‘Was there something else?’ asked the Dutchman.
Atherton sighed, shamming confidence. ‘I hear you’re paying my people half what you pay other people.’
‘That’s the point of them, isn’t it?’
‘The point is, mate; I’ve got a hostel to run, and this here doesn’t even cover the rent.’
The big man leaned back, straightening his legs. ‘Okay, you can have another ten per cent, but I haven’t got the cash right now. How’s next week?’
‘Sweet.’
Atherton pocketed the money, winked. He hadn’t even had to sit down. The businessman strode out, patting his breast pocket, back to the blue transit, back to the Bier Café for a couple of hours.
Vinnie rounded the final corner back onto Dwingelostraat and kicked into a sprint to AC/DC. By the time he’d got to the front door the tank was empty; he was bent double and his eyes burned with perspiration. He’d knocked the fags on the head, for good this time. What had happened, what he’d had to do at the banks of that river, had made him stronger – it had to.
He barged into the apartment and knocked on the lad’s doors. ‘Business meeting, ten minutes.’
Back at the helm, he felt renewed. The team met in the living room, in three different shades of white boxer shorts.
‘Item one,’ announced Atherton. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’
‘I had a matter to sort out on the site.’
‘Told yer, didn’t I?’ bragged Atherton to Farood.
‘You said he’d gone to Corfu.’
‘Why would I go to fucking Corfu?’ Vinnie was genuinely perplexed.
For the next ten minutes they argued over the possibility of this hypothetical reason for Vinnie’s absence and, not for the first time, Farood felt he was back on the wing. He clapped his hands to be heard. ‘Look, we need to assess the present situation and plan our next move.’
Atherton reported first, grinning. ‘Well, as of yesterday, I got us a pay rise from the sandwich factory.’
‘Yeah, well, you need to get working on jobs for the others,’ Farood reminded him.
‘I am, I already said I am. How did the first shipment go?’
Vinnie took a moment to ponder, nodding to himself. ‘Okay. It went okay.’
‘What’s that mean?’ asked Atherton.
‘What do you think it means? I got them there.’
Atherton pressed on. ‘You got the money from the farm?’
‘Too bloody right I did.’
Atherton let the next question brew for a moment. ‘…That’s a grand each, right?’
It sent Vinnie to his feet, resenting the implication. ‘I don’t rip people off. People I’m working with. Never.’ He went to the window, pulled back the porous curtains, craved a cigarette.
Farood moved on to the next item. ‘The agent in Istanbul. He rang me. He wants to know when you’re taking the rest. He has people he needs to send us.’
‘Soon,’ said Vinnie. ‘I need to do some work on packaging. A few days.’
Over the following week they were all industrious. Vinnie gave Atherton permission to purchase ‘a little runner’, a Vauxhall Astra with a hundred K on the clock. He would need it. The business was alive; they had created something, and as much as they bickered, they were proud of what they had achieved. Vinnie went in search of the right-sized boxes, giving ventilation serious thought. He looked upon the first shipment as merely a prototype. There were definite advantages with the long, narrow box – it prevented the cargo from moving – the disadvantage was that the cargo had died. The farm in Lincolnshire had been on the blower asking about the whereabouts of their free, live-in labour.
Atherton scurried from one Rotterdam industrial park to another and hustled down town at anywhere that might not ask for a CV and a passport – cafés, bars or fast-food orifices that looked like they were already hiring no-questions-asked labour. Another angle had also occurred to him, one that wouldn’t have purchase with the likes of Ginger Bollocks but might amongst the less ugly. Perhaps the hostel was really a ‘refugee centre’. Hi, Michael van Hurst. I’m working on behalf of refugees. People escaping shithole countries in search of a better life, starting with you. He would need to get the chat nailed, plus a new business card, but he knew how to identify the kind of prey that would offer refugees assistance from a hundred yards. The maternal women in flat shoes and the forgiving men who preferred wine to beer. His cheap suit would work better in that end of the market. I went to that camp in Calais. It’s not easy to describe.
