The Night Ferry (25 page)

I feel numb. Shel -shocked. This is my fault. I close my eyes to the darkness and listen to him breathing. Someone has delivered a tray with a glass of orange juice under a fril ed paper lid. There are biscuits. I’m not hungry.

So this is al about a baby. Two babies. Cate Beaumont tried unsuccessful y to get pregnant through IVF. She then met someone who convinced her that for £80,000 another woman would have a baby for her. Not just any baby. Her own genetic offspring.

She traveled to Amsterdam where two of her fertilized embryos were implanted into the womb of an Afghani teenager who owed money to people smugglers. Both embryos began growing.

Meanwhile, in London Cate announced she was “pregnant.” Friends and family celebrated the news. She began an elaborate deception that she had to maintain for nine months.

What went wrong? Cate’s ultrasound pictures—the fake ones—showed only one baby. She didn’t expect twins.

Someone must have arranged the IVF procedure. Doctors were needed. Fertility specialists. Midwives. Minders.

A nurse appears at the door, an angel in off-white. She walks around the bed and whispers in my ear. A detective has come to interview me.

“He won’t wake yet,” she whispers, glancing at Ruiz. “I’l keep watch.”

A local politieagent has been sitting outside the room al night. He looks very smart in dark blue trousers, light blue shirt, tie and jacket. Now he’s talking to a more senior col eague. I wait for them to finish.

The senior detective introduces himself as Spijker, making it sound like a punishment. He doesn’t give me a first name. Maybe he only has the one. Tal and thin with a narrow face and thinning hair, he looks at me with watery eyes as though he’s already having an al ergic reaction to what I might say.

A smal mole on his top lip dances up and down as he speaks. “Your friend wil be al right, I think.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I shal need to talk to him when he wakes up.”

I nod.

We walk to the patient lounge, which is far smarter than anything I’ve seen in a British hospital. There are eggs and cold meats and slices of cheese on a platter, along with a basket of bread rol s. The detective waits for me to be seated and takes out a fountain pen, resting it on a large white pad. His smal est actions have a function.

Spijker explains that he works for the Youth and Vice Squad. Under normal circumstances, this might sound like an odd combination but not when I look at Samira’s age and what she’s been through.

As I tel him the story, explaining events, it strikes me how implausible it al sounds. An Englishwoman transports fertilized embryos to Amsterdam inside a smal cooler box. The eggs are placed in the womb of an unwil ing surrogate. A virgin.

Spijker leans forward, with his hands braced on either side of his chair. For a moment I think he might suffer from piles and want to relieve some of the pressure.

“What makes you think this girl was forced to become pregnant?”

“She told me.”

“And you believe her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Perhaps she agreed.”

“No. She owed money to traffickers. Either she became a prostitute or she agreed to have a baby.”

“Trafficking is a very serious crime indeed. Commercial surrogacy is also il egal.”

I tel him about the prostitute on Molensteeg who mentioned seeing a second pregnant girl. A Serb. Samira had a Serbian friend on the campus, according to Lena Caspar.

There could be others. Babies born at a price, ushered into the world with threats and blackmail. I have no idea how big this is, how many people it touches.

Spijker’s face gives nothing away. He speaks slowly, as if practicing his English. “And this has been the purpose of your visit to Amsterdam?” The question has a barbed tip. I have been waiting for this—the issue of jurisdiction. What is a British police officer doing investigating possible crimes in the Netherlands? There are protocols to be fol owed. Rules to be obeyed.

“I was making private inquiries. It is not an official investigation.”

Spijker seems satisfied. His point has been made. I have no authority in the Netherlands.

“Where is this woman—the pregnant one?”

“Safe.”

He waits, expecting an address. I explain about Samira’s asylum appeal and the deportation order. She’s frightened of being sent back to Afghanistan.

“If this girl is tel ing the truth and becomes a witness there are laws to protect her.”

“She could stay?”

“Until the trial.”

I want to trust him—I want Samira to trust him—yet there is something in his demeanor that hints at skepticism. The notepad and fountain pen have not been touched. They are merely props.

“You tel a very interesting story, Detective Constable. A very interesting story, indeed.” The mole on his top lip is quivering. “However, I have heard a different version. The man we found unconscious at the scene says he returned home and found you in his apartment. You claimed to be a nurse and that you were trying to examine his fiancée.”

“His fiancée!”

“Yes indeed his fiancée. He says that he asked you for some proof of your identity. You refused. Did you conduct a physical examination of Miss Khan?”

“She
knew
I wasn’t a nurse. I was trying to help her.”

“Mr. Yanus further claims that he was attacked by your col eague as he endeavored to protect his fiancée.”

“Yanus had a knife. Look at what he did!”

“In self-defense.”

“He’s lying.”

Spijker nods, but not in agreement. “You see my dilemma, DC Barba. I have two different versions of the same event. Mr. Yanus wants you both charged with assault and abducting his fiancée. He has a good lawyer. A very good lawyer indeed.”

“This is ridiculous! Surely you can’t believe him.”

The detective raises a hand to silence me. “We Dutch are famous for our open minds but do not mistake this openness for ignorance or naïveté. I need evidence. Where is the pregnant girl?”

“I wil take you there, but I must talk to her first.”

“To get your stories straight, perhaps?”

“No!” I sound too strident. “Her brother died three days ago. She doesn’t know.”

We drive in silence to my hotel. I am given time to shower and change. Spijker waits in the lobby.

Peeling off my clothes, I slip on a hotel robe and sit cross-legged on the bed, leafing through the messages that were waiting at reception. “New Boy” Dave has phoned four times, my mother twice and Chief Superintendent North has left a terse six-word “please explain.” I screw it into a bal and flush it away. Maybe this is what he meant by shuffling people and priorities.

