Tales of Dirty Old Man Ch. 18

George and Gaston leant forward. Gaston said, "There's no way that he's going to be able to hide out locally without help. He's got a couple of no good cousins that live on a farm outside of Aimes."

I nodded, Aimes was a small village twenty kilometres to the west.

"We've got people watching them. Hopefully, they'll lead us to them," he said.

George cursed, "I blame myself if I hadn't been so gullible. I convinced myself he was right for my daughter and the business." He started pacing back and forth as he worked himself up. "I can't forgive myself, he turned me against my own daughter."

I walked him across the bridge and into the gardens. "George, it's not your fault, and we'll find him and get Lisette back."

"God I hope so but remember I know the bastard. He was always a determined little shit. If he's got a plan, he's going to see it through to the end."

We walked back to the others. Sarah had brought a basket of food, and she and Angie had laid out a selection of local cheeses, cold cuts and her famous duck pate. There was warm bread and fresh butter.

We sat and picked at the food while we waited for Simone and the children to appear. It must have been a good hour later when we heard the car pulling up outside. We hurried round the side of the house to greet them. Philippe was opening the door and Simone was stepping out. Michael and Anna pushed past her and ran over to their grandfather. He knelt and hugged them and I could hear him murmuring to them.

Simone came over to me and hugged me; there were tears in her eyes. "I tried to tell the children about their father, but I don't think they believed me."

George and Sarah were talking to them and after a few moments they came over to us. We all walked around to the terrace and sat down.

Michael said quietly, "Has daddy taken Lisette away?"

"I'm afraid so," I said.

"But why would he want to take Aunt Lisette, Mummy?"

"He's very upset with me and he's trying to hurt us."

Anna was forcing back her tears, "Doesn't he love us anymore?"

Simone wrapped her in her arms. "Of course he loves you and Michael and he knows that you love him. But he just doesn't understand that I don't love him anymore and he's upset. We think he took Lisette because he thought it would hurt me and Andy."

Anna stood considering her mother's words. "But he's hurting me because I love Aunt Lise as well."

"I don't think he realises that darling. He's all confused."

Michael looked so confused. He'd been the closest of the children to Bernard and while he had accepted his father moving out he'd been the one who'd wanted to keep in contact with his father. Now it looked like his world was disintegrating in front of his eyes.

"Daddy won't hurt her," he said, more as a plea than a question. He looked at me pleadingly.

