The Night Ferry

by Michael Robotham

  Their club is on the border of Sussex and Surrey, somewhere in the greenbelt and the white stockbroker belt. Brown is a color rarely seen out here unless you take a big divot.

  Samira has a battery the size of a matchbox taped to the small of her back and a thin red fiber threaded under her right armpit to a button-sized microphone taped between her breasts.

  Adjusting her blouse, I lift my eyes to hers and smile reassuringly. “You don’t have to go through with this.”

  She nods.

  “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

  Another nod.

  “If you get frightened, walk away. If you feel threatened, walk away. Any sign of trouble, you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Groups of golfers are milling outside the locker room and on the practice green, waiting for the starter to call their names. Shawcroft has the loudest laugh but not the loudest trousers, which belong to one of his playing partners. He takes a practice swing beside the first tee and looks up to see Samira standing at the top of a set of stone steps with the sun behind her. He shields his eyes.

  Without hesitation, she moves toward him, stopping six feet away.

  “Can I help you?” asks one of the other golfers.

  “I’ve come to see Brother.”

  Shawcroft hesitates, looking past her. He is searching for us.

  “Nobody called Brother here, lass,” says the car dealer.

  Samira points. They turn to Shawcroft, who stutters a denial. “I don’t know who she is.”

  Forbes adjusts the volume on the digital recording equipment. We’re watching from eighty yards away, parked beneath the branches of a plane tree, opposite the pro shop.

  Samira is a foot shorter than any of the men. Her long skirt flares out in the breeze.

  “Maybe she can caddy for you, Julian?” one of them jokes.

  “You remember me, Brother,” says Samira. “You told me to come. You said you had a job for me.”

  Shawcroft looks at his playing partners apologetically. Suspicion is turning to anger. “Just ignore her. Let’s play.”

  Turning his back, he takes a hurried practice swing and then sprays his opening drive wildly to the right where it disappears into trees. He tosses his club to the ground in disgust.

  The others tee off. Shawcroft is already at the wheel of a golf cart. It jerks forward and accelerates away.

  “I told you he wouldn’t fall for this,” says Forbes.

  “Wait. Look.”

  Samira floats down the fairway after them, the hem of her skirt growing dark with dew. The carts have separated. Shawcroft is looking for his wayward drive in the rough. He glances up and sees her coming. I hear him yelling to his partner. “Lost ball. I’ll hit another.”

  “You haven’t even looked for this one.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He drops another ball and hacks it out, looking more like a woodchopper than a golfer. The cart takes off again. Samira doesn’t break stride.

  I feel a lump in my throat. This girl never ceases to amaze me. She follows them all the way to the green, skirting the bunkers and crossing a small wooden bridge over a brook. Constantly looking over his shoulder, Shawcroft thrashes at the ball and hurries forward.

  “She’s going to walk out of range,” says Forbes. “We have to stop her.”

  “Wait. Just a little longer.”

  The foursome are more than 300 yards away but I can see them clearly enough through binoculars. Samira is standing on the edge of the green, watching and waiting.

  Shawcroft finally snaps. “Get off this golf course or I’ll have you arrested.”

  Waving his club, he storms toward her. She doesn’t flinch.

  “Steady on, old boy,” someone suggests.

  “Who is she, Julian?” asks another.

  “Nobody.”

  “She’s a pretty thing. She could be your ball washer.”

  “Shut up! Just shut up!”

  Samira hasn’t moved. “I paid my debt, Brother.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You said God would find a way for me to pay. I paid it twice. Twins. I paid for Hassan and for me, but he’s dead. Zala didn’t make it either.”

  Shawcroft grabs her roughly by the arm and hisses, “I don’t know who sent you here. I don’t know what you want, but I can’t help you.”

  “What about the job?”

  He is walking her away from the group. One of his partners yells, “Where are you off to, Julian?”

  “I’m going to have her thrown off the course.”

  “What about the round?”

  “I’ll catch up.”

  The car dealer mutters, “Not again.”

  Another foursome is already halfway down the fairway. Shawcroft marches past them still holding Samira by the arm. She has to run to keep from falling.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “Shut up you stupid slut. I don’t know what you’re playing at but it won’t work. Who sent you here?”

  “I paid my debt.”

  “Fuck the debt! There is no job! This is harassment. You come near me again and I’ll have you arrested.”

  Samira doesn’t give up. God, she’s good.

  “Why did Hassan die?”

  “It’s called life. Stuff happens.”

  I don’t believe it. He’s quoting Donald Rumsfeld. Why doesn’t stuff happen to people like Shawcroft?

  “It took me a long while to find you, Brother. We waited in Amsterdam for you to come or to send word. In the end we couldn’t wait any longer. They were going to send us back to Kabul. Hassan came alone. I wanted to go with him but he said I should wait.” Her voice is breaking. “He was going to find you. He said you had forgotten your promise. I told him you were honorable and kind. You brought us food and blankets at the orphanage. You wore the cross…”

  Shawcroft twists her wrist, trying to make her stop.

  “I had the babies. I paid my debt.”

