Come in." Tintin stepped back and opened the door wide, inviting them inside. He found that he couldn't take his eyes off the man: he had never seen anyone that looked so remarkably like the Captain before. It had to be a relation. Doesn't the Captain have a brother? he wondered. This must be him.
He led the man and boy through the house and into the back sitting room. "He's just outside," Tintin said, pointing at the French doors, which were still open. It wasn't until the man was stepping through the opening that he remembered about the hose. "No! Wait!"
Ssssssshhhhhhhhplosh!
There was a horrible moment where nobody said anything. The Haddock-like man stood, drenched, as still as a statue. Tintin covered his eyes with his hand and tried not to laugh. The Haddock-like boy looked confused. "What happened?" he asked.
"Really?" the Haddock-like man asked. He looked at the Captain, who was hidden from Tintin and the boy, who were still inside the house. The Haddock-like man looked down at his wet shirt and jeans and back up to the hidden Captain. "Honestly? Twenty years and this is what I get?"
"Frankie?" the Captain's voice asked uncertainly.
"Archie," the Haddock-like man said flatly.
"Great!" the Captain said, turning the hose back on.
x
"You did deserve it," the Captain said as he flung a clean towel at Francis Haddock.
"What for?" Francis demanded. He vigorously rubbed his hair with the towel. They were outside, sitting in deck chairs beside the garage. Tintin and Francis's son, Daniel, were inside. The Captain had no intention of arguing in front of them, and meetings between Archibald and Francis had a way of dissolving into vicious arguments.
"For being a twat," the Captain replied. He leaned back and opened the ice box, extracting two cans of Coke. He tossed one to Francis and squirmed in his seat to get comfortable.
"Specifically? Or just in general?"
"Oh, come on, Frankie: we're not best mates or anything."
"We used to be," Frankie said morosely.
"And dinosaurs used to be alive, but they aren't now. Things change."
"I need your help, Archie."
"Oh yeah?" The Captain rolled his eyes. "I must admit, when I came into that money I expected you to show up. I just thought it would be before now."
"That's not what I want!" Frankie protested.
"Pull the other one, son. Go on, what is it? Business in trouble?"
"No!"
"House re-mortgaged to the hilt?"
"No."
"Wife about to leave you and take half?" There was silence. The Captain glanced at Frankie, and read the truth in his face. "Oh, this will be good!" He popped the tab on his Coke and waited for Frankie to continue. Part of the reason they no longer spoke was, from the Captain's point of view, due to the fact that Frankie had married a complete bitch with no sense of humour.
"My daughter's gone missing," Frankie said. He stared at the grass between his feet. "I can't find her."
"She ran away? What's that got to do with that thing you married?"
"She's gone, Archie. They took her."
"Who took her?"
"I don't know. But she's gone and I can't find her."
"Your daughter?"
"Georgie."
Who the hell was Georgie? The Captain shook his head. "You're going to have to explain all this: I have no idea what's going on."
"I'm sleeping with my secretary, my wife is leaving me, and my daughter Georgie has gone missing," Frankie said. He toasted the Captain with his Coke.
The Captain couldn't help laughing. "Thundering typhoons," he said, "you could fall over and make it look difficult. Start at the beginning, will you?"
x
Tintin watched the two men. They were talking, but it didn't look like they were arguing. That was a good sign, he thought. The Haddock-like boy, who's name was Daniel, was sitting on the sofa in an awkward silence. Snowy sat beside him, staring at him curiously and occasionally wagging his tail when Daniel looked at him. "So," said Daniel. Tintin turned back around and gave him his full attention. In the face of such aggressive listening, Daniel felt his tongue start to trip up. "Er, is, er, Tintin like… A nickname or something."
"Yes," Tintin replied.
Silence.
Daniel tried again. "Oh. Er. People call me Danny. Or Dan."
"Nice to meet you, Danny. Or Dan."
"Yeah, same. Er, so what's it like being a reporter?"
"Are you here on holiday?" Tintin asked, changing the subject smoothly.
"No," Daniel replied, slightly off-balance by the shift in conversation. "I was in Amsterdam on holiday."
"Was it nice?" Tintin's gaze wandered back to the two Haddock men. Francis – Frankie – had his head in his hands, and Tintin thought that he was crying.
"Not really. My sister's gone missing."
Tintin blinked, then turned back around to face Daniel. "What?"
"My sister, Georgia." He shrugged half-heartedly. "Georgie. She's gone missing."
"When?"
"Last Monday. She didn't come home that night."
"When did you know she was missing?" Tintin flopped into a chair across from Danny. "Or rather, when did you stop thinking she just hadn't come home?"