"I'm sure he won't," I tried to reassure him.

~~~~~~~~~**~~~~~~~~

For the next few days, we attempted to maintain a degree of normality but it was so hard. The security team tried their best to keep a low profile, but just their presence kept us all on edge. Simone and I went to St Raphael to see Lisette's family but other than mutually condemning Bernard there wasn't much we could say or do.

The conversation with her parents was rather painful as it was obvious that they blamed us for the situation their daughter was in.

"If you hadn't encouraged her and seduced her, that bastard wouldn't have taken her," her father spat at us.

Simone tried to defuse the situation. "We didn't seduce her, we all fell in love and we are doing everything we can to try and find her."

There was nothing we could say that would make it better so we left. I glanced back and saw them comforting each other. My own sense of despair and frustration washed over me. Why can't we find her, more interestingly if he was trying to punish us why hadn't he contacted us to gloat?

We had daily calls to the police both here and in Paris but there was no news and it was affecting all of us in one way or another.

It affected the children the most; they could sense the frustration we were all exuding. Finally, we decided to send them to stay a week with Kirsten and Chrissy in London. With the stricter border controls, it would be difficult for Bernard to get near them in England. We packed for them and said a very tearful goodbye to them at Nice airport.

They called us five hours later from Kristen's flat, they sounded much more relaxed. I spoke to my daughter and she promised that either she or Chrissy would be with them at all times.

After the children left Angie moved out of the guest room and into ours for her last couple of days. As in Paris, we took comfort from each other's bodies.

The three of us were stretched out on the bed on Angie's last evening. Earlier that day we'd risked Philippe's wrath and insisted that we were going out for lunch at David and Julian's restaurant. It was one of those warm October days, the last glimmer of summer and we managed to convince Philippe to let us eat in the courtyard. Julian introduced us to his new girlfriend, a stunningly beautiful twenty-five-year-old from the island of Reunion. The food was as usual excellent and for a brief moment we were able to forget the whole situation.

I lazily traced a finger around Angie's nipple, which perked up. The areola crinkled. Her breasts were responding to her pregnancy and filling out and her usually pink nipples were several shades darker. She lay half asleep on her back with her head resting on Simone's abdomen, her red hair fanning across Simone's tanned skin. Simone was running her fingers through her locks.

"This wasn't the relaxing trip you were looking for love," I murmured. I was propped up on my elbow looking down at the pair of them.

She half opened an eye and looked at me. "It doesn't matter, any time I get to spend with you is worth it. But I feel so guilty, enjoying myself while we don't know where Lise is, or how she is."

"It's so frustrating," Simone said, "The police are fairly sure she's being held somewhere close by but she could be on the moon for all we know."

The frustration of being so helpless morphed into a mutual need to be loved and held. Three sets of hands and mouths roamed over the exposed naked flesh, urging, forcing lovers to respond. Tongues licked and teased, eliciting groans and moans of pleasure.

A long drawn out cry and the body beneath my fingertips quivered and shook as her orgasm took hold. A mouth drew my rampant cock into its warm erotic embrace and my fingers slid deftly into a soft, silky passage.

The complex organism on the bed constantly changed shape, occasionally splitting into smaller components before reforming into new ever more complex configurations.

The sound of sex is a symphony that draws the individual instruments to perform in harmony. Voices raised, wet flesh slapping, counterpoise the sensual aromas of lust and fulfilment that drift like the morning mist enveloping the countryside. Bodies sated, Morpheus reached out and gathered us into his welcoming arms.

~~~~~~~~~**~~~~~~~~

The sunlight coming through the window woke me the next morning. Angie had rolled onto her side and the curves of her buttocks nestled against my thigh. She gave a cute little sigh at the end of each breath. Simone was using me as a pillow. She had a leg draped over mine and her head was resting on my shoulder. There was the tang of sex and our skin was streaked with dried and tacky body fluids. Her eyes opened as she felt me stir beside her.

"Morning love," I murmured.

She smiled that irresistible cute smile of hers and whispered back, "Morning lover." Then she gave a little laugh, "It's a good job the children are staying with Kirsten. Angie was rather loud last night."

Angie's voice rose indignantly from the other side of me. "I wasn't the only one making noise last night. And it's not my fault that being pregnant makes me hooornie." She drew the last word out in a sorry attempt to sound pathetic. She sat up and propped herself up against the bedhead. She looked down at us with a happy smile. Her swollen pussy lips were as red as the tuft of her pussy fur.

Her smile broadened as she saw the equally disheveled state of us. "I'm happy to say," she said, "That I feel completely fucked out. It looks like you are in a similar state.

I groaned as I stretched, muscles and joints creaking in protest.

"Poor baby, did we wear you out last night, " Simone joked.

"I'm an old man," I said trying to sound pitiful,

They both gave a short disbelieving laugh and I crawled off the bed. I made my way into the bathroom and stood gratefully under the pounding water of the shower. Two warm bodies joined me quickly and we shared the tasks of washing each other. No sex but every inch of our bodies was squeaky clean.

After breakfast Simone had helped Angie to pack and it was with heavy hearts and a lot of tears we watched the car drive away down the drive. She'd refused to let us go back to Paris with her. We understood her reasoning, but it didn't make her absence any easier to take.

Over the next few days, we settled into a routine. In the morning, Simone would call Michelle in Paris for an update on the search for Lisette and Bernard, and each day the news was the same. No sightings and no clues.

We would go for lunch at the restaurant and David would sit with us. He contacted all his old friends and acquaintances and they were asking questions all over the region. David would keep us informed and Julian would serve us a meal he'd created just for us.

