by Alex Day
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hi, Edie, it’s lovely to see you, too.’ Patrick’s freckled face was very smiley but Edie could sense anxiety behind his grin. He sat down in the plastic chair next to the bed. Zayn hovered awkwardly beside him.
‘You can sit on the bed, Zayn,’ Edie suggested.
Zayn perched nervously on the corner furthest from Edie.
‘You stood me up,’ Patrick said, still answering Edie’s original question. ‘We arranged to meet for coffee in the morning – a couple of days ago now, you’ve been unconscious. Maybe you don’t remember, but when you didn’t show, I got a bit worried about you, mainly because of the state you were in when I encountered you in the bay.’
Edie searched her memory. She did recall something about planning a breakfast rendezvous, but she was mostly too taken aback by the passage of time to concentrate on remembering exactly what had been agreed. It felt like months had passed since she’d been on the Radomira.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked. She had a vague recollection of a long swim followed by a long walk that had ended – she didn’t know how.
Patrick leant forward towards the bed. He patted the back of her hand gently as he spoke.
‘It wasn’t me who found you. You narrowly missed being scooped out of a quarry like a lump of stone and dumped in a truck with a whole lot of boulders on top of you.’
Patrick paused.
‘Oh.’ It was the only response Edie could think of.
‘Fortunately, the foreman was checking the site to see where to excavate next and he spotted you in the nick of time. He called the police and an ambulance – and the rest is history.’
Edie rolled her eyes. ‘What a troublemaker I am.’
‘No!’ Zayn interjected. ‘You are a good person, Edie.’
Edie sighed. ‘It was a joke,’ she explained, weakly. It was kind of Zayn to come to visit her. Come to think of it though – why had he come?
‘Why are you here?’ she asked, as soon as the thought had occurred to her. And then she shook her head and turned it sideways to look at Patrick. ‘I mean, sorry, Patrick, you haven’t finished your story yet. How did you know I was here?’
‘I already had the police out looking for you,’ he replied, softly. ‘They were fairly reluctant, I think they had you down as … well, as a fantasist, someone not to be taken too seriously.’
Edie digested this information. It was only what she had known to be the case. But still – the truth can hurt. And what hurt the most was that it was probably the reason nothing had been done to find Laura.
‘They didn’t believe that Laura was in danger, just that she was a bit unreliable. Like how they saw you.’
Patrick wasn’t pulling his punches. It was probably better that way, better than being lied to and given false reassurances anyway.
‘I knew that the police were going to do jack shit,’ Edie said, blankly. ‘That’s why I asked Vuk to help – with the posters and – why I confided in him.’ The idea that Vuk would be her saviour was not even funny anymore; it was horrific.
Zayn shuffled down the bed to get closer to Edie. ‘Vuk had no intention of helping you.’ He swallowed hard as if choking back anger. ‘I kept one of the posters you made, that you asked him to translate. It didn’t say anything about a missing person. Do you know what the writing said?’
Edie shook her head dumbly. She couldn’t imagine. ‘Kill this girl?’ No, even Vuk wouldn’t be that blatant.
‘He wrote, “Happy Birthday to Laura from England. Many congratulations and have a great year”.’ The outrage in Zayn’s voice was plain to hear.
Edie’s disbelieving snort of laughter sent arrows of pain through her body. ‘Well, at least we didn’t waste the time in putting them up.’ She reached out for Zayn’s arm and touched it lightly. ‘Thanks to you realising how pointless it was.’
There was silence for a moment. Edie could almost hear her brain whirring. There were still so many parts of the puzzle missing.
‘But why had you already called the police, Patrick? Didn’t you just think I was unreliable, too? You can hardly have been surprised when such a lightweight as me didn’t make it for breakfast.’ Edie’s tone of voice was mocking, of herself and how she was perceived.
Patrick grinned. ‘I believed you from the outset. And when I met you in the bay and you told me what was going on – well, I started to wonder if it had any connection to what I was investigating.’
