The Night Ferry

by Michael Robotham

  So much has happened in the past week yet I feel as though I haven’t moved. It’s like the clock on the wall above the reception desk, with its white face and thick black hands that refuse to move any faster.

  Samira is somewhere above me. I don’t imagine there are many basements in Amsterdam—a city that seems to float on fixed pontoons held together by bridges. Perhaps it is slowly sinking into the ooze like a Venice of the north.

  I can’t sit still. I should be at the hospital with Ruiz. I should be starting my new job in London or resigning from it.

  Across the foyer the double doors of a lift slide open. There are voices, deep, sonorous, laughing. One of them belongs to Yanus. His left eye is swollen and partially closed. Head injuries are becoming a fashion statement. He isn’t handcuffed, nor is he being escorted by police.

  The man beside him must be his lawyer. Large and careworn, with a broad forehead and broader arse, his rumpled suit has triple vents and permanent creases.

  Yanus looks up at me and smiles with his thin lips.

  “I am very sorry for this misunderstanding,” he says. “No hard feelings.”

  He offers me his hand. I stare at it blankly. Spijker appears at his left shoulder, standing fractionally behind him.

  Yanus is still talking. “I hope Mr. Ruiz is being looked after. I am very sorry I stabbed him.”

  My eyes haven’t left Spijker. “What are you doing?”

  “Mr. Yanus is being released. We may need to question him again later.”

  The fat lawyer is tapping his foot on the floor impatiently. It has the effect of making his face wobble. “Samira Khan has confirmed that Mr. Yanus is her fiancé. She is pregnant by him.” His tone is extravagantly pompous, with just a hint of condescension. “She has also given a statement corroborating his account of what happened last night.”

  “No!”

  “Fortunately, for you, Mr. Yanus has agreed not to make a formal complaint against you or your colleague for assault, malicious wounding and abducting his fiancée. In return, the police have decided not to lay charges against him.”

  “Our investigations are continuing,” counters Spijker.

  “Mr. Yanus has cooperated fully,” retorts the fat lawyer, dismissively.

  Lena Caspar is so small that I almost don’t see her behind him. I can sense my gaze flicking from face to face like a child waiting for a grown-up to explain. Yanus has withdrawn his hand. Almost instinctively he slides it inside his jacket, where his knife would normally be.

  I imagine that I must look dazed and dumbstruck, but the opposite is true. I can see myself reflected in the dozens of glass panels around the walls and the news hasn’t altered my demeanor at all. Internally, the story is different. Of all the possible outcomes, this one couldn’t be anticipated.

  “Let me talk to Samira.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Lena Caspar puts her hand on my arm. “She doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the care of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.”

  “Is she going to be deported?”

  The fat lawyer answers for her. “My client is applying for a visa that will allow his fiancée to remain in the Netherlands.”

  “She’s not his fiancée!” I snap.

  The lawyer inflates even further (it barely seems possible). “You are very fortunate, Miss Barba, that my client is so willing to forgive. You would otherwise be facing very serious charges. Mr. Yanus now demands that you leave him alone, along with his fiancée. Any attempt by you to approach either of them will be taken very seriously.”

  Yanus looks almost embarrassed by his own generosity. His entire persona has softened. The cold, naked, unflinching hatred of last night has gone. It’s like watching a smooth ocean after a storm front has passed. He extends his hand again. There is something in it this time—my mobile phone and passport. He hands them to me and turns away. He and the fat lawyer are leaving.

  I look at Spijker. “You know he’s lying.”

  “It makes no difference,” he replies.

  Mrs. Caspar wants me to sit down.

  “There must be something,” I say, pleading with her.

  “You have to understand. Without Samira’s testimony there is no case to answer, no evidence of forced pregnancies or a black market in embryos and unborn babies. The proof might lie in DNA or paternity tests, but these can’t be done without Samira’s permission and invasive surgery that could endanger the twins.”

  “Zala will confirm my story.”

  “Where is she?”

