The Night Ferry

by Michael Robotham

  My entire family has come to see the fireworks. Hari is in his element, having emerged from the back shed carrying an old ammunition box containing the fruits of his labor and Samira’s expertise. I don’t know how he managed to source what she needed: the various chemicals, special salts and metallic powders. The most important ingredient, black powder, came from a hobby shop in Notting Hill, or more specifically from model rocket motors that were carefully disassembled to obtain the solid fuel propellant.

  Torches dance across the grass and small fireworks are being lit: stick rockets, Roman candles, flying snakes, crackle dragons and bags of gold. Children are drawing in the air with sparklers and every dog in London is barking, keeping every baby awake. I wonder if the twins are among them. Perhaps they are too young to be frightened by the noise.

  I hook my arm through Bada’s and we watch Samira and Hari plant a heavy plastic tube in the earth. Samira has pulled her skirt between her legs and wrapped it tightly around her thighs. Her headscarf is tucked beneath the collar of her coat.

  “Who would give him such knowledge?” says Bada. “He’ll blow himself up.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  Hari has always been a favorite among equals. As the youngest, he has had my parents to himself for the past six years. I sometimes think he’s their last link to middle age.

  Shielding a pale tapered candle in the palm of her hand, Samira crouches close to the ground. One or two seconds elapses. A rocket whizzes into the air and disappears. One, two, three seconds pass until it suddenly explodes high above us, dripping stars that melt into the darkness. Compared with the fireworks that have come before, it is higher, brighter and louder. People stop their own displays to watch.

  Hari sings out the names—dragon’s breath, golden phoenix, glitter palm, exploding apples—while Samira moves without fuss between the launch tubes. Meanwhile, ground shells shoot columns of sparks around her and the explosions of color are mirrored in her eyes.

  The finale is Hari’s whistling chaser. Samira lets him light the fuse. It screams upward until little more than a speck of light detonates into a huge circle of white like a dandelion. Just when it seems about to fade, a red ball of light explodes within the first. The final salute is a loud bang that rattles the neighboring windows, setting off car alarms. The crowd applauds. Hari takes a bow. Samira is already cleaning up the scorched cardboard tubes and shredded paper, which she packs into the old ammunition box.

  Hari is buzzing. “We should celebrate,” he says to Samira. “I’ll take you out.”

  “Out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is out?”

  “I don’t know. We could have a drink or see a band.”

  “I do not drink.”

  “You could have a juice or a soft drink.”

  “I cannot go out with you. It’s not good for a girl to be alone with a boy.”

  “We wouldn’t be alone. The pub is always packed.”

  “She means without a chaperone,” I tell him.

  “Oh. Right.”

  I sometimes wonder why Hari is considered the brightest among my brothers. He looks crestfallen.

  “It’s a religious thing, Hari.”

  “But I’m not religious.”

  I give him a clip round the ear.

  I still haven’t told Samira about what happened at Shawcroft’s interview or, more important, what didn’t happen. The charity boss gave us nothing. Forbes had to let him go.

  How do I explain the rules of evidence and the notion of burden of proof to someone who has never been afforded the luxury of justice or fairness?

  On the walk home we drop behind the others, and I hook my arm in Samira’s.

  “But he did these things,” she says, turning to face me. “None of this would have happened without him. Hassan and Zala would still be here. So many people are dead.” She lowers her gaze. “Perhaps they are the lucky ones.”

  “You mustn’t think such a thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the twins are going to need a mother.”

  She cuts me off with a slash of her hand. “I will never be their mother!”

  Her face has changed. Twisted. I am looking at another face beneath the first, a dangerous one. It lasts only a fraction of a second—long enough to unsettle me. She blinks and it’s gone. I have her back again.

  We are almost home. A car has slowed about fifty yards behind us, edging forward without closing the gap. Fear crawls down my throat. I reach behind my back and untuck my shirt. The Glock is holstered at the base of my spine.

  Hari has already turned into Hanbury Street. Mama and Bada have gone home. Opposite the next streetlight is a footpath between houses. Samira has noticed the car.

  “Don’t look back,” I tell her.

  As we pass under the streetlight, I push her toward the footpath, yelling at her to run. She obeys without question. I spin to face the car. The driver is in shadow. I aim the pistol at his head and he raises his hands, palms open like a mime artist pressing against a glass wall.

  A rear window lowers. The interior light blinks on. I swing my gun into the opening. Julian Shawcroft has one hand on the door and the other holding what could be a prayer book.

  “I want to show you something,” he says.

  “Am I going to disappear?”

  He looks disappointed. “Trust in God to protect you.”

  “Will you take me to the twins?” “I will help you understand.”

  A gust of wind, a splatter of raindrops, the night is growing blustery and bad-tempered. Across London people are heading home and bonfires are burning down. We cross the river and head south through Bermondsey. The glowing dome of St. Paul’s is visible between buildings and above the treetops.

  Shawcroft is silent. I can see his face in the passing beams of headlights as I nurse my gun and he nurses his book. I should be frightened. Instead I feel a curious calmness. My only phone call has been to home—checking to make sure that Samira made it safely.