‘Investigating? I thought you were on holiday.’ Edie wasn’t sure whether to take Patrick seriously or not.
‘So did I. But I noticed a few things that didn’t seem quite right and once my suspicions had been roused I’m afraid the old news hound in me took over. The papers were full of reports of the “new” Balkan route that refugees were following to get to Europe but there’s never only one path. I called up some old acquaintances, did a bit of digging – and put two and two together.’
Edie was listening intently. ‘Carry on,’ she urged him, impatiently. ‘What happened when you did the maths and got four?’
‘It’s quite complicated and I haven’t got all the elements straight myself yet. I’ll make sure you’re the first to see my article when it’s published. But in essence, your friends Vlad and Vuk were part of a sophisticated, multi-country people-smuggling ring that extended throughout Greece and the Balkans. They charged top prices to ship refugees as far into the EU as they could and gave them false identities so that they didn’t have to undergo the usual procedures for asylum seekers. It was extremely lucrative for them. That’s why they had that super-lux boat – they needed to look the part, to fit in as members of the rich, international yachting community flitting around the islands of the Adriatic and across to Italy. But they were ruthless and if anything went wrong, if the money wasn’t right or the refugees caused trouble – they were not above robbing them blind and dumping them.’
Edie contemplated this information in silence. It was as she had thought, exactly what she had also deduced by putting two and two together, although perhaps would not have been able to articulate quite as elegantly as Patrick.
Patrick was rubbing his stubbly chin with his hand, allowing her time to take it all in. ‘I realised that you were in big trouble. By investigating Laura’s disappearance you had exposed Vuk, Vlad, and the resort that provided their cover to a level of scrutiny that was unwelcome, to put it mildly. Remember their reaction to the police search? I didn’t think the danger was imminent at first – but when you didn’t turn up this morning I went to your room, and when I didn’t find you there, I looked everywhere else I could think of. I noticed that the Radomira was absent from the harbour. I went to the resort office saying I’d arrived too late for a trip I’d booked and wanted a refund and they told me categorically that there was no trip today. And then I knew where you were.’
Edie wondered if she’d inadvertently walked into a film set or a parallel life of some kind. This was all insane, nonsensical.
‘I can’t believe it,’ was all she managed to say.
‘Well, believe it, Edie – it’s a miracle that you survived. These people – not just Vlad and Vuk but the whole gang – are utterly ruthless and they weren’t going to let a young girl come between them and the money they were making.’
The cruelty in Vlad’s mocking laugh as he’d plotted her demise came back to Edie in a red-hot flush of fear. She looked around her anxiously, imagining him appearing from under her bed and stabbing her in the heart. ‘Where are they?’ she asked, terrified.
‘Under lock and key.’ A smile of self-satisfaction curled around Patrick’s mouth. ‘Nothing to worry about now.’
Edie lay back on her pillows, letting this knowledge sink in.
‘So the hut on the hill – it was one of the transit points for the refugees,’ she asked, working it out as she spoke. ‘Nothing to do with Laura.’
There was a tiny, almost imperceptible pause. She snapped her gaze to Patrick who shift
ed awkwardly under it. What did he know about Laura that he wasn’t telling?
‘No, nothing,’ he replied, quietly.
‘And the scarf I found, that disappeared from my room the day the police came? Not Laura’s?’
‘Dropped by someone else. It may have been used as a hijab. The point is that it would have had scent on it that the dogs might have identified. That’s why your room was broken into and the scarf taken, to make sure the police didn’t find it. Zayn was asked to get rid of it.’
‘Oh.’
There was a long silence while Edie tried to digest all this information. Eventually, Zayn shifted his position on the bed and she remembered his presence.
‘But what’s any of this got to do with you?’ she demanded of him. ‘I mean – sorry, I don’t mean to be rude … and of course it’s lovely to see you. But I’m wondering how you fit in.’
