The Night Ferry

by Michael Robotham

  And that was the start of it. Like Siamese twins, we were. Salt and pepper, Miss Flower called us but I preferred “milk and cookies,” which was Mr. Nelson’s description. He was American and taught biology and protested when people said it was the easiest of the science electives.

  Through school and then university Cate and I were best friends. I loved her. Not in a sexual way, although I don’t think I understood the difference at fourteen.

  Cate claimed she could predict the future. She would map out our paths, which included careers, boyfriends, weddings, husbands and children. She could even make herself miserable by imagining that our friendship would be over one day.

  “I have never had a friend like you and I never shall again. Never ever.”

  I was embarrassed.

  The other thing she said was this: “I am going to have lots of babies because they will love me and never leave me.”

  I don’t know why she talked like this. She treated love and friendship like a small creature trapped in a blizzard, fighting for survival. Maybe she knew something then that I didn’t.

  5

  Another morning. The sun is shining somewhere. I can see blue sky bunched between buildings and a construction crane etched in charcoal against the light. I cannot say how many days have passed since the accident—four or fourteen. Colors are the same—the air, the trees, the buildings—nothing has changed.

  I have been to the hospital every day, avoiding the waiting room and Cate’s family. I sit in the cafeteria or wander the corridors, trying to draw comfort from the technology and the smiles of the staff.

  Cate is in a medically induced coma. Machines are helping her to breathe. According to the hospital bulletin she suffered a perforated lung, a broken back and multiple fractures to both her legs. The back of her skull was pulverized but two operations have stopped the bleeding.

  I spoke to the neurosurgeon yesterday. He said the coma was a good thing. Cate’s body had shut down and was trying to repair itself.

  “What about brain damage?” I asked him.

  He toyed with his stethoscope and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “The human brain is the most perfectly designed piece of equipment in the known universe,” he explained. “Unfortunately, it is not designed to withstand a ton of metal of high speed.”

  “Which means?”

  “We classify severe head injury as a coma score of eight or less. Mrs. Beaumont has a score of four. It is a very severe head injury.”

  At eleven o’clock the ICU posts another bulletin. Cate’s condition hasn’t changed. I bump into Jarrod in the cafeteria and we drink coffee and talk about everyday incidental things: jobs and families, the price of eggs, the frailty of modern paper bags. The conversation is punctuated by long pauses as though silence has become part of the language.

  “The doctors say she was never pregnant,” he says. “She didn’t lose the baby. There was no miscarriage or termination. Mum and Dad are beside themselves. They don’t know what to think.”

  “She must have had a reason.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t think of one.” A trickle of air from the ceiling vents ruffles his hair.

  “Do you think Felix knew?”

  “I guess. How do you keep a secret like that from your husband?” He glances at his watch. “Have you been to see her?”

  “No.”

  “Come on.”

  Jarrod leads me upstairs to the intensive care unit, along painfully white corridors that all look the same. Only two visitors per patient are allowed in the ICU. Masks must be worn and hands must be scrubbed with disinfectant.

  Jarrod isn’t coming with me. “There’s someone already with her,” he says, adding as an afterthought, “She won’t bite.”

  My stomach drops. It’s too late to back out.

  The curtains are open and daylight casts a square on the floor. Mrs. Elliot in her wheelchair is trapped in the light like a hologram, her skin as pale and fine as white china.

  Cate lies beside her, hostage to a tangle of tubing, plasma bags and stainless steel. Needles are driven into her veins and her head is swathed in bandages. Monitors and machines blink and buzz, reducing her existence to a digital computer game.

  I want her to wake now. I want her eyes to open and for her to pluck away the breathing tube like a strand of hair caught in the corner of her mouth.

  Wordlessly, Mrs. Elliot points to a chair beside the bed. “The last time I watched my daughter sleeping she was eight years old. She had come down with pneumonia. I think she caught it at one of those public swimming pools. Every time she coughed it sounded like someone drowning on dry land.”

  I reach across the marble sheets and take Cate’s fingers in mine. I can feel her mother’s eyes upon me. A cold scrutiny. She does not want me here.

  I remember Mrs. Elliot when she could still walk—a tall, thin woman who always offered Cate her cheek to kiss so as not to smudge her lipstick. She used to be an actress who did mainly TV commercials and was always impeccably made-up, as though perpetually ready for her close-up. Of course, that was before she suffered a stroke that paralyzed her down her right side. Now one eyelid droops and no amount of makeup can hide the nerve damage around her mouth.

  In a whisper, she asks, “Why would she lie about the baby?”

  “I don’t know. She was coming to see me. She said she had done something foolish and that someone wanted to take her baby.”

  “What baby? She was never pregnant. Never! Now they say her pelvis is so badly shattered that even if she survives she’ll never be able to carry a baby.”

  Something shudders inside me. A déjà vu from another hospital and a different time, when my bones were being mended. A price is paid with every surgery.

  Mrs. Elliot clutches a cushion to her chest. “Why would she do this? Why would she lie to us?”

