The Night Ferry (46 page)

“I’m not laughing.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking at that car.”

I fol ow his gaze. A Volvo Estate is parked near the front gate of No. 85. There is a sunshade on the nearside rear window and what looks like a baby seat.

Dave is giving me a way out. He’s like a chivalrous gentleman spreading his coat over a muddy puddle.

“I should check it out,” I say, opening the car door. “You stay here.”

Dave watches me leave. He knows I’m dodging the issue yet again. I have underestimated him. He’s smarter than I am. Nicer, too.

Crossing the street, I walk along the pavement, pausing at the Volvo and bending as if to tie my shoelaces. The windows are tinted but I can make out smal handprints inside the glass and a Garfield sticker on the back window.

I glance across at Dave and make a knocking motion with my fist. He shakes his head. Ignoring the signal, I open the front gate and climb the steps to the house.

I press the buzzer. The front door opens a crack. A girl aged about five regards me very seriously. Her hands are stained with paint and a pink blot has dried on her forehead like a misplaced bindi.

“Hel o, what’s your name?”

“Mol y.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“I know.”

“Is your mummy home?”

“She’s upstairs.”

I hear a yel from that direction. “If that’s the boiler man, the boiler is straight down the hal in the kitchen.”

“It’s not the boiler man,” I cal back.

“It’s an Indian lady,” says Mol y.

Mrs. Gal agher appears at the top of the stairs. In her early forties, she’s wearing a corduroy skirt with a wide belt slung low on her hips.

“I’m sorry to trouble you. My husband and I are moving into the street and I was hoping to ask about local schools and doctors, that sort of thing.” I can see her mental y deciding what to do. It’s more than natural caution.

“What beautiful curls,” I say, stroking Mol y’s hair.

“That’s what everyone says,” the youngster replies.

Why would someone who already has a child buy a baby?

“I’m rather busy at the moment,” says Mrs. Gal agher, brushing back her fringe.

“I understand completely. I’m sorry.” I turn to leave.

“Which place are you buying?” she asks, not wanting to be impolite.

“Oh, we’re not buying. Not yet. We’re renting No. 68.” I point down the street in the direction of a TO LET sign. We’ve moved from North London. My husband has a new job. We’re both working. But we want to start a family soon.”

Mrs. Gal agher is at the bottom of the stairs now. It’s too cold to leave the front door open. She either invites me inside or tel s me to go.

“Now’s not the best time,” she says. “Perhaps if I had a phone number I could cal you later.”

“Thank you very much.” I fumble for a pen. “Do you have a piece of paper?”

She looks on the radiator shelf. “I’l get you one.”

Mol y waits in the hal way, stil holding the door. “Do you want to see one of my paintings?”

“I’d love to.”

“I’l get one.” She dashes upstairs. Mrs. Gal agher is in the kitchen. She finds an old envelope and returns, looking for Mol y.

“She’s gone upstairs to get one of her paintings,” I explain. “A budding artist.”

“She gets more paint on her clothes than on the paper.”

“I have a boyfriend like that.”

“I thought you said you were married.” She fixes me with a stare. There’s steel behind it.

“We’re engaged. We’ve been together so long It feels like we’re married.”

She doesn’t believe me. Mol y yel s from the top of the stairs.

“Mummy, Jasper is crying.”

“Oh, you have another one.”

Mrs. Gal agher reaches for the door. My foot is faster. My shoulder fol ows. I have no right to enter. I need a warrant or I need proper cause.

I’m at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs. Gal agher yel s at me to get out. She grabs my arm. I shrug it away. Above the noise, behind it, in spite of it, I hear a baby crying.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I fol ow the sound. The first door I come to is the main bedroom. The second door is Mol y’s room. She has set up a painting easel on an old sheet. I try a third door. Brightly colored fish spin slowly above a white cot. Within it, swaddled tightly, a baby is unhappy at creation.

Mrs. Gal agher pushes past me, scooping up the boy. “Get out of my house!”

“Is he yours, Mrs. Gal agher?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give birth to him?”

“Get out! Get out! I’l cal the police.”

“I
am
the police.”