  The entrance doors slide open. The fat lawyer goes first. Yanus pulls a light blue handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his forehead. I recognize the fabric. He rolls it over and over in his fingers. It’s not a handkerchief. It’s a headscarf. Zala’s hijab!

  Spijker sees me moving and holds me back. I fight against his arms, yelling accusations out the door. Yanus turns and smiles, showing a few teeth at the sides of his mouth. A shark’s smile.

  “See in his hand—the scarf,” I cry. “That’s why she lied.”

  Mrs. Caspar steps in front of me. “It’s too late, Alisha.”

  Spijker releases my arms slowly and I shake his fingers loose. He’s embarrassed at having touched me. There’s something else in his demeanor. Understanding. He believes me! He had no choice but to release Yanus.

  Frustration, disappointment and anger fill me until I feel like screaming. They have Zala. Samira is sure to follow. For all the bruises and bloodshed, I haven’t even slowed them down. I’m like Wile E. Coyote, flattened beneath a rock, listening to the Road Runner’s infernal, triumphant, infuriating “beep, beep!”

  6

  Ruiz’s skin is a pallid gray and his eyes are bloodshot from the morphine. The years have mugged him in his sleep and he looks every one of his sixty birthdays.

  “I knew you were gonna be okay,” I say. “Your hide is thicker than a rhino’s.”

  “Are you saying my arse looks big in these pajamas?”

  “Not in those pajamas.”

  The curtains are open and the remains of the day are collecting on the far horizon.

  It might be the morphine or his ridiculous male pride, but the DI keeps bragging about the number of stitches he needed in his chest and arm. Next we’ll be comparing scars. I don’t need a comparison—mine are bigger than his.

  Why is it always a competition with men? Their egos are so fragile or their hormones so strong that they have to prove themselves. What tossers!

  I give him a big wet kiss on his cheek. He’s lost for words.

  “I brought you something, sir.”

  He gives me a quick look, unsure whether to trust me. I pull a bottle of Scotch from a paper bag. It’s a private joke. When I was lying in hospital with a busted spine Ruiz brought me a bottle. It’s still the only time I’ve ever had alcohol. A one-off drink, sucked through a crazy straw, that made my eyes water and my throat burn. What do people see in alcohol?

  I crack the seal and pour him a drink, adding a little water.

  “You’re not having one?”

  “Not this time. You can have mine.”

  “That’s very generous of you.”

  A nurse walks in. The DI hides the glass. I hide the bottle. She hands him a little plastic cup with two pills inside. The fact that we’ve stopped talking and look guilty encourages her to pause at the door. She says something in Dutch. It might be “bottom’s up,” but I doubt it.

  “I think I’m going to stay here,” says Ruiz. “The food is much better than the NHS muck and the nurses have a certain charm. They remind me of my house mistresses at boarding school.”

  “That sounds disturbingly like a sexual fantasy.”

  He half grins. “Not completely.”

  He takes another sip. “Have you ever thought about what you’d like to happen when you die? The arrangements.”

  “I’ve made a will.”

&
nbsp; “Yeah, but did you stipulate anything for the funeral? Cremation or burial or having your ashes sprinkled off the end of Margate Pier?”

  “Not specifically.” This is getting rather morbid.

  “I want my ashes put into a rocket.”

  “Sure, I’ll put in a call to NASA.”

  “In a firework rocket. I want to be blasted into a thousand falling stars. They can do that now—put ashes in fireworks. I read about it somewhere.”

  “Go out with a bang.”

  “A blaze of glory.”

  He smiles and holds out his glass for more. “Not yet, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  The truth is, I have thought about it. Dying. During the autumn and winter of my discontent—the months of surgery and physiotherapy, when I couldn’t wash, feed or care for myself—a small, secret, childlike part of me feared that I would never walk again. And an unspoken, guilt-ridden, adult part of me decided I would rather die if that happened.

  Everyone thinks I’m so strong. They expect me to face autumns and winters like that and bitch-slap them down, make them heel. I’m not so strong. I only pretend.