  “Will you shut up!”

  “Someone killed Zala—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  They’re nearing the clubhouse. Forbes is out of the car, moving toward them. I hang back. Shawcroft flings Samira into a flower bed. She bangs her knee and cries out.

  “That qualifies as assault.”

  Shawcroft looks up and sees the detective. Then he looks past him and spies me.

  “You have no right! My lawyer will hear about this.”

  Forbes hands him an arrest warrant. “Fine. For your sake I hope he’s not playing golf today.”

  6

  Shawcroft regards himself as an intellectual and a textbook lawyer, although he seems to have mixed up the Crimes Act and the Geneva convention as he yells accusations of inhuman treatment from his holding cell.

  Intellectuals show off too much and wise people are just plain boring. (My mother is forever telling me to save money, go to bed early and not to lend things.) I prefer clever people who hide their talents and don’t take themselves too seriously.

  A dozen officers are going through the files and computer records of the New Life Adoption Center. Others are at Shawcroft’s house in Hayward’s Heath. I don’t expect them to find a paper trail leading to the twins. He’s too careful for that.

  There is, however, a chance that prospective buyers initially came to the center looking to adopt legally. At our first meeting I asked him about the brochure I found at Cate’s house, which advertised a baby boy born to a prostitute. Shawcroft was adamant that all adopting parents were properly screened. This should mean interviews, psych reports and criminal background checks. If he was telling me the truth then whoever has the twins could once have been on a waiting list at the adoption center.

  It is four hours since we arrested him. Forbes arranged to bring him through the front door, past the public waiting area. He wanted to cause maximum discomfort and embarrassment. Although experienced, I sens
e that Forbes is not quite in the same league as Ruiz, who knows exactly when to be hard-nosed and when to let someone sweat for another hour in a holding cell, alone with their demons.

  Shawcroft is waiting for his lawyer, Eddie Barrett. I could have guessed he would summon the “Bulldog,” an old-fashioned ambulance chaser with a reputation for courting the media and getting right up police noses. He and Ruiz are old adversaries, sharing a mutual loathing and grudging respect.

  Wolf whistles and howls of laughter erupt in the corridor. Barrett has arrived, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a plaid shirt and a ten-gallon hat.

  “Look it’s Willie Nelson!” someone calls.

  “Is that a six-shooter in your pocket, Eddie, or are you just dawg-gone pleased to see me?”

  Someone breaks into a hoedown. Eddie tucks his thumbs into his belt and gives them a few boot-scootin’ moves. He doesn’t seem to mind them taking the mickey out of him. Normally it’s the other way round and he makes police look foolish during interviews or in court.

  Barrett is a strange-looking man with an upside-down body (short legs and a long torso), and he walks just like George W. Bush with his arms held away from his body, his back unnaturally straight and his chin in the air. Maybe it’s a cowboy thing.

  One of the uniforms escorts him to an interview room. Shawcroft is brought upstairs. Forbes slips a plastic plug into his ear—a receiver that will allow us to talk to him during the interrogation. He takes a bundle of files and a list of questions. This is about looking prepared as much as being prepared.

  I don’t know if the DI is nervous but I can feel the tension. This is about the twins. Unless Shawcroft cracks or cooperates we may never find them.

  The charity boss is still wearing his golfing clothes. Barrett sits next to him, placing his cowboy hat on the table. The formalities are dispensed with—names, the location and time of interview. Forbes then places five photographs on the table. Shawcroft doesn’t bother looking at them.

  “These five asylum seekers allege that you convinced them to leave their homelands and illegally enter the U.K.”

  “No.”

  “You deny knowing them?”

  “I may have met them. I don’t recall.”

  “Perhaps if you looked at their faces.”

  Barrett interrupts. “My client has answered your question.”

  “Where might you have met them?”

  “My charities raised more than half a million pounds last year. I visited orphanages in Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania and Kosovo.”

  “How do you know these women are orphans? I didn’t mention that.”

  Shawcroft stiffens. I can almost see him silently admonish himself for slipping up.

  “So you do know these women?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And you know Samira Khan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “At an orphanage in Kabul.”

  “Did you talk about her coming to the U.K.?”

  “No.”

  “Did you offer her a job here?”

  “No.” He smiles his blameless smile.

  “You introduced her to a man who smuggled her to the Netherlands and then to Britain.”

  “No.”

  “The cost was five thousand U.S. dollars but it rose to ten thousand by the time she reached Turkey. You told her that God would find a way for her to repay this money.”

  “I meet many orphans on my travels, Detective, and I don’t think there has ever been one of them who didn’t want to leave. It’s what they dream about. They tell one another bedtime stories of escaping to the West where even beggars drive cars and dogs are put on diets because there is so much food.”

  Forbes places a photograph of Brendan Pearl on the table. “Do you know this man?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “He is a convicted killer.”

  “I’ll pray for him.”

  “What about his victims—will you pray for them?” Forbes is holding a photograph of Cate. “Do you know this woman?”

  “She might have visited the adoption center. I can’t be sure.”

  “She wanted to adopt?”