In the evening, Sarah would cook us a meal at the château. Her husband and Simone's father would join us and again we would go over any possible ideas on where Bernard was hiding out. We'd watch the news and at first there was a lot of coverage and speculation, but it quickly tailed off. The reporters hanging around the entrance to the chateau fell in number until there was only one hardy individual left.

At night, we would curl up in our bed and take comfort in our bodies and each morning we would wake up with a feeling of loss.

We'd been at the Chateau for five days when I decided I should check on Rosie. She had been moored at the chateau's landing stage by my daughter after they got back from their little trip. There had been some rain the last couple of days and I wanted to check that she was properly moored and I guessed she could do with an airing out.

It was mid morning when we left the house. We took the track running between the vines. The leaves were turning and had started to fall. It had been raining again earlier. But now the dark grey clouds were breaking up and glimpses of blue sky and shafts of sunlight brightened the day. Walking a hundred meters behind us was one of our security guards.

The chateau sat on a rise and our home stands in a small fold set back from the river. The track wound its way through the fields rising slowly until it reaches the crest of the ridge and the last slopes leading down to the waterside. These south-facing vines produced the best of the chateau's wines.

Gaston and his assistant were checking the vine stock in the first of the vineyards we passed. He waved and came over to us.

"Any news?"

"Nothing," I said shaking my head. "We are just going to check on the boat. I want to make sure Kirsten tied her up securely."

He gave us a puzzled look. "I don't know where your daughter moored Rosie, but it wasn't at our landing. There's nothing moored there."

"That can't be right," I said.

"Come I'll show you," he said.

We walked up the track to the top of the rise and we looked down at the empty mooring.

"Where the fuck is she?" I said.

I had had forgotten my phone, so we hurried back to the house. The security guard came up to us and I explained what was going on. He called Philippe on his radio and he was waiting for us when we arrived. I called my daughter and she picked up quite quickly.

"Hi, darling."

"Hi dad, do you want to talk to the kids?"

"Later love, just a quick question. Where did you moor Rosie?"

"What do you mean? She's moored at the chateau, we tied up nine, err..ten days, yes it was ten days ago."

"Fuck, fuck she's gone..." I stopped talking as my brain began racing.

"I need to call you back," and I rang off.

"She was moored here," I told them. "She may have just been stolen, but what if it was Bernard? It would explain why there's been no sighting of them."

Simone gasped and took the phone from me. In a few moments, she was talking to Michelle Martien, the senior police officer on the case.

Simone spoke rapidly in French. "Nous pensons que Bernard peut avoir pris bateau d'Andrew, la Rosie M." She carried on talking, apparently answering a lot of questions as there were numerous 'Oui et non' in her responses.

She put the phone down, "She's going to send a couple of officers from the local station to get all the details. They want a photo of Rosie, do you have one to hand?"

"There's some on my laptop or I can download one from the family website for them. If they are on the boat, then there's only so many places they can be. We need to let George know, he can pass the word along that we are looking for Rosie."

Philippe interrupted, "I can let him know for you." He thought for a few seconds, "If you can authorise it, we can get a helicopter and follow the river and the canals looking for your boat."

"Yes, do it," Simone said.

He was on his phone immediately, after a few moments he gave me thumbs up. "We can get one here in a couple of hours. I'm going to need photos of the boat."

I switched on my laptop and quickly found half a dozen shots of Rosie from different angles. I printed them as well as emailed copies to Philippe. While I was doing that that two police officers arrived.

Simone and Philippe explained what we had discovered, or rather what we hadn't found, and what we conjectured. One of the officers left with a set of the photos. The second was ordered to join the search in the helicopter after talking with his commander.

All my good charts of the river and canal system were of course on Rosie. But Philippe had a reasonable set of local maps. We laid them out on the kitchen table and I tried to work out how far Bernard could have travelled in the past few days. The first problem was we didn't actually know when he had taken the boat.

"Ok, let's work this out," I started. "We know that my daughter moored Rosie ten days ago. Lisette was taken from the apartment last Monday. My best guess is that he took the boat late Tuesday, or Wednesday. That's a seven-day head start."