  “I had a phone call from Miranda today,” the DI announces. “I still don’t know how she got the number or knew I was in hospital. As far as I can tell I was unconscious for most of yesterday.” His eyes narrow. “Try not to look so sheepish, my little lambkin.”

  “I told you she still cares about you.”

  “But can’t live with me.”

  “That’s because you’re grumpy.”

  “And you’re an expert in these things, I suppose.”

  “Well ‘New Boy’ Dave has asked me to marry him.” The statement blurts from me, unplanned, spontaneous.

  Ruiz ponders it. “I didn’t think he had the courage.”

  “You think he’s afraid of me?”

  “Any man with any sense should be a little bit afraid of you.”

  “Why?”

  “I mean that in the nicest possible way.” His eyes are dancing.

  “You said I was too sharp for him.”

  “And you said that any man who could fit into your pants couldn’t get into your pants.”

  “He loves me.”

  “That’s a good start. How about you?”

  I can’t answer. I don’t know.

  It’s strange talking about love. I used to hate the word. Hate is too strong. I was sick of reading about it in books, hearing it in songs, watching it in films. It seemed such a huge burden to place on another person—to love them; to give them something so unbelievably fragile and expect them not to break it or lose it or leave it behind on the No. 96 bus.

  I thought I had a choice. Fall in love. Don’t fall in love. He loves me. He loves me not. See, I’m not so smart!

  My mind drifts back to Samira. I don’t know what to do. I’m out of ideas. Up until now I’ve been convinced that I would find Cate’s babies and then—what then? What did I imagine would happen? Cate broke the law. She rented a womb. Perhaps she didn’t realize that Samira would be forced to cooperate. I can give her the benefit of that doubt.

  Cate always walked close to the edge. Closer to death, closer to life. She had a crazy streak. Not all the time, just occasionally. It’s like when the wind changes suddenly before a storm and kids go wild, running around in circles like swirling scraps of paper caught in the updraft. Cate would get that same gleam in her eye and drift onto the wrong side of crazy.

  She is more memory than reality. She belongs to a time of teenage crushes, first kisses, crowded lecture halls and smoky pubs. Even if she had lived, we might have had nothing in common except the past.

  I should let it go. When Ruiz is well enough, I’ll take him home. I’ll swallow my pride and take whatever job I’m offered or I’ll marry Dave and we’ll live in Milford-on-Sea. I shouldn’t have come to Amsterdam. Why did I ever imagine I could make a difference? I can’t bring Cate back. Yet for all this, I still can’t shake one fundamental question: What will happen to the babies?

  Yanus and his cronies will sell them to the highest bidder. Either that or they’ll be born in the Netherlands and put up for adoption. Worse still, they’ll be sent back to Kabul along with Samira, who will be ostracized and treated as an outcast. In some parts of Afghanistan they still stone women for having children out of wedlock.

  Cate lied and deceived. She broke the law. I still don’t know why Brendan Pearl killed her, although I suspect it was to stop her from talking. She came to me. I guess that makes me partially responsible.

  Am I guilty of anything else? Is there something else I should have done? Perhaps I should tell Felix’s family that their son would have become a father in a few weeks. Barnaby and Ruth Elliot are pseudo-grandparents to surrogate twins.

  I didn’t imagine ever feeling sorry for Barnaby—not after what happened. I thought I saw his true nature on the day he dropped me at the railway station in Cornwall. He couldn’t even look at me or say the word goodbye.

  I still don’t know if he told his wife. I doubt it. Barnaby is the type to deny, deny and deny, until faced with incontrovertible proof. Then he will shrug, apologize and play the tragic hero, brought down by loving too much rather than too little.

  When I first saw him at the hospital, when Cate was in a coma, it struck me how he was still campaigning, still trying to win votes. He caught glimpses of his reflection in the glass doors, making sure he was doing it right, the grieving. Maybe that’s unfair—kicking a man when he’s down.

  Ruiz is asleep. I take the glass from his hand and rinse it in the sink. Than I tuck the bottle into my bag.