Zayn nodded as if he’d been expecting such a question. ‘It’s very simple,’ he answered in his soft, gentle voice.
‘Fatima, who you rescued, whose life you saved, is my sister.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
Fatima
If it wasn’t for Ali, Fatima wasn’t sure how she would be coping now, laid up in hospital. She remembered how she had broken the ice on their first call by teasing him about his adopted name.
‘Zayn? Do you think you’re in a boy band or something?’ she had asked, trying to keep the tone light, trying not to pour out all her anguish and distress, to keep her hopes of a lifeline hidden. If he couldn’t help it wouldn’t be his fault. He mustn’t feel obliged, cornered. But he had fallen over himself to offer to do what he could, to work out how he could assist them and bring them to safety. No matter that it was this help that had led them all into the hands of the people-smugglers whose pitilessness might have killed them. He could not have predicted such an outcome.
And now, he had taken on the care of the twins while she was getting better. Ehsan and Youssef were detained for ‘processing’; what on earth that meant and what would be the outcome of it Fatima did not want to contemplate. It was ironic that after all of it, all the weeks of travelling, the stench and the flies and the hunger and the degradation – they hadn’t even properly got to Europe, had not reached the perceived sanctuary that arrival in the European Union would provide. It was hard not to see the whole venture as a complete disaster, except of course that they had all survived.
All except the baby. Thinking of the birth, weeks too soon, at sea, in boats that baked in the forty degree heat, Fatima bowed her head and felt her eyes grow hot and the tears begin to fall once more. The smugglers had dumped his body at sea without her even seeing him. She imagined him reborn as a water nymph, plump and cherubic, forever happily splashing in his underwater home. It was the only way to cope.
She did not know that Edie had been on the final yacht until Edie told her. And until Ali explained it to her, she had not realised that it was Edie who had saved their lives, her disappearance that had led to the authorities being notified, the boat intercepted and urgent medical treatment sought for Fatima.
She wanted to thank this girl, who seemed somehow lost, vulnerable, despite her fortunate position as someone with a legal status and a valid passport, a right to be here, or anywhere she chose. People like this did not have to so much as envisage the life of the stateless. But how to thank her adequately? She practised in her head:
‘Don’t you remember, Edie? You saved my life. If we hadn’t been found I would have died from the infection, my body would have joined my son’s in the sea. My girls would have been orphans. Whatever happens from now on, at least I am still here, alive, a mother. You are the one I have to thank for that.’
The girls were running and playing in the hospital forecourt where Fatima had taken them so they would not disturb the other patients. The fresh air, free from the smell of disinfectant and body odours, was delicious. It was cooler, now, in the evenings, as the long days of high summer drew to a close. She wondered where they would be, when winter came, her and the twins, Ehsan and Youssef. It was more than possible that they could be deported, sent back to where they had come from. Fatima could not even summon the energy to shed a tear at the thought. Nothing was worth thinking about anymore but the present, each day at a time, one by one. The future was out of her hands.
She called the twins to her, scooped them up, covered them with kisses and led them inside, back to the ward where Ali and the strange, pale English man were talking to Edie. The girls were fascinated, and slightly frightened, by this man’s ginger hair, the like of which they had never seen before, and his mottled skin – freckles, Fatima knew they were called, but Marwa insisted on naming them spots. Ali, on the other hand, they had adored from the first moment of meeting. Blood is thicker than water, as the saying goes, and it seemed as though they had sensed their kinship without even being told of it.
Edie
Fatima came back with the twin girls just as Zayn had revealed that he was her brother. Edie was surprised, as surprised as she could muster the energy to be about anything right now. Zayn had always seemed so insular, such a lost soul wandering alone on a planet he didn’t seem to truly understand. Now she knew why, for he had briefly explained his banishment from the family home for some undisclosed disobedience, followed by his exile, never to return. She was glad he had a sister, nieces, a family. That was nice for him.