  The car pulls off the road into a driveway and stops in a rear courtyard.

  I step out and see the driver’s face for the first time across the vehicle’s glistening roof. It’s not Brendan Pearl. I didn’t expect it to be. Shawcroft isn’t foolish enough to be seen with a known killer.

  A woman dressed in a French peasant skirt and oversize sweater appears at Shawcroft’s side. Her hair is pinned back so tightly it raises her eyebrows.

  “This is Delia,” he says. “She runs one of my charities.”

  I shake a smooth dry hand.

  Delia leads us through double doors and up a narrow staircase. There are posters on the walls with confronting images of hunger and neglect. Among them is a photograph of an African child with a distended stomach and begging bowl eyes. In the bottom corner there is a logo, a clock with letters instead of numbers spelling out O.R.P.H.A.N.W.A.T.C.H.!

  Reaching behind me, I slide the gun into its holster.

  We arrive at an office with desks and filing cabinets. A computer screen, dark and asleep, is silhouetted against the window. Shawcroft turns to Delia: “Is it open?”

  She nods.

  I follow him into a second room, which is fitted out as a small home theater with a screen and a projector. There are more posters on the walls, along with newspaper clippings, some dog-eared, torn or frayed at the edges. A small girl in a dirty white dress peers at the camera; a young boy with his arms folded eyes me defiantly. There are other images, dozens of them, papering the walls beneath display lights that have turned them into tragic works of art.

  “These are the ones we could save,” he says, his pale priestly hands clasped before him.

  The wall panels are concertinaed. He expands them, revealing yet more photographs.

  “Remember the orphans from the Asian tsunami? Nobody knows their true number but some estimates put it at 20,000. Homeless. Destitute. Traumatized. Families were queuing up to adopt them; governments were besieg
ed with offers; but almost every one of them was refused.”

  His gaze slides over me. “Shall I tell you what happened to the tsunami orphans? In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tigers recruited them as soldiers, boys as young as seven. In India greedy relatives fought over the children because of the relief money being offered by the government and abandoned them once the money was paid.

  “In Indonesia the authorities refused adoption to any couple who weren’t Muslim. Troops dragged 300 orphans from a rescue flight because it was organized by a Christian charity. They were left with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. Even countries like Thailand and India that allow foreign adoptions suddenly closed their borders—spooked by unconfirmed stories of orphans being trafficked out of the country by gangs of pedophiles. It was ridiculous. If someone robs a bank you don’t shut down the international banking system. You catch the robber. You prosecute them. Unfortunately, each time a child is trafficked they want to shut down the international adoption system, making things worse for millions of orphans.

  “People don’t understand the sheer scale of this problem. Two million children are forced into prostitution every year—a million of them in Asia. And more children are orphaned every week in Africa than were orphaned by the Asian tsunami. There are thirteen million in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

  “The so-called experts say children shouldn’t be treated as commodities. Why not? Isn’t it better to be treated as a commodity than to be treated like a dog? Hungry. Cold. Living in squalor. Sold into slavery. Raped. They say it shouldn’t be about money. What else is it going to be about? How else are we going to save them?”

  “You think the end justifies the means.”

  “I think it should be a factor.”

  “You can’t treat people like a resource.”

  “Of course I can. Economists do it all the time. I’m a pragmatist.”

  “You’re a monster.”

  “At least I give a damn. The world needs people like me. Realists. Men of action. What do you do? Sponsor a child in Burundi or pledge to Comic Relief. You try to save one, while ten thousand others starve.”

  “And what’s the alternative?”

  “Sacrifice one and save ten thousand.”

  “Who chooses?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Who chooses the one you’re going to sacrifice?”

  “I choose. I don’t ask others to do it for me.”

  I hate him then. For all his dark charm and elegant intensity, Shawcroft is a bully and a zealot. I prefer Brendan Pearl’s motives. At least he doesn’t try to justify his killings.

  “What happens if the odds change?” I ask. “Would you sacrifice five lives to save five hundred? What about ten lives to save eleven?”

  “Let’s ask the people, shall we?” he replies sarcastically. “I get eleven votes. You only get ten. I win.”

  Fleetingly, unnervingly, I understand what he’s saying but cannot accept a world that is so brutally black and white. Murder, rape and torture are the apparatus of terrorists, not of civilized societies. If we become like them, what hope do we have?

  Shawcroft thinks he’s a moral man, a charitable man, a saintly man, but he’s not. He’s been corrupted. He has become part of the problem instead of the solution—trafficking women, selling babies, exploiting the vulnerable.

  “Nothing gives you the right to choose,” I tell him.

  “I accepted the role.”

  “You think you’re God!”

  “Yes. And do you know why? Because someone has to be. Bleeding hearts like you only pay lip service to the poor and destitute. You wear colored bands on your wrists and claim that you want to make poverty history. How?”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Where are the twins?”

  “Being loved.”

  “Where?”

  “Where they belong.”

  The pistol is resting against the small of my back, warm as blood. My fingers close around it. In a single motion I swing it toward him, pressing the muzzle against his forehead.