Wordlessly, she shakes her head from side to side. The baby has gone quiet. Mol y is tugging at her skirt.

Suddenly her shoulders sag and she seems to deflate in front of me, folding from the knees and then the waist. Stil cradling the baby, refusing to let go, she lands in my arms and I maneuver her to a chair.

“We adopted him,” she whispers. “He’s
ours
.”

“He was never available for adoption. You know that.”

Mrs. Gal agher shakes her head. I look around the room. Where is she? The girl. My heart skips between beats. Slow then fast.

“There was a baby girl. A twin.”

She looks toward the cot. “He’s the only one.”

Worst case scenarios haunt me now. The baby girl was so smal . She struggled to breathe. Please God, let her be safe!

Mrs. Gal agher has found a tissue in the sleeve of her cardigan. She blows her nose and sniffles. “We were told he wasn’t wanted. I swear I didn’t know—not about the missing twins. It wasn’t until I saw the TV news. Then I began to wonder…”

“Who gave him to you?”

“A man brought him.”

“What did he look like?”

“Mid-fifties, short hair—he had an Irish accent.”

“When?”

“The Sunday before last.” She wipes her eyes. “It came as a shock. We weren’t expecting him for another fortnight.”

“Who arranged the adoption?”

“Mr. Shawcroft said a teenage girl was pregnant with twins but couldn’t afford to look after both of them. She wanted to put one of them up for adoption. We could jump the queue for fifty thousand pounds.”

“You knew it was against the law.”

“Mr. Shawcroft said that twins couldn’t legal y be split. We had to do everything in secret.”

“You pretended to be pregnant.”

“There wasn’t time.”

I look at Mol y who is playing with a box of shel s, arranging them in patterns.

“Is Mol y…?” I don’t finish the question.

“She’s mine,” she says fiercely. “I couldn’t have any more. There were complications. Medical problems. They told us we were too old to adopt. My husband is fifty-five, you see.” She wipes her eyes. “I should phone him.”

I hear my name being cal ed from downstairs. “New Boy” must have witnessed the doorstep confrontation. He couldn’t stay put.

“Up here.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah.”

He appears at the door, taking in the scene. Mrs. Gal agher. Mol y. The baby.

“It’s one of the twins,” I say.

“One?”

“The boy.”

He peers into the cot. “Are you sure?”

I fol ow his gaze. It’s amazing how much a newborn can change in under ten days, but I’m sure.

“What about the girl?” he asks.

“She’s not here.”

Shawcroft made
two
phone cal s from the golf club. The second was to the Finsbury Park address of a Mrs. Y. Moncrieffe, which doesn’t cross-reference with any of the names from the New Life Adoption Center files.

I can’t leave. I have to stay and talk to Forbes (and no doubt peel him off the ceiling).

“Can you check out the other address?”

Dave weighs up the implications and ramifications. He’s not worried about himself. I’m the one facing a disciplinary hearing. He kisses my cheek.

“You make it hard sometimes, you know that?”

“I know.”

11

DI Forbes storms through the house, his face hardened into a mask of fury and cold hatred. Ordering me into the rear garden, he ignores the muddy lawn and paces back and forth.

“You had no right!” he yel s. “It was an il egal search.”

“I had reason to believe—”

“What reason?”

“I was fol owing a lead.”

“Which you should have told
me
about. This is
my
fucking investigation!”

His rectangular glasses bobble on his nose. I wonder if it annoys him.

“In my professional judgment I made a necessary choice, sir.”

“You don’t even
know
if it’s one of the twins. There are no birth records or adoption papers.”

“Mrs. Gal agher has confirmed that she is not the biological mother. The baby was delivered to her by a man matching Brendan Pearl’s description.”

“You should have waited.”

“With al due respect, sir, you were taking too long. Shawcroft is free. He’s shredding files, covering his tracks. You don’t
want
to prosecute him.” I think he might explode. His voice carries across the neighborhood gardens and mud sucks at his shoes.

“I should have reported you to the PCA when you went to Amsterdam. You have harassed witnesses, abused your authority and disobeyed the orders of a senior officer. You have failed at almost every opportunity to conduct yourself in a professional manner…”

His foot lifts and his shoe remains behind. A sock squelches into the mud up to his ankle. We both pretend it hasn’t happened.