  There is no warmth in her voice, only accusation. She feels betrayed. Embarrassed. What will she tell the neighbors? I feel like lashing out and defending Cate, who deserves more than this. Instead I close my eyes and listen to the wind washing over the rooftops and the electronic beeping of the machines.

  How did she do it—maintain such a lie for weeks and months? It must have haunted her. A part of me is strangely envious. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something that much, not even Olympic medals. When I missed out on the team for the Sydney Games I cried on the edge of the track but they were tears of frustration rather than disappointment. The girl who took my place wanted it more.

  I know that I shouldn’t compare Olympic selection with motherhood. Perhaps my opinions are clouded by the medical reality of a patched pelvis and a reinforced spine that can never withstand the trials of pregnancy and labor. Wanting children is a dangerous ambition for me.

  Squeezing Cate’s hand, I hope she knows I’m here. For years I wanted her to call, to be friends again, to need me. And just when it finally happened, she’s been snatched away like a half-finished question. I have to find out what she wanted. I have to understand why.

  Euston Traffic Garage is in Drummond Crescent, tucked between Euston Station and the British Library. The spire of Saint Aloysius Church rises above it like a rocket on a launchpad.

  The Collision Investigation Unit is an odd place, a mixture of high-tech gadgetry and old-fashioned garage, with hoists, grease traps and machine tools. This is where they do the vehicular equivalents of autopsies and the process is much the same. Bodies are opened, dismantled, weighed and measured.

  The duty officer, a roly-poly sergeant in overalls, peers up from the twisted front end of a car. “Can I help you?”

  I introduce myself, showing him my badge. “There was a traffic accident on Friday night on Old Bethnal Green Road. A couple were knocked down.”

  “Yeah, I looked at that one.” He wipes his hands on a rag and tucks it back into his pocket.

  “One of them is a friend of mine.”

  “She still alive?”

  “Yes.”

 
“Lucky.”

  “How far are you with the investigation?”

  “Finished. Just got to write it up.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “Thought it was pretty obvious. Your friend and her husband tried to tackle a minicab.” He doesn’t mean to sound callous. It’s just his way. “Maybe the driver could’ve put the brakes on a bit sooner. Sometimes you can be unlucky. Choose the wrong moment to check your mirrors and that fraction of a second comes off your reaction time. Might’ve made a difference. Might not. We’ll never know.”

  “So you’re not going to charge him?”

  “What with?”

  “Dangerous driving, negligence, there must be something.”

  “He was licensed, insured, registered and roadworthy—I got nothing on this guy.”

  “He was traveling too fast.”

  “He says they stepped out in front of him. He couldn’t stop.”

  “Did you examine the car?”

  “At the scene.”

  “Where is it now?”

  He sighs. “Let me explain the facts of life to you, Detective Constable. You see that yard out there?” He motions to an open roller door leading to a walled yard. “There are sixty-eight vehicles—every one of them involved in a serious accident. We have thirteen reports due for the coroner, two dozen submissions for criminal trials and I spend half my time in the witness box and the other half up to me elbows in motor oil and blood. There are no good traffic accidents but from my point of view the one on Friday night was better than most because it was simple—sad, but simple. They stepped out from between parked cars. The driver couldn’t stop in time. End of story.”

  The genial curiosity on his face has vanished. “We checked the brakes. We checked his license. We checked his driving record. We checked his blood alcohol. We took a statement at the scene and let the poor guy go home. Sometimes an accident is just an accident. If you have evidence to the contrary, hand it over. Otherwise, I’d appreciate if you let me get on with my job.”

  There is a moment when we eyeball each other. He’s not so much angry as disappointed.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to question your expertise.”

  “Yes you did.” His face softens. “But that’s OK. I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “Would you mind if I took a look at the driver’s statement?”

  He doesn’t see a problem with that. He leads me to an office and motions to a chair. A computer hums on the desk and box files line the shelves like cardboard bricks. The sergeant hands me a file and a video. For a moment he hovers near the door, unwilling to leave me alone.

  The driver’s name was Earl Blake and his occupation is listed as stevedore. He was moonlighting as a minicab driver to make extra money, he said.

  The video is time coded down to the second and begins with wide-angle shots of the street, taken in the shaky camera style of a holiday video. Partygoers are milling outside the gates of Oaklands, some still holding drinks or draped with streamers.

  Earl Blake is in the distance, talking to a policeman. He notices the camera and seems to turn away. It might mean nothing.

  There are statements from a dozen witnesses. Most heard the screech of brakes and saw the impact. Farther along the road, two cabbies were parked near the corner of Mansford Street. The minicab came past them slowly, as though searching for an address.

  I look for any mention of Donavon. His name and address were taken down by investigators but there isn’t a statement.

  “Yeah, I remember him,” says the sergeant. “He had a tattoo.” He points to his neck, tracing a cross below his Adam’s apple. “He said he didn’t see a thing.”

  “He saw it happen.”

  The sergeant raises an eyebrow. “That ain’t what he told me.”

  I make a note of Donavon’s address on a scrap of paper.

  “You’re not trying to run a private investigation here are you, Detective Constable?”

  “No, sir.”

  “If you have any important information regarding this accident, you are obliged to make it known to me.”

