“I’m just looking for reasons.”
“I know the reason. She was obsessed. Desperate.”
“Enough to explain these?” I point to the ultrasound pictures.
Reaching down, he opens the second drawer and retrieves a different file. This one contains court transcripts, charge sheets and a judgment.
“Eighteen months ago Cate was caught stealing baby clothes from Mothercare. She said it was a misunderstanding, but we knew it was a cry for help. The magistrates were very kind. They gave her a suspended sentence.
“She had counseling for about six months, which seemed to help. She was her old self again. There were obvious places she had to avoid like parks and playgrounds, schools. But she couldn’t stop torturing herself. She peered into prams and struck up conversations with mothers. She got angry when she saw women with big families, who were pregnant again. It was unfair, she said. They were being greedy.
“She and Felix looked into adopting a baby. They went for the interviews and were screened by social workers. Unfortunately, the shoplifting conviction came back to haunt Cate. The adoption committee deemed her mentally unstable. It was the final straw. She lost it completely. Felix found her sitting on the floor of the nursery, clutching a teddy bear, saying, ‘Look! It’s a beautiful baby boy.’ She was taken to hospital and spent a fortnight in a psych ward. They put her on antidepressants.”
“I had no idea.”
He shrugs. “So you see, Alisha, you shouldn’t make the mistake of putting rational thoughts in my daughter’s head. Cate didn’t have a plan. Desperation is the mother of bad ideas.”
Everything he says makes perfect sense but I can’t forget the image of Cate at the reunion, begging me to help her. She said they wanted to take her baby. Who did she mean?
There is nothing as disarming as a heartfelt plea. Barnaby’s natural caution wavers.
“What do you want?”
“I need to see telephone records, credit card receipts, check stubs and diaries. Have any large sums of money been withdrawn from Cate or Felix’s bank accounts? Did they travel anywhere or meet anyone new? Was she secretive about money or appointments? I also need to see her computer. Perhaps her e-mails can tell me something.”
Unable to push his tongue around the word no, he hedges. “What if you find something that embarrasses this family?”
His wretchedness infuriates me. Whatever Cate might have done, she needs him now.
The doorbell rings. He turns toward the sound, surprised. I follow him down the stairs and wait in the hallway as he opens the front door.
Yvonne gives a deep-throated sob and throws her arms around his shoulders, crushing his head to her chest.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she wails. Her eyes open. “Alisha?”
“Hello, Yvonne.”
Manhandling Barnaby out of the way, she smothers me in her cleavage. I remember the feeling. It’s like being wrapped in a fluffy towel, fresh from the dryer. Gripping my forearms, she holds me away. “Look at you! You’re all grown up.”
“Yes.”
“You cut your lovely hair.”
“Ages ago.”
Yvonne hasn’t changed. If anything she is a little fatter and her pitted face has fleshed out. Overworked veins stand out on her calves and she’s still wearing men’s shoes.
Even after Ruth Elliot recovered her speech, Yvonne stayed with the family, cooking meals, washing clothes and ironing Barnaby’s shirts. She was like an old-fashioned retainer, growing old with them.
Now she wants me to stay, but I make excuses to leave. As I reach the car, I can still feel Barnaby’s stubble on my cheeks where he kissed me goodbye. Glancing back at the house I remember a different tragedy, another goodbye. Voices from the past jostle and merge. The sadness is suffocating.
8
Donavon gave the police an address in Hackney, not far from London Fields. Set back from the road, the crumbling terrace house has a small square front yard of packed dirt and broken concrete. A sun-faded red Escort van is parked in the space, alongside a motorcycle.
A young woman answers the door. She’s about twenty-five with a short skirt, a swelling pregnancy and acne scars on her cheeks. Cotton wool is wedged between her toes and she stands with her heels planted and toes raised.
“I’m looking for Donavon.”
“Nobody here by that name.”
“That’s too bad. I owe him some money.”
“I can give it to him.”
“You said he didn’t live here.”
“I meant he wasn’t here right now,” she says curtly. “He might be around later.”
“I’d prefer to give it to him personally.”
She considers this for a moment, still balancing on her heels. “You from the council?”
“No.”
“A welfare officer?”
“No.”
She disappears and is replaced by Donavon.
“Well, well, if it isn’t yindoo.”
“Give it a rest, Donavon.”
He runs his tongue along a nick in his front tooth while his eyes roam up and down over me. My skin is crawling.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?”
“My mother told me to beware of strangers who tell lies about owing me money.”
“Can I come in?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“I’m fucking certain I ordered a Thai girl but I guess you’ll do.”
He hasn’t changed. The pregnant girl is standing behind him. “This is my sister, Carla,” he says.
She nods, sullenly.
“It’s nice to meet you, Carla. I went to school with your brother. Did you go to Oaklands?”
Donavon answers for her. “I sort of shat in that particular nest.”
“Why did you run yesterday?”
He shrugs. “You got the wrong guy.”
“I know it was you.”