I should cal Ruiz’s family. Who, exactly? I don’t have numbers for his children or any of his ex-wives—not even the most recent, Miranda.

I pick up the phone and punch the numbers. Dave is at the station. I hear other voices in the background.

“Hel o, sweet girl, where have you been?”

“My mobile was stolen.”

“How?”

“There was an accident.”

His mood alters. “An accident!”

“Not real y an accident.”
I’m not doing this very well
.

“Hang on.” I hear him apologizing to someone. He takes me somewhere private.

“What’s wrong? Are you al right?”

“The DI is in hospital. Someone stabbed him.”

“Shit!”

“I need a favor. Find a number for his ex-wife.”

“Which one?”

“Miranda. Tel her that he’s in the Academisch Medisch Centrum. It’s a hospital in Amsterdam.”

“Is he going to be al right?”

“I think so. He’s out of surgery.”

Dave wants the details. I try to fudge them, making it sound like a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time scenario. Bad luck. He isn’t convinced. I know what’s coming now. He’s going to get clingy and pathetic and ask me to come home and I’l be reminded of al the reasons I don’t want to be married to someone.

Only he doesn’t. He is matter-of-fact and direct, taking down the number of the hospital, along with Spijker’s name. He’s going to find out what the Dutch police are doing.

“I found Samira. She’s pregnant.”

I can hear Dave’s mind juddering through the consequences. He is careful and methodical, like a carpenter who measures twice and cuts once.

“Cate paid for a baby. A surrogate.”

“Jesus, Ali.”

“It gets worse. She donated the embryos. There are twins.”

“Who owns the babies?”

“I don’t know.”

Dave wants the whole story but I don’t have time. I’m about to hang up when he remembers something.

“I know it’s probably not the time,” he says, “but I had a phone cal from your mother.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. She invited me to lunch on Sunday.”

She threatened to do it and she went and did it!

He’s waiting for a response.

“I don’t know if I’l be home by then,” I say.

“But you
knew
about the invite?”

“Yes, of course,” I lie. “I told her to invite you.”

He relaxes. “For a moment I thought she might have gone behind your back. How embarrassing would that be—my girlfriend’s mother arranging dates for me? Story of my life—

mothers liking me and their daughters running a mile.”

Now he’s blathering.

“It’s al right, Dave.”

“Bril iant.”

He doesn’t want to hang up. I do it for him. The shower is running. I step beneath the spray and flinch as the hot water hits my cheek and the cut on my ear. Washed and dried, I open my bag and take out my Dolce Gabbana pants and a dark blouse. I see less of me in the mirror than I remember. When I ran competitively my best weight was 123 pounds. I got heavier when I joined the Met. Night shifts and canteen food wil do that to you.

I have always been rather un-girlie. I don’t have manicures or pedicures and I only paint my nails on special occasions (so I can chip it off when I get bored).

The day I cut my hair was almost a rite of passage. When it grew back I got a sensible layered shag cut. My mother cried. She’s never been one to ration tears.

Ever since my teens I have lived in fear of saris and skirts. I didn’t wear a bra until I was fourteen and my periods started after everyone else’s. I imagined them banked up behind a dam wal and when the gates opened it was going to be like a scene from a Tarantino film, without Harvey Keitel to clean up afterward.

In those days I didn’t imagine ever feeling like a woman, but slowly it happened. Now I’m almost thirty and self-conscious enough to wear makeup—a little lip gloss and mascara. I pluck my eyebrows and wax my legs. I stil don’t own a skirt and every item in my wardrobe, apart from my jeans and my saris, is a variant on the color black. That’s okay. Smal steps.

I make one more phone cal . It diverts between numbers and Lena Caspar answers. A public address system echoes in the background. She is on a railway platform. There is a court hearing in Rotterdam, she explains. An asylum seeker has been charged with stealing groceries.

“I found Samira.”

“How is she?”

“She needs your help.”

The details can wait. I give her Spijker’s name and phone number. Samira wil need protection and guarantees about her status if they want her to give evidence.

“She doesn’t know about Hassan.”

“You have to tel her.”

“I know.”

The lawyer begins thinking out loud. She wil find someone to take over the court case in Rotterdam. It might take a few hours.

“I have a question.”

My words are drowned out by a platform announcement. She waits. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I have a hypothetical question for you.”

“Yes?”

“If a married couple provided a fertilized embryo to a surrogate mother who later gave birth, who would the baby belong to?”

“The birth mother.”

“Even if genetical y it had the DNA of the couple?”

“It doesn’t matter. The law in the Netherlands is the same as the law in the U.K. The birth mother is the legal mother. Nobody else has a claim.”

“What about the father?”

“He can apply for access, but the court wil favor the mother. Why do you want to know?”

“Spijker wil explain.”

I hang up and take another look in the mirror. My hair is stil wet. If I wear it down it wil hide the swel ing on my cheek. I’l have to stop my natural inclination to push it behind my ears.

Downstairs I find the detective and desk clerk in conversation. A notebook is open. They stop talking when they see me. Spijker is checking my details. I would do the same.

It is a short drive to the Augustinian Convent. We turn along Warmoesstraat and pul into a multistory car park. The African parking attendant comes running over. Spijker shows him a badge and tears up the parking stub.

Against his better judgment he has agreed to let me see Samira first. I have twenty minutes. Descending the concrete steps, I push open a heavy fire door. Across the street is the convent. A familiar figure emerges from the large front door. Dressed in her pink jacket and a long ankle-length skirt, Zala puts her head down and hustles along the pavement. Her blue hijab hides the bruising on her face. She shouldn’t be outside. I fight the urge to fol ow her.