‘We’re going now, Edie.’ Patrick’s voice cut into her thoughts. ‘You need to rest as much as you can. Your parents will be here in the morning.’
‘In the morning!’ Edie could not prevent the high-pitched shriek that emanated from somewhere deep in her throat. ‘I thought they were coming now?’
‘They’ll be here first thing. Nine o’clock, as soon as the hospital doors open to visitors.’ Patrick’s tone was reassuring, placatory.
‘Right.’ There was no point in fighting it. Acceptance; that was what Edie was all about these days. It was the best way. Then she remembered and sat bolt upright in her bed.
‘But what will I tell them about Laura?’ Her voice was like a wail now, pleading, despairing.
She caught the look that flashed between Patrick and Zayn.
‘What?’ They definitely knew something that they weren’t telling her. ‘What is it?’
Patrick patted her shoulder. ‘Nothing. Everything’s fine. You get some sleep.’
It was quiet once Patrick and Zayn had gone, Zayn tugging the two little girls along with him, one in each hand. They cried to leave their mother but Edie saw that the tears had gone by the time they reached the end of the ward and exited through the doors, urged on by promises of ice-cream.
‘Thank you, Edie.’
The words took Edie by surprise. She didn’t know what she had done that she deserved to be thanked for.
‘You saved my life,’ Fatima continued.
‘Oh.’ Edie couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. Saving a life was undoubtedly an achievement but she wasn’t quite sure how she’d done it. Still, Fatima thought she had and that was good, good that she, useless Edie who never quite achieved her potential, had done something so worthwhile. Pity she hadn’t accomplished the same for Laura.
Fatima was still talking, saying more about what Edie had supposedly done, but Edie didn’t really want to hear it, it made her uncomfortable. Anyway, the important thing now that Fatima was alive and likely to stay that way was where she would go next, what she would do.
‘Would you like to go home? Don’t you miss it?’ Edie’s question cut across Fatima’s words of thanks.
Fatima shrugged. ‘Of course I miss my country. But there is no country left to love, or to miss. My country no longer exists.’ She looked at Edie and sighed.
‘I need to find a new country.’
Edie
The night passed. Edie felt as if she didn’t sleep at all but realised that she must have. Even so, at six am she was wide awake. So much had happened, apparently she was some kin
d of hero. But the one thing she had set out to do – finding Laura – she had not achieved. She had gone through all of this and still not found Laura. She rang the bell and asked a nurse to help her wash and get her dressed. She couldn’t stand just lying there like an invalid anymore.
The delight that should have been her only emotion when her parents arrived was dissipated by Edie’s preoccupation with Laura. They came clattering through the ward, tanned from their travels but faces etched with worry. Her mother Sophia’s brown hair, greying now, was tied in a familiar plait. Her father Alex, who was half-Viennese, bore himself with his characteristic middle-European elegance. James was with them, tousled haired, looking as if he’d just stepped off the bus from Nepal or Ghana or wherever it was he’d been that eluded her now. She had not expected to see her brother. Her and Fatima both, reunited with a much-loved sibling. Tears overcame her, pouring down her cheeks, drowning her words.
Her mother engulfed her in her arms. ‘It’s okay,’ she repeated, over and over again. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’
Her father and brother stood awkwardly by the bed like two sentinels, austere, unsure of how to react to such a display of raw emotion.
‘We’re so proud of you, Edie. So very, very proud.’ Her mother said the words and finally they sank in. ‘You saved a life. Several lives. You were strong and brave and you didn’t give in. You can take that with you, what you have achieved, for the rest of your life.’
She wished people would stop going on about her saving lives. The only life that mattered – Laura’s – was still far from safe, or saved.
Her mother had her hands around Edie’s head now, her cool palms against Edie’s hot cheeks.
‘We love you so much. More than the sun and the moon and the stars and the sky.’
Edie choked. These were the words her mother had always said, when it was bedtime, or at any parting. They were etched into her memory, woven into the fabric of her history.