  I’m still no closer to knowing what to do. It’s like running a race where I cannot tell how many laps there are to go or who’s winning or who’s been lapped. How do I know when to kick on the final bend and start sprinting for home?

  A taxi drops me at the hotel. The driver is listening to a football game being broadcast on the radio. The commentator has a tenor voice that surges with the ebb and flow of the action. I have no idea who is playing but I like the thunderous sound of the crowd. It makes me feel less melancholy.

  There is a white envelope poking out of my pigeonhole at the reception desk. I open it immediately.

  Three words: “Hello, sweet girl.”

  The desk clerk moves her eyes. I turn. “New Boy” Dave is standing behind me.

  His arms wrap around me and I bury my face in his shirt. I stay there. Holding him tightly. I don’t want him to see my tears.

  7

  One second I’m sleeping and the next I’m awake. I look at the clock. Four a.m. Dave is lying next to me on his side with his cheek pressed flat against the sheet and his mouth vibrating gently.

  Last night we didn’t talk. Exhaustion and a hot shower and the touch of his hands put me to sleep. I’ll make it up to him when he wakes. I’m sure it doesn’t do much for the male ego, having a woman fall asleep on them.

  Propped on one elbow, I study him. His hair is soft and rumpled like a tabby cat with tiny flecks of blond amid the ginger. He has a big head. Does that mean he would have big babies, with big heads? Involuntarily I squeeze my thighs together.

  Dave scratches his ear. He has nice ears. The one I can see has the faintest hint that at one time it might have been pierced. His hand is stretched toward me on the sheet. The nails are wide and flat, trimmed straight across. I touch his fingers with mine, awkward at being so happy.

  Yesterday was perhaps the worst day of my life, and I held him last night like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to the debris. He made me feel safe. He wrapped his arms around me and the pain leaked away.

  Maybe that’s why I feel this way, lying so still—not wanting this moment to end.

  I have no experience of love. Ever since adolescence I have avoided it, renounced it, longed for it. (Such a dichotomy is one of the symptoms.) I have been an agony aunt for all my girlfriends, listening to their sob stories about arranged marriages, unfaithful husbands,
men who won’t call or commit, missed periods, sexual neuroses, wedding plans, postnatal depression and failed diets. I know all about other people’s love affairs but I am a complete novice when it comes to my own. That’s why I’m scared. I’m sure to mess it up.

  Dave touches my bruised cheek. I flinch. “Who did that?” he asks.

  “His name is Yanus.”

  I can almost see him storing this information away for future reference. He and Ruiz are similar in that way. There is nothing halfcocked or hotheaded about them. They can wait for their shot at revenge.

  “You were lucky he didn’t break your cheekbone.”

  “He could have done a lot worse.”

  I step closer and kiss him on the lips, quickly, impulsively. Then I turn and go to shower. Spinning back to say something, I catch him punching the air in victory.

  He blushes.

  “It wasn’t that good a kiss.”

  “It was to me.”

  Later, he sits on the bed and watches me dress, which makes me feel self-conscious. I keep my back to him. He reaches across and cups my breasts before my bra embraces them.

  “I volunteer for this job,” he says.

  “That’s very noble, but you’re not holding my breasts all day.”

  I gently push his hands away and continue dressing.

  “You really like me, don’t you?” he says. His big goofy grin is reflected in the wardrobe mirror.

  “Don’t push it,” I warn him.

  “But you do. You really like me.”

  “That could change.”

  His laugh isn’t entirely convincing.

  We breakfast at a café on Paleisstraat near Dam Square. Blue-and-white trams clatter and fizz past the window beneath humming wires. A weak sun is barely breaking through the clouds and a wind tugs at the clothes of pedestrians and cyclists.

  The café has a zinc-topped counter running the length of one side. Arranged above it is a blackboard menu and barrels of wine or port. The place smells of coffee and grilled cheese. My appetite is coming back. We order sliced meats, bread and cheese; coffee with frothed milk.