"Monday," Danny admitted. "She went out that lunchtime, but she was meeting someone she'd fallen out with. She was supposed to come home and change for her date with her boyfriend" – here, he grimaced – "but she never did. And she never came back that whole night."
"And that was unusual?" Tintin cocked his head to one side: a teenager not coming home from her boyfriend's, while in Amsterdam? He would have thought it was the norm.
"Yeah: she changes her outfit, like, four times a day. And there's no way she would have gone to dinner in a pair of tracksuit bottoms and an old t-shirt."
"Are the police involved?"
"Yeah. I called the police on Tuesday afternoon, but they said she had to be missing for longer. When they finally did come out to us, they didn't take it seriously. They're looking in canals for her. They think she's dead, don't they?"
Tintin studied Danny's face carefully, deciding whether or not to tell him the truth. In the end, his natural honesty won out. "Yes," he said. "In this case, when a young person goes missing in a foreign country during the summer, most times it's because they've drunk too much and fallen into a canal or a river. It happens quite a lot."
"I don't think so," Danny said worriedly. "I mean, I know it's probably a statistic or something, but her boyfriend has me worried. Do you know a man named Müller?"
Tintin raised an eyebrow. "Yes."
"That's the name of the man Georgie was seeing: Jörn Müller."
Tintin thought about it for a split second. "Do you know what he looks like?"
"Yeah. I never met him, but he dropped Georgie home a couple of times, and picked her up too. I'd recognise him if I saw him again."
Tintin got up and left the room. Danny sat in silence, drumming his fingers together and trying to avoid the dog's gaze. Snowy was still fascinated by him. Slowly, the dog inched forward and began to snuffle at Danny's hands before giving them a tentative lick. "Hello," Danny said. Snowy, taking this as an opening of friendship, clambered up to sit on Danny's lap, waiting patiently to be petted. For a given value of 'patiently'.
"Is he ok?" Danny asked nervously as Tintin came back into the room. Snowy was now standing up, with both paws on Danny's right shoulder, staring into his face.
"Oh? Yeah, he just wants you to pet him. Scratch him behind his ears: he loves that. Or if he's annoying you just put him down." Tintin was carrying a blue, plastic folder. He put it on the coffee table and pulled out a few loose pages. He rifled through them, then placed one on the table facing Danny.
"That's him," Danny said at once.
"You're sure?" Tintin asked.
"Yep. That's Jörn. Same beard; same baldy head."
"Hmm. He is pretty distinctive… How did she meet him?"
x
"I can't help you. Sorry," the Captain said. Frankie was staring at him in disbelief.
"What do you mean, you can't help? This is the sort of thing you do!"
The Captain shrugged, embarrassed. "I don't know what to tell you: I can't help you. Look, you said the police are involved, yes? They'll find her."
"They think she's dead, Archie! They're not looking for her. Something happened to her. I don't know what, but it wasn't an accident."
"How do you know?"
"I just... know. I can't explain."
Neither can I, but I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. "If the police can't do anything, how can I?"
"Because you get results? Because that kid, Tintin, knows things?" Frankie rolled his eyes. "Is this how bad we've gotten? That you'll let my daughter die – or worse – because you don't like me? Because of some old grudge from decades ago?"
"No," the Captain snapped. "That isn't it."
"Then what is it?"
"Take your pick! Where the hell were you when Tintin went missing? The first time, I mean: I didn't bother ringing you after that because the first time you didn't give a damn! You told me to sod off! Am I supposed to be the font of compassion because it's finally happened to you?"
"He's not even related to you!"
The Captain speared him with a look. "That's low," he said. "That's real low. You know I think of that lad as family. I'm his guardian, for Christ's sake. Thundering typhoons, he is son to me in everything but name only. So don't sit there and take the high ground on this. You're finally getting a glimpse of what it's like to be me: congratulations. It stinks, doesn't it?"
"Archie, she's in trouble!" Frankie pleaded. "What am I supposed to do?"
"What the police tell you." The Captain's face hardened. "I can't get involved in this. Not after…" He trailed into silence.
"After what?" Frankie demanded.
"Do you not read the papers?" the Captain asked. "After everything that happened last month! No." He shook his head firmly. "I can't help you. He can't help you. It's too soon. He's not able for it. And I won't have him upset over something like this. It's too soon."
Frankie jumped to his feet in anger. "I need help! You can't turn me away over" –
"Shut up."
"How dare you!"
"Hush!" The Captain shot him a look before turning back to face the house. Tintin had emerged, with Snowy at his heels and Danny trailing behind them. "Alright?" the Captain asked as they got closer.
"Fine," Tintin said. "Hey, remember you said we should go away?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to Amsterdam. Are you coming?"
Author's Note: late update, but with any luck there'll still be one on Friday.