  Shawcroft shrugs.

  “You will have to answer verbally for the tape,” says Forbes.

  “I can’t recall.”

  “Take a closer look.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight, Detective.”

  “What about your memory?”

  Barrett interrupts. “Listen, Dr. Phil, it’s Sunday. I got better things to do than listen to you stroke your pole. How about you tell us what my client is supposed to have done?”

  Forbes shows admirable restraint. He places another photograph on the table, this one of Yanus. The questions continue. The answers are the same: “I cannot recall. I do not remember.”

  Julian Shawcroft is not a pathological liar (why tell a lie when the truth can serve you better?) but he is a natural deceiver and it comes as easily to him as breathing. Whenever Forbes has him under pressure, he carefully unfurls a patchwork of lies, tissue-thin yet carefully wrought, repairing any flaw in the fabric before it becomes a major tear. He doesn’t lose his temper or show any anxiety. Instead he projects a disquieting calmness and a firm, fixed gaze.

  Among the files at the adoption center are the names of at least twelve couples that also appear on paperwork from the IVF clinic in Amsterdam. I relay the information to Forbes via a transmitter. He touches his ear in acknowledgment.

  “Have you ever been to Amsterdam, Mr. Shawcroft?” he asks.

  I speak it here, it comes out there—like magic.

  “Several times.”

  “Have you visited a fertility clinic in Amersfoort?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Surely you would remember this clinic.” Forbes relates the name and address. “I doubt if you visit so many.”

  “I am a busy man.”

  “Which is why I’m sure you keep diaries and appointment calendars.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why haven’t we found any?”

  “I don’t keep my schedule more than a few weeks before throwing it out. I deplore clutter.”

  “Can you explain how couples who were screened by your adoption center also appear in the files of an IVF clinic in Amsterdam?”

  “Perhaps they were getting IVF treatment. People who want to adopt often try IVF first.”

  Barrett is gazing at the ceiling. He’s in danger of getting bored.

  “These couples didn’t have IVF treatment,” says Forbes. “They provided embryos that were implanted in the wombs of asylum seekers who were forced to carry pregnancies to term before the babies were taken from them.”

  Forbes points to the five photographs on the table. “These women, Mr. Shawcroft, the same women you met at different orphanages, the same women you encouraged to leave. They have identified you. They have provided statements to the police. And each one of them remembers you telling them the same thing: ‘God will find a way for you to repay your debt.’”

  Barrett takes hold of Shawcroft’s arm. “My client wishes to exercise his right to silence.”

  Forbes gives the textbook reply. “I hope your client is aware that negative inferences can be drawn by the courts if he fails to mention facts that he later relies upon in his defense.”

  “My client is aware of this.”

  “Your client should also be aware that he has to remain here and listen to my questions, whether he answers them or not.”

  Barrett’s small dark eyes are glittering. “You do what you have to, Detective Inspector. All we’ve heard so far is a bunch of fanciful stories masquerading as facts. So what if my client talked to these women? You have no evidence that he organized their illegal entry into this country. And no evidence that he was involved in this Goebbels-like fairy tale about forced pregnancies and stolen babies.”

  Barrett is perfectly motionless, poised. “It seems to me, Dete
ctive, that your entire case rests on the testimony of five illegal immigrants who would say anything to stay in this country. You want to make a case based on that—bring it on.”

  The lawyer gets to his feet, smooths his boot-cut jeans and adjusts his buffalo-skull belt buckle. He glances at Shawcroft. “My advice to you is to remain silent.” He opens the door and swaggers down the corridor, hat in hand. There’s that walk again.

  7

  “Penny for the Guy.”

  A group of boys with spiky haircuts are loitering on the corner. The smallest one has been dressed up as a tramp in oversize clothes. He looks like he’s fallen victim to a shrinking ray.

  One of the other boys nudges him. “Show ’em yer teef, Lachie.”

  Lachie opens his mouth sullenly. Two of them are blacked out.

  “Penny for the Guy,” they chorus again.

  “You’re not going to throw him on a bonfire I hope.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good.” I give them a pound.

  Samira has been watching. “What are they doing?”

  “Collecting money for fireworks.”

  “By begging?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Hari has explained to her about Guy Fawkes Night. That’s why the two of them have spent the past two days in my garden shed, dressed like mad scientists in cotton clothes, stripped of anything that might create static electricity or cause a spark.

  “So this Guy Fawkes, he was a terrorist?”

  “Yes, I suppose he was. He tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament with barrels of gunpowder.”

  “To kill the King?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He and his coconspirators weren’t happy with the way the King was treating Catholics.”

  “So it was about religion.”

  “I guess.”

  She looks at the boys. “And they celebrate this?”

  “When the plot failed, people set off fireworks in celebration and burned effigies of Guy Fawkes. They still do.” Never let anyone tell you that Protestants don’t hold a grudge.

  Samira silently contemplates this as we make our way toward Bethnal Green. It’s almost six o’clock and the air is already heavy with the smell of smoke and sulfur. Bonfires are dotted across the grass with families clustered around them, rugged up against the cold.