He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Are you gonna arrest me, Officer? I hope you brought your handcuffs. That’s always fun.”
I follow him along the hallway, past a coatrack and assorted shoes. Carla continues painting her nails at the kitchen table. She is flexible and shortsighted, pulling her foot almost up to her nose as she dabs on the varnish with a thin brush, unconcerned about exposing her knickers.
A dog beneath the table thumps its tail several times but doesn’t bother rising.
“You want a drink?”
“No. Thank you.”
“I do. Hey, Carla, nip up the road and get us a few cans.”
Her top lip curls as she snatches the twenty-quid note from his fist. “And this time I want the change back.”
Donavon gives a chair a gentle shake. “You want to sit down?”
I wait for him to be seated first. I don’t feel comfortable with him standing over me. “Is this your place?” I ask.
“My parents’. My dad’s dead. Mum lives in Spain.”
“You joined the army.”
“Yeah, the Paras.” His fingers vibrate against the tabletop.
“Why did you leave?”
He motions to his leg. “A medical discharge. I broke my leg in twelve places. We were on a training jump above Andover. One of the newbies wrapped his chute around mine and we came down under the one canopy. Too fast. They wouldn’t let me jump after that. They said I’d get a pension but the government changed the rules. I got to work.”
I glance around the kitchen, which looks like a craft workshop with boxes of leather strips, crystals, feathers and painted clay beads. On the table I notice a reel of wire and pliers.
“What are you making?”
“I sell stuff at the markets. Trinkets and shit. Don’t make much, you know…”
The statement trails off. He talks a little more about the Paras, clearly missing army life, until Carla returns with a six-pack of draft and a packet of chocolate biscuits. She retreats to the stairs with
the biscuits, eating them while listening to us. I can see her painted toes through a gap in the stair rails.
Donavon opens a can and drinks noisily. He wipes his mouth.
“How is she?”
“She might be brain damaged.”
His face tightens. “What about the baby?”
“She wasn’t pregnant.”
“What?”
“She was faking it.”
“What do you mean—faking it? Why would she…? Makes no fucking sense.”
The phantom pregnancy seems harder for him to accept than Cate’s medical condition.
“Why are you interested in Earl Blake?”
“Same reason as you.”
“Yeah, sure. What difference does it make to you?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Fuck you!”
“You wish!”
“The bastard could have stopped,” he says suddenly, his anger bordering on violence.
“Did you see the car speed up? Did it veer toward them?”
A shake of the head.
“Then why are you so sure?”
“He was lying.”
“Is that it?”
He raises one shoulder as if trying to scratch his ear. “Just forget it, OK?”
“No, I want to know. You said the driver was lying. Why?”
He goes quiet. “I just know. He lied. He ran them down.”
“How can you be sure?”
He turns away, muttering, “Sometimes I just am.”
My mother always told me that people with green eyes are related to fairies, like the Irish, and that if I ever met someone with one green eye and one brown one, it meant that person had been taken over by a fairy, but not in a scary way. Donavon is seriously scary. The bones of his shoulders shift beneath his shirt.
“I found out some stuff about Blake,” he says, growing calmer. “He signed on with the minicab firm a week ago and only ever worked days. At the end of every shift he handed over eighty quid for the lease of the car but the mileage didn’t match the fares. He can’t have done more than a few miles. He told another driver that he had regular customers who liked to have him on call. One of them was a film producer but there’s no way some hotshot film producer is going around London in a beat-up Vauxhall Cavalier.”
He straightens up, into the story now. “So I ask myself, ‘Why does a guy need a car all day if it’s not going anywhere?’ Maybe he’s watching someone—or waiting for them.”
“That’s a big leap.”
“Yeah, well, I saw the look Cate gave him. She recognized him.”
He noticed it too.
Kicking back his chair, he stands and opens a kitchen drawer.
“I found this. Cate must have dropped it.”
He hands me a crumpled envelope. My name is on the front of it. The swirls and dips of the handwriting belong to Cate. Lifting the flap, I pull out a photograph. A teenage girl gazes absently at the camera. She has fine limbs and ragged dark hair, trimmed by the wind. Her wide lips curl down at the edges making her look melancholy rather than gloomy. She is wearing jeans, sandals and a cotton shirt. Her hands are by her sides, palms open, with a white band on her wrist.
I turn the photograph over. There is a name written on the back. Samira.
“Who is she?” asks Donavon.
“I don’t know.”
“What about the number?”
In the bottom right-hand corner there are ten digits. A phone number, perhaps.
I study the image again as a dozen different questions chase one another. Cate faked her pregnancy. Does this girl have anything to do with it? She looks too young to be a mother.
I take out my mobile and punch in the number. A recorded voice announces it is unavailable. The area code doesn’t belong in the U.K. It could be international.
The fight seems to have gone out of Donavon. Maybe alcohol mellows him.
“What are you gonna do?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet.”
On my feet, I turn to leave. He calls after me, “I want to help.”
“Why?”
He’s still not going to tell me.
Carla intercepts me before I reach the front door.