By the end of the week he had found a few companies prepared to welcome ‘multi-cultural interns’ for a small fee.
He was halfway through reporting on the results when Farood returned from the food factory pick up. ‘The Dutch guy. He says they’re all sacked. And he won’t pay them this week.’
Vinnie ruled out any immediate retribution, even after a liquid brunch he was against it. They couldn’t win this one. No matter how many times they hit Ginger Bollocks, he wasn’t going to take the border-jumpers back, and if they hit him hard enough, he would go to the cops. Atherton would just have to dig deeper for some new openings.
A few days later Vinnie was on his way with a second shipment. This time his cargo lay inside wooden crates under thermal blankets, with loose straw behind air holes galore. The lids were nailed down rather than taped.
At the florist’s depot he slapped his order on the reception desk like a domino and was told to go find his forklift driver in the order department who, when he got there, was in close conversation with a female employee. Vinnie waved the despatch note; the driver waved back.
Vinnie pointed out, ‘Listen, son, on your toes, I’ve a ferry to catch.’
The production line of twenty flower packers, most of whom were plugged into iPods, were oblivious. All except one: a newly appointed Moroccan intern from a nearby refugee hostel run by a Michael van Hurst. The Moroccan had seen Vinnie before – demonstrating how he packed people into boxes.
*
Sunrise is the time to take photographs along the Humber. The photographer had shot hundreds of sunrises, but there was always something different about each photograph, each moment. Despite the Met Office putting a time on it, she knew that dawn was a sequence, not an instant, and the temptation was always to overshoot. So, she imposed a limit on herself of three shots. This would force her to locate the height of the drama. She walked the three miles out to the tip of Spurn Point following the beam from her headlamp along the sandy track. When the track drained into the flattened sands there was enough faint light creeping above the horizon to dispense with the lamp. She looked at her watch, looked over her shoulder to where the estuary lapped on the Point. She had no more than thirty minutes before she needed to head back. Beached and swollen at the river’s very mouth, hanging off its lower lip, was a seal. She raised her camera and zoomed towards it. The seal was wearing a denim jacket.
Twenty-Five
Humberside
It was the first occasion that the young policeman had been the initial officer at a crime scene with a body. Luckily, he thought, it all looks simple enough. There was only one cooperative witness – no other members of the public, no traffic and no Sherlock Holmes neighbours. He could’ve taped off a perimeter for a mile square if he wanted. He’d rung it through and was waiting with the photographer, their collars turned up against the sea breeze. She is, he thought, without a doubt single. Also, potentially grumpy, overweight and probably a serial attendee of evening classes. He is, she thought, a policeman, and consequently someone who makes snap judgements about people. Before he had arrived at the scene, she had taken a score or more photographs of the corpse. With each shot she became less afraid, moving closer until she was kneeling in the water, exploring the subject. Now in the full light of morning, watching the dead man bob and tug on the tide, she realised she m
uch preferred looking at him through a lens. From a few metres away the body looked like he had fallen over and might get up at any minute. She had no conversation for the policeman, who repeatedly looked at his watch, turning to search for approaching headlights.
She touched his shoulder with her palm, pointed to the dead man. ‘Tide’s coming in,’ she announced.
The current had picked up the body, the left arm pointing in the direction he was heading, upriver back to Hull. The young constable waded into the milky tan water. He was conscious that he wasn’t supposed to touch a body, but it would be no use pointing SOCO in the direction that it had drifted to. Grabbing a foot, he dragged it onto the sand. Once on the beach, the dead man showed his face to the sky. It was swollen and paler than the other exposed areas. A white crab crawled from his mouth.
DS Gavin O’Grady and DI Esther Katz had left Spurn Road and were bumping along the rutted track, Katz with one hand on the dashboard, the other holding an electronic cigarette. They came to a ‘No Vehicles Beyond This Point’ sign, at which O’Grady braked.