  “Yes, sir. I have no information. Mr. Donavon tried to save my friend’s life. I just want to thank him. Good manners, you see. My mother bred them into me.”

  6

  Earl Blake’s address is a small terrace off Pentonville Road in the neglected end of King’s Cross. There is nobody home. My legs have gone to sleep I’ve been sitting here for so long, staring out the windscreen, tapping a rhythm on the wheel.

  A drug pusher leans against a low wall outside a pub on the corner, his face half hidden under the brim of a baseball cap. Two teenage girls walk by and he says something, smiling. They toss back their hair and sashay a little faster.

  A red hatchback pulls into a parking space ahead of me. A woman in her fifties emerges, dressed in a nurse’s uniform. She collects a bag of groceries from the boot and walks to the terrace, cursing as she drops her keys.

  “Are you Mrs. Blake?” I ask.

  “Who wants to know?” Her blue-gray hair is lacquered into place.

  “I’m looking for your husband.”

  “You trying to be funny?”

  She has opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Your husband was involved in a car accident last Friday night.”

  “Not bloody likely.”

  She is disappearing down the hallway.

  “I’m talking about Earl Blake.”

  “That’s his name.”

  “I need to speak to him.”

  Shouting over her shoulder: “Well, missy, you’re six years too late. That’s when I buried him.”

  “He’s dead!”

  “I sure hope so.” She laughs wryly.

  The house smells of damp dog and toilet freshener.

  “I’m a police officer,” I call after her. “I’m sorry if there’s been a mistake. Do you have a son called Earl?”

  “Nope.”

  Dumping her shopping on a table in the kitchen, she turns. “Listen, love, either come in or stay out. This place costs a fortune to bloody heat.”

  I follow her into the house and shut the door. She has taken a seat at the table and kicked off her shoes, rubbing her feet through her support hose.

  I look around. There are medications lined up on the windowsill and food coupons stuck under fridge magnets. A picture of a baby in a hollowed-out pumpkin is on the calendar.

  “Put the kettle on will you, love.”

  The tap spits and belches.

  “I’m sorry about your husband.”

  “Nowt for you to be sorry about. He dropped dead right there—face-first into his egg and chips. He was moaning about how I over-cooked the eggs and then whump!” Her hand topples onto the table. “I told him not to wear his underwear to breakfast but he never listened. All the neighbors watched him wheeled out of here in his old Y-fronts.”

  She tosses her shoes in the corner beside the back door. “I know all men leave eventually but not when you’ve just made ’em egg ’n’ chips. Earl was always bloody inconsiderate.”

  Mrs. Blake pushes herself upward and warms the teapot. “You’re not the first, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some bloke came here yesterday. He didn’t believe me either when I said Earl was dead. He said Earl owed him money. As if! Can’t see him gambling from beyond.”

  “What did this man look like?”

  “Had this tattoo on his neck. A cross.”

  Donavon is searching for Blake.

  “I hate tattoos,” she continues. “Earl had ’em on his forearms. He was in the merchant navy before I met him. Traveled all over the place and came back with these souvenirs. I call ’em skin complaints.”

  “Did he have one just here?” I point to my chest. “A Crucifixion scene.”

  “Earl weren’t religious. He said religion was for people who believed in hell.”

  “Do you have a photograph of him?”

/>   “Yeah, a few. He was handsome once.”

  She leads me to the sitting room, which is full of seventies furniture and faded rugs. Rummaging in a cupboard next to the gas fire, she pulls out a photo album.

  “Course it’s easier keeping the place clean now. He was a real slob. Dropped clothes like they was crumbs.”

  She hands me a snapshot. Earl is wearing a jacket with a fur collar and fluorescent strips. He looks nothing like the driver of the minicab, although both are roughly the same age.

  “Mrs. Blake, do you ever get mail for your late husband?”

  “Yeah, sure, junk stuff. Banks are always sending him applications for credit cards. What’s he going to do with a credit card, eh?”

  “Did you cancel his driver’s license?”

  “Didn’t bother. I sold his old van. Bought meself the hatchback. Reckon the dealer ripped me off, the Paki bastard. No way that thing had done only four thousand miles.”

  She realizes her mistake. “No offense, love.”

  “I’m not Pakistani.”

  “Right. I don’t know much about the difference.”

  She finds me another photograph.

  “Do you ever take in lodgers or have visitors staying?”

  “Nah.”

  “Ever had a break-in?”

  “Yeah, a few years back.” She looks at me suspiciously.

  I try to explain that someone has stolen her husband’s identity, which is not as difficult as it sounds. A bank statement and a gas bill is all it takes to get a credit report, which will yield a National Insurance number and a list of previous addresses. The rest falls into place—birth certificates, credit cards, a passport.

  “Earl never did anything wrong,” says Mrs. Blake. “Never did much right either.” She overbalances a little as she stands and her forearms wobble beneath the short sleeves of her uniform.

  I don’t stay for a cup of tea, which disappoints her. Letting myself out, I stand for a moment on the front steps, raising my face to the misty rain. Three kids are practicing their literacy skills on a wall across the road.