The Night Ferry (28 page)

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

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

Am I guilty of anything else? Is there something else I should have done? Perhaps I should tel Felix’s family that their son would have become a father in a few weeks. Barnaby and Ruth El iot 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 Cornwal . He couldn’t even look at me or say the word goodbye.

I stil 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 wil 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 stil campaigning, stil 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 stil no closer to knowing what to do. It’s like running a race where I cannot tel 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 footbal 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: “Hel o, 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’l make it up to him when he wakes. I’m sure it doesn’t do much for the male ego, having a woman fal 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 stil —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 al my girlfriends, listening to their sob stories about arranged marriages, unfaithful husbands, men who won’t cal or commit, missed periods, sexual neuroses, wedding plans, postnatal depression and failed diets. I know al 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 al day.”

I gently push his hands away and continue dressing.

“You real y 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 smel s of coffee and gril ed cheese.

My appetite is coming back. We order sliced meats, bread and cheese; coffee with frothed milk.

I take Dave through everything that’s happened. Occasional y he interrupts with a question, but mostly he eats and listens. This whole affair is laced with half-truths and concocted fictions. The uncertainties and ambiguities seem to outweigh the facts and they nag at me, making me fretful and uncomfortable.

I borrow his notebook and write down names.

Brendan Pearl

Yanus

Paul Donavon

Julian Shawcroft

On the opposite side of the page I write another list: the victims.

Cate and Felix Beaumont

Hassan Khan

Samira Khan

There are likely to be others. Where do I list those who fal in between, people like Barnaby El iot? I stil think he lied to me about Cate’s computer. And Dr. Banerjee, her fertility specialist. It was more than a coincidence that he turned up at my father’s birthday party.

I’m not sure what I hope to achieve by writing things down. Perhaps it wil give me a fresh slant on events or throw up a new link. I have been searching for a central figure behind events but maybe that’s too simplistic a notion. People could al be linked like spokes of a wheel that only touch in the center.

There is another issue. Where was the baby—or the babies—going to be handed over? Perhaps Cate planned to take a holiday or a weekend break to the Netherlands. She would go into “labor” tel everyone she had given birth and then bring her newborn home to live happily ever after.

Even a baby needs travel documents. A passport. Which means a birth certificate, statutory declarations and signed photographs. I should cal the British consulate in The Hague and ask how British nationals register a foreign birth.

In a case like this it would be much easier if the baby were born in the same country as the prospective parents. It could be a home birth or in a private house, without involving a hospital or even a midwife.

Once the genetic parents took possession of the baby nobody could ever prove it didn’t belong to them. Blood samples, DNA and paternity tests would al confirm their ownership.

Samira said Hassan was going to the U.K. ahead of her. She expected to fol ow him. What if that’s where they plan to take her? It would also explain why Cate gave Samira my name in case something went wrong.

“Last night you said you were giving up and going home,” says Dave.

“I know. I just thought—”

“You said yourself that these babies belong to Samira. They always have.”

“Someone kil ed my friend.”

“You can’t bring her back.”

“They torched her house.”

“It’s not your case.”

I feel a surge of anger. Does he real y expect me to leave this to Softel and his imbecile mates? And Spijker doesn’t fil me with confidence after letting Yanus go.

“Last night you were crying your eyes out. You said it was over.”

“That was last night.” I can’t hide the anger in my voice.

“What’s changed?”

“My mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative.”

I want to say,
Don’t be a fucking jerk, Dave, and stop quoting me back to myself
.

What is it about men? Just when you think they’re rational members of the human race they go al Neanderthal and protective. Next he’l be asking me how many partners I’ve had and if the sex was any good.

We’re drawing stares from other patrons. “I don’t think we should talk about it here,” he whispers.

“We’re not going to talk about it at al .” I get up to leave.

“Where are you going?”

I want to tel him it’s none of his damn business. Instead I say that I have an appointment with Samira’s lawyer, which isn’t entirely true.

“I’l come with you.”

“No. You go and see Ruiz. He’l appreciate that.” My voice softens. “We’l meet up later.”

Dave looks miserable but doesn’t argue. Give him his due—he’s a quick learner.

Lena Caspar’s waiting room is being vacuumed and tidied. Magazines sit neatly stacked on a table and the toys have been col ected in a polished wooden crate. Her desk is similarly neat and empty except for a box of tissues and a jug of water on a tray. Even the wastepaper basket is clean.

The lawyer is dressed in a knee-length skirt and a matching jacket. Like many women of a certain age, her makeup is applied perfectly.

“I cannot tel you where Samira is,” she announces.

“I know. But you can tel me what happened yesterday.”

She points to a chair. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

The lawyer places her palms flat on the desk. “I knew something was wrong when I saw the interpreter. Samira’s English is perfect, yet she pretended not to understand what I said to her. Everything had to be translated back and forth. Samira volunteered no information without being prompted.”

“Did Yanus spend any time alone with her?”

“Of course not.”

“Did she see him?”

“Yanus took part in a lineup. She picked him out through a two-way mirror.”

“He couldn’t see Samira?”

“No.”

“Did Yanus have anything in his hands?”

She sighs, irritated at my pedantry.

I press her. “Did he have something in his hands?”

She is about to say no but remembers something. “He had a blue handkerchief. He was pushing it into his fist like a magician preparing a conjuring trick.” How did he find Zala? Nobody knew she was at the convent except the nuns. Sister Vogel wouldn’t have given her up. De Wal etjes is a smal place. What did the lawyer once say to me? The wal s have mice and the mice have ears.

Mrs. Caspar listens patiently while I explain what I think happened. Zala is not her concern. She has four hundred asylum seekers on her books.

“What wil happen to Samira now?” I ask.

“She wil be sent back to Afghanistan, which is I think a better option than marrying Yanus.”

“He is not going to marry her.”

“No.”

“He is going to find her and take her babies.”

She shrugs. How can she blithely accept such an outcome? Leaning on the windowsil , she looks down at the courtyard where pigeons peck at the base of a lone tree.

“Some people are born to suffer,” she says pensively. “It never stops for them, not for a second. Look at the Palestinians. The same is true of Afghanis and Sudanese, Ethiopians and Bangladeshis. War, famine, droughts, flood, the suffering never stops. They are made for it—sustained by it.

“We in the West like to think it can be different; that we can change these countries and these people because it makes us feel better when we tuck our own children into their warm beds with ful stomachs and then pour ourselves a glass of wine and watch someone else’s tragedy unfold on CNN.” She stares down at her hands as if she despises them. “Unless we truly understand what it’s like to walk in their shoes, we should not judge people like Samira. She is only trying to save what she has left.” Something else trembles in her voice. Resignation. Acceptance. Why is she so ready to give up? In that split second I realize there is something that she’s not tel ing me. Either she can’t bring herself to do it or Spijker has warned her off. With her innate sense of honesty and justice, she wil not lie to me directly.