“You’re suspended from duty. Do you understand me? I’m going to personal y see that your career is over.”

Social Services have been summoned, a big woman with a backside so large that she appears to be wearing a bustle. Mr. and Mrs. Gal agher are talking to her in the sitting room.

They look almost relieved that it’s over. The past few days must have been unbearable, wondering and waiting for a knock on the door. Being frightened of fal ing in love with a child that might never truly be theirs.

Mol y is in her bedroom showing a policewoman how she paints flowers and rests them on the radiator to dry. The baby is sleeping. They cal ed him Jasper. He has a name now.

Forbes has peeled off his sock and thrown it into the rubbish bin. Sitting on the back step, he uses a screwdriver to scrape mud from his shoes.

“How did you know?” he asks, having calmed down.

I explain about the phone cal s from the golf club and cross-checking the numbers with the adoption files, looking for a match.

“That’s how I found the Gal aghers.”

“Did he make any other cal s?”

“One.”

Forbes waits. “Have I got to
arrest
you to get any cooperation?”

Any remaining vestiges of comradeship have gone. We’re no longer on the same team.

“I had an interesting conversation with a lawyer this morning,” he says. “He was representing Barnaby El iot and he al eged that you had a conflict of interest concerning this case.”

“There’s no conflict, sir.”

“Mr. El iot is contesting his late daughter’s wil .”

“He has no legal claim over the twins.”

“And neither do you!”

“I know that, sir,” I whisper.

“If Samira Khan decides that she doesn’t want the babies, they wil be taken into care and placed with foster parents.”

“I know. I’m not doing this for me.”

“Are you sure of that?”

It’s an accusation not a question. My motives are under fire again. Perhaps I’m deluding myself. I can’t afford to believe that. I won’t.

My mobile phone is vibrating in my pocket. I flip it open.

“I might have found her,” says Dave. “But there’s a problem.”

12

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital is on the third floor above the delivery suites and maternity ward. Amid low lights, soft footsteps and the hum of machines there are fifteen high-domed incubators.

The unit manager is two paces ahead of me and Dave two paces behind. Our hands are washed with disinfectant and mobile phones have been turned off.

Passing the nearest crib, I look down. It appears to be empty except for a pink blanket and a teddy bear sitting in the corner. Then I notice an arm, no thicker than a fountain pen, emerge from beneath the blanket. Fingers curl and uncurl. Eyes remain shut. Tubes are squashed into a tiny nose, pushing rapid puffs of air into immature lungs.

The manager pauses and waits. Perhaps people do that a lot—stop, stare and pray. It’s only then that I notice the faces on the far side of the crib, distorted by the glass.

I look around. There are other parents sitting in the semidarkness, watching and waiting; talking in whispers. I wonder what they say to each other. Do they look at other cribs and wonder if that baby is stronger or sicker or more premature. Not al of the newborns can possibly survive. Do their parents secretly pray, “Save mine! Save mine!” We have reached the far end of the NICU. Chairs beside the crib are empty. A nurse sits on a high stool at a control screen, monitoring the machines that monitor a child.

At the center of a plain white sheet is a baby girl, wearing just a nappy. She is smal er than I remember, yet compared to some of the premature babies in the NICU she is twice their size. Smal pads are stuck to her chest, picking up her heartbeat and her breathing.

“Claudia was brought in last night,” explains the ward manager. “She has a serious lung infection. We’re giving her antibiotics and feeding her intravenously. The device on her leg is a blood gas monitor. It shines light through her skin to see how much oxygen is in her blood.”

“Is she going to be al right?”

She takes a moment to choose her words. The delay is enough to terrify me. “She’s stable. The next twenty-four hours are very important.”

“You cal ed her Claudia.”

“That’s the name we were given.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“The woman who came in with her in the ambulance.”

“I need to see the admission form.”

“Of course. If you come to the office I’l print you a copy.”

Dave is staring through the glass. I can almost see his lips moving, breathing as the baby breathes. Claudia has captured his attention, even though her eyes are fused shut by sleep.