‘That doesn’t mean us,’ clarified Katz.
The young constable met them at the perimeter tape.
Katz, who was taller than either of the men, strode ahead down to the beach. Noticing the tracks in the sand, she halted. ‘This is where you found the body?’
The young constable drew level with her. ‘No, ma’am, the body was in the water—’
‘And you dragged it out, did you?’
‘The thing is, ma’am…’
The constable tendered his explanation, but Katz walked away from him and took out her phone.
He went on, ‘…it was beginning to float away.’
She raised a palm in his direction, began talking urgently to the screen. ‘I do know what time it is… I’ve got a body, which a very keen first attending officer pulled out of the water… Hold on.’ She turned to the constable. ‘How long has he been out of the water?’
‘Ten minutes?’
‘I’m after an answer, not a question, Constable.’ She flagged her palm at him again to resume the phone call. ‘Must I? Hold on, I’ll have a look.’ She bent down towards the body’s face. ‘Yes, I can see… as soon as you like.’ She put the phone back into her waterproof. ‘Constable, seeing as you dragged him out, you can help me drag him back in.’
Taking the tall Afghan by the feet, they dragged him back into the estuary until Katz and the constable were both knee deep.
‘Now, Constable, I need you to keep him there until the pathologist arrives. She’s probably in the shower by now. Advice for you as an FAO: never move a body out of the water – it starts to decompose. Just anchor it if you need to.’
As she waded out, DS O’Grady wanted to tell the constable not to take it personally.
Katz put on a generous smile and approached the photographer. ‘So, what were you doing out here, so bright and early?’
‘Photographing the sunrise.’
‘Any good, was it?’
‘I got a bit distracted.’
‘Bet you couldn’t believe your luck.’ Katz held out her hand, nodding to the camera. The photographer put on a face of blank resistance. Katz persisted, ‘I need to see the photos you took of the body.’
The photographer handed it over; Katz began to click through the digital images of the Afghan: close-ups of a hand, an eye, his bloated lips. ‘We’re going to need to hang on to your artwork.’
She strode back to the car with O’Grady following. They passed the SOCO at the perimeter tape, replete with white jumpsuit and green wellingtons.
‘All yours,’ she announced, then added, ‘The pathologist is on his way.’
The SOCO smiled sarcastically. In the vehicle Katz took off her shoes and socks, rubbed her toes. O’Grady turned on the heater, spawning condensation.
‘We’ll need to do a pit stop at Debenhams, Sergeant.’
‘Sure.’
‘I know my feet are still there, but I can’t feel them. So, Detective, what’s your line of thought?’
‘From where I was standing, ma’am, I couldn’t see any wounds.’
‘No, I didn’t see any holes in him either.’
‘Assuming he drowned then, a suicide? If you wanted to murder someone, would you throw them in the Humber?’
‘You might. It’s very awkward keeping a body in one’s bath. You reckon he jumped from the bridge and made his way to the point?’
‘From the Hull side, ma’am.’
‘How so?’
‘If it was the other side, he’d be taken out to sea.’
As they reached the end of the track, Katz looked at the ferry inching towards Immingham. She watched it shrink in the wing mirror, sounding its horn as it disappeared from view.
*
On the ferry’s lower parking deck Vinnie tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. The engine ticking over, itching for disembarkation.
‘Almost home and dry, guys,’ he announced to his cargo.
‘My legs, Vinnie, my legs,’ someone cried.
He closed the hatch behind the driver’s cabin.
At the hostel Berzan, the agent in Istanbul, had been on the phone to Farood more than once, wanting to know how soon people could be shifted. He had more for Rotterdam, more for everywhere. Among the latest arrivals at the hostel were a family from Syria, including two toddlers. ‘Syria,’ Berzan said, ‘was going to be a goldmine.’ The increasing turnover was the last straw for Mustapha, who had fled the scene for good. Atherton too was uneasy about the situation and told Farood that Vinnie would refuse to ship the kiddies.