“He’s losing it,” she whispers. “He used to have it together but something happened in Afghanistan or wherever the hell they sent him. He’s not the same. He doesn’t sleep. He gets obsessed about stuff. I hear him at night, walking about.”
“You think he needs help?”
“He needs something.”
9
Chief Superintendent Lachlan North has an office on the eleventh floor of New Scotland Yard overlooking Victoria Street and Westminster Abbey. He is standing by the window, beside a telescope, peering into the eyepiece at the traffic below.
“If that moron thinks he can turn there…”
He picks up a two-way radio and communicates a call-sign to traffic operations.
A tired voice answers. “Yes, sir.”
“Some idiot just did a U-turn in Victoria Street. Did you see it?”
“Yes, sir, we’re onto him.”
The Chief Superintendent is talking while still peering through the telescope. “I can get his number plate.”
“It’s under control, sir.”
“Good work. Over and out.”
Reluctantly, he turns away from the telescope and sits down. “There are some dangerous bloody morons loose on our roads, Detective Constable Barba.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In my experience, the morons are more dangerous than the criminals.”
“There are more of them, sir.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
He dips his head into a drawer and retrieves a dark green folder. Shuffling through the contents, he clears his throat and smiles, attempting to appear warmer and fuzzier. A nagging doubt hooks me in the chest.
“The results of your medical have been reviewed, DC Barba, along with your psychological evaluation. I must say you have made a remarkable recovery from your injuries. Your request to return to active duty with the Diplomatic Protection Group has also been noted. Courageous is the word that comes to mind.” He tugs at his cuffs. Here it comes. “But under the circumstances, having reviewed the matter thoroughly, it has been decided to transfer you out of the DPG. You might be a little gun-shy, you see, which is hardly a good thing when protecting diplomats and foreign heads of state. Could be embarrassing.”
“I’m not gun-shy, sir. Nobody fired a gun at me.”
He raises his hand to stop me. “Be that as it may, we have a responsibility to look after our foreign guests and while I have every confidence in you, there is no way of testing your fitness when push comes to shove and Abdul the terrorist takes a potshot at the Israeli ambassador.” He taps the folder several times with his finger to stress the point.
“The most important part of my job is shuffling people and priorities. It is a thankless task but I don’t ask for medals or commendations. I am simply a humble servant of the public.” His chest swells. “We don’t want to lose you, DC Barba. We need more women like you in the Met, which is why I am pleased to offer you a position as a recruitment officer. We need to encourage more young women into the Met, particularly from minority communities. You can be a role model.”
A mist seems to cloud my vision. He stands now, moving back to the window where he bends to peer through his telescope again.
“Unbelievable! Moron!” he screams, shaking his head.
He turns back to me, settling his haunch on the corner of the desk. A print behind his head is a famous depiction of the Bow Street Runners, London’s renowned early police force.
“Great things are expected of you, DC Barba.”
“With all due respect, sir, I am not gun-shy. I am fitter than ever. I can run a mile in four and a half minutes. I’m a better shot than anyone at the DPG. My high-speed defensive driving skills are excellent. I am the same of
ficer as before—”
“Yes, yes, you’re very capable I’m sure, but the decision has been made. It’s out of my hands. You’ll report to the Police Recruitment Center at Hendon on Monday morning.”
He opens his office door and waits for me to leave. “You’re still a very important member of the team, Alisha. We’re glad to have you back.”
Words have dried up. I know I should argue with him or slam my fist on his desk and demand a review. Instead, I meekly walk out the door. It closes behind me.
Outside, I wander along Victoria Street. I wonder if the Chief Superintendent is watching me. I’m tempted to look up toward his window and flip him the bird. Isn’t that what the Americans call it?
Of course, I don’t. I’m too polite, you see. That’s my problem. I don’t intimidate. I don’t bully. I don’t talk in sporting clichés or slap backs or have a wobbly bit between my legs. Unfortunately, it’s not as though I have outstanding feminine wiles to fall back on such as a killer cleavage or a backside like J-Lo. The only qualities I bring to the table are my gender and ethnic credibility. The Metropolitan Police want nothing else from me.
I am twenty-nine years old and I still think I’m capable of something remarkable in my life. I am different, unique, beyond compare. I don’t have Cate’s luminous beauty or infinite sadness, or her musical laugh or the ability to make all men feel like warriors. I have wisdom, determination and steel.
At sixteen I wanted to win Olympic gold. Now I want to make a difference. Maybe falling in love will be my remarkable deed. I will explore the heart of another human being. Surely that is challenge enough. Cate always thought so.
When I need to think I run. When I need to forget I run. It can clear my thoughts completely or focus them like a magnifying glass that dwarfs the world outside the lens. When I run the way I know I can, it all happens in the air, the pure air, floating above the ground, levitating the way great runners imagine themselves in their dreams.
The doctors said I might never walk again. I confounded predictions. I like that idea. I don’t like doing things that are predictable. I don’t want to do what people expect.
The Night Ferry Page 6