  I expect to see fear. Instead he blinks at me sadly. “This is like a war, Alisha. I know we use that term too readily, but sometimes it is justified and some wars are just. The war on poverty. The war on hunger. Even pacifists cannot be opposed to wars such as these. Innocent people get hurt in conflict. Your friend was a casualty.”

  “You sacrificed her.”

  “To protect others.”

  “Yourself.”

  My finger tightens on the trigger. Another half pound of pressure and it’s over. He is watching me along the barrel—still not frightened. For a brief moment I think he’s prepared to die, having said his piece and made his peace.

  He doesn’t close his eyes. He knows I can’t do it. Without him I might never find the twins.

  8

  A large portrait above the fireplace shows a patrician man in legal robes with a horsehair wig that looks surprisingly like a shih tzu resting on his forearm. He gazes sternly down at a polished table that is surrounded by high-backed chairs.

  Felix’s mother is dressed in a tweed jacket and black slacks, clutching her handbag as though someone might steal it. Beside her, another of her sons rattles his fingers on the table, already bored.

  Barnaby is at the window, studying the small courtyard outside. I don’t notice Jarrod as he crosses the room. He touches my shoulder.

  “Is it true? Am I an uncle?”

  His hair is brushed back from his temples and beginning to thin.

  “I’m not sure what you are, technically.”

  “My father says there are twins.”

  “They don’t belong to Cate. A girl was forced to have them.”

  His eyes don’t understand. “Biologically they belong to Cate. That makes me an uncle.”

  “Perhaps. I really don’t know.”

  The solicitor enters the conference room and takes a seat. In his mid-fifties, dressed in a three-piece pinstriped suit, he introduces himself as William Grove and stretches his face into a tight smile. His whole demeanor is one of contained speed. Time is money. Every fifteen minutes is billable.

  Chairs scrape backward. People are seated. Mr. Grove glances at his instructions.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, a codicil was added to this will six weeks ago and it appears to be predicated on the likelihood that the Beaumonts would become parents.”

  A frisson disturbs the atmosphere like a sudden change in the air pressure. The solicitor glances up, tugging at his shirt cuffs. “Am I to understand this marriage produced children?”

  Silence.

  Finally, Barnaby clears his throat. “It does seem likely.”

  “What do you mean? Please explain.”

  “We have reason to believe that Cate and Felix arranged a surrogacy. Twins were born eight days ago.”

  The next minute is one of exclamation and disbelief. Felix’s mother makes a choking noise at the back of her throat. Barnaby is looking at his hands, rubbing his fingertips. Jarrod hasn’t taken his eyes off me.

  Unsure of how to proceed Mr. Grove takes a moment to compose himself. He decides to continue. The estate consists of a heavily mortgaged family home in Willesden Green, North London, which was recently damaged in a fire. Insurance will cover the cost of rebuilding. Felix also had a life insurance policy provided by his employer.

  “If there is no objection, I shall read from the wills, which are each ostensibly the same.” He takes a sip of water.

  “This is the last will and testament of me, Cate Elizabeth Beaumont (née Elliot), made on the 14th day of September 2006. I hereby revoke all wills heretofore made by me and declare this to be my last will and testament. I appoint William Grove of Sadler, Grove and Buffett to be executor and trustee of this, my will. I give, devise and bequeath to my husband, Felix Beaumont (formerly known as Felix Buczkowski), the whole of my estate provided that he survives me by thirty days and, if not, then I give the whole of my estate t
o my child or children to be shared equally as tenants in common.

  “I appoint Alisha Kaur Barba as guardian of my infant children and I direct her to love and care for them and to expend so much as is necessary from the estate of the children to raise, educate and advance their life.”

  Barnaby is on his feet, his jaw flapping in protest. For a moment I think he might be having a heart attack.

  “This is preposterous! I will not have my grandchildren raised by a bloody stranger.” He stabs a finger at me. “You knew about this!”

  “No.”

  “You knew all along.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Mr. Grove tries to calm him down. “I can assure you, sir, that everything has been properly signed and witnessed.”

  “What sort of idiot do you take me for? This is bullshit! I won’t let anyone take my grandchildren away.”

  The outburst has silenced the room. The only sounds are from the air-conditioning and distant water pipes filling and disgorging. For a moment I think Barnaby might actually strike me. Instead he kicks back his chair and storms out, followed by Jarrod. People turn to look at me. The back of my neck grows warm.

  Mr. Grove has a letter for me. As I take it from him, I have to keep my hand steady. Why would Cate do this? Why choose me? Already the sense of responsibility is pressing against my lungs.

  The envelope is creased in my fist as I leave the conference room and cross the lobby, pushing through heavy glass doors. I have no idea where I’m going. Is this it? One poxy letter is supposed to explain things? Will it make up for eight years of silence?

  Another notion suddenly haunts my confusion. Maybe I’m being given a chance to redeem myself. To account for my neglect, my failures, the things left unsaid, all those sins of omission and commission. I am being asked to safeguard Cate’s most precious legacy and to do a better job than I managed with our friendship.

  I stop in the doorway of an off-licence and slide my finger beneath the flap of the envelope.