I tapped the map, "This is the chateau." I pointed at a second point, fifty kilometres upstream. "This is the lock complex at Aix. If he went that way, then the lock keepers record the passage of all boats."

"Good," the police officer said. "I'll call that in and get it checked out."

I was looking at the map and my heart sank. There were hundreds of kilometres of waterways that he could hide the boat in. Then I had another thought. Again I called my daughter.

"How much fuel was left in Rosie?" I asked as she answered.

"About a hundred and twenty litres, I left you a note saying you needed to top up the tank. The fresh water was almost empty as well. Why do you want to know?"

"Because we think he's holding Lisette on the boat. It would be the perfect hideout and he'd take extra pleasure in stealing something else that I hold dear from me."

I told her I loved her and finished the call.

I looked at the rest of them and said, "Rosie uses a bit more than five litres of diesel an hour against the current and a little less going downstream. I've got the only keys to the fuel cap and it's not something you can pick easily. There are two keys, one for the panel and a second for the cap itself."

"Is that the same panel the water and electrical connectors are in," Simone asked?

I nodded. "What this means is that the best he can do is about twenty-five hours of cruising. He won't want to attract any attention so he would have kept to the speed limits."

I calculated quickly. "That means the furthest he could travel is a tad under two hundred kilometres."

"Shit, that still a lot of water to search," Philippe said, pointing at the map.

"I don't think it's that bad," I said. "Remember that's not as the crow flies. He has to follow the course of the river."

I pointed as several points on the map. The locks at Aix, and here and here are manned and there will be a record of the boat if he passed through. If there is no record, then he can only be in these three sections of the river."

I took a pencil and marked the sections on the map. The police officer was talking rapidly into his radio as we all poured over the map.

"According to the records no boat resembling yours has passed through any of those locks in the past week," the police officer informed us.

Philippe looked at me with an intrigued expression. He asked, "If it were you, where would you hide the boat?"

I hadn't thought of it like that and I looked back at the map and tried to put myself in his shoes. I traced the river downstream. There were a couple of tributaries he could have used, but it didn't feel right. Bernard had grown up in a region that was upstream and I guessed that would have been his first choice. But he hadn't passed through the lock complex.

But then it came to me. He wouldn't have known the locks were manned. He would have gone upstream. But would have turned back when he saw the situation at the locks. If he'd turned around and headed back this way...

I started to do the calculations. It would have taken him eight to ten hours to get there, and more importantly forty to fifty litres of fuel. If he came all the way back here, then he would only have enough fuel for another fifty kilometres at most. That didn't seem like him. The detail on the map wasn't good enough so I found a better one online. I peered at the screen and then I saw it. There was a canal about fifteen kilometres below the locks. There was a lock at the entrance, but it was so remote I guessed it wasn't manned.

"There," I said, "That's where I'd go. It's not a very accessible route and I would guess there's a lot of nooks and crannies to hide the boat. For a lot of it there's no road nearby so it would be isolated. And if he can get as far as here," and I indicated a point on the screen, "He's not far from where he grew up."

Again I checked the map on the screen and muttered to myself, "There has to be a better chart, I need one with depths and the height of bridges."

The police officer moved me to one side and started typing. After a few moments, a new chart appeared on the screen. "Is this better?" He asked.

I nodded and started to check the details. It was deep and wide enough. I kept scrolling along the canal and then I stopped.

"He can't go past this point, the bridge is too low. So if that's where he is, he's somewhere in that twenty-five-kilometre section."

I sat back and looked at the rest of them in the room.

"That's where we will check first," Philippe said. "The helicopter should be here in an hour."

"We have a launch and we'll send it up the canal, but," the police officer shredded apologetically, "it's halfway down the river. It'll take half a day to get here."

He added, "Our helicopter is busy, we are going to send a search party across country and get them to search the canal banks. But quite honestly if he is there your helicopter is our best bet. It's unmarked so hopefully it won't make him suspicious if he sees it."

"I want to go with you," I said.