‘We come out here to run our own business and now we’re being told how to run it by someone we’ve never met.’
The children’s father was a Syrian doctor whose English was good and his Dutch non-existent. He told Atherton about how he had been imprisoned and tortured in Damascus for attending a demonstration. When he was eventually released, he was unable to walk for months, his passport was seized and the house was watched by the secret police.
‘That’ll teach you not to kick off, won’t it?’ said Atherton to it all.
That evening in the Bier Café, he impressed on Farood the importance of having the right cargo.
‘Vinnie has a deal with a farm and they ain’t looking for no doctors and kids. Roodie, man, you need to get on the phone to the guy in Istanbul. Tell him exactly who we want here: people who can sit in a box for a day and people who can graft picking carrots.’
‘I know this man, he doesn’t care. If people pay him, he’ll move them down the line. It’s up to the next agent to move them on.’
‘Obviously,’ Atherton stabbed the table with his forefinger, ‘but he needs us.’
‘And we need him.’
Farood made the call. He asked Berzan politely about moving children. His answer was that there would be more children, and sometimes children without their parents. Things were opening up, there was a lot of money to be made, but there were also a lot of new agents on the scene now. Demand was increasing, so was competition, plus the free movement nonsense in the EU had destroyed a lot of opportunities. But people still needed to get to the EU and a lot wanted to get to the UK.
‘I’m calling a meeting, here, all my agents, from Afghan, Pakistan, France, UK. I want you to come.’
Farood took a pause. ‘I don’t have a passport.’
‘Just send me a headshot – I can get you one.’
Atherton advised against him going. ‘You’re going to leave me to look after this lot?’
‘They can look after themselves,’ replied Farood. ‘They got here on their own, they got out of Syria. I have to go.’
‘Why?’
‘For the business.’
It was not money that compelled him, he knew this. It was honour. This was his
path; God had made it for him and he had to follow it – God willed it. He would return to Berzan, no longer a boy.
*
Vinnie was in a layby in Lincolnshire unloading his cargo, inviting them to stretch their legs, their fizzing, burning limbs. They crawled on their elbows, dipping their heads out of the rear of the lorry like seals sliding off pack ice. Vinnie looked uneasily up and down the A1173. He wanted to help them to the gate, into the field, behind the hedge, but they had all slumped down stock-still on the kerb.
Vinnie handed out some water and massaged a calf or two. ‘That wasn’t so bad now, was it?’
They’d been in the crates for eleven hours. They were not tall or stocky men, but then they were not big crates. It had been a cosy ride with knees raised, heads bowed. One man was crying; another held his hand.
Vinnie clapped his hands. ‘Let’s all have a walk now, in the field… Get up… Come on, move!’
The five casualties pushed themselves to their knees, Vinnie hoisted them to their feet; they hobbled through the gate. They stood on the brown clods of the field’s verge, facing row after row of cauliflower crowns. One of the five looked up at the sky and laughed.
‘Everyone, walk with me for five minutes. We don’t want you falling over when you get there, do we?’
The farm was fifteen minutes away off the Grimsby Road. The entrance was a medley of automobile husks and caravans leading to a corrugated barn where Vinnie was greeted at the barn door by the farm manager and his Doberman. The five Algerians stood near the rear of the lorry; some were shivering, yet it wasn’t a cold day.
The manager called across at them, ‘Everyone want to work?’
‘Yes, boss, yes,’ two or three shouted, their voices stronger than their legs.
He waved them over and brought everyone into the hanger-sized barn. He showed his workforce to a tea urn and a loaf of bread; he led Vinnie into a glass-partitioned office. ‘What happened to the last lot?’
Vinnie stumbled into a reply. ‘They didn’t want to work, didn’t want to waste your time.’
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