Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

They say time is a great healer and a lousy beautician, but it didn’t heal my wounds. It covered them over with layers of regret and awkwardness like pancake makeup. Wounds like mine don’t heal. The scars simply grow thicker and more permanent.

The curtains sway back and forth, breathing in and then out like lungs drawing restless air. Light spills from around the edges. Another day.

I must have dozed off. I rarely sleep soundly anymore. Not like I did as a child when the world was still a mystery. Now I snatch awake at the slightest noise or movement. The scars on my back are throbbing, telling me to stand and stretch.

Ruiz is lying on a bed in the dimness. Wires, fluids and machines have captured him. A mask delivers oxygen. Three hours ago surgeons inserted a tube in his chest and reinflated his right lung. They stitched his arm, commenting on his many scars.

My ear is wrapped in bandages and an ice pack has melted on my cheek. The swelling has gone down but the bruising will be ugly. At least I can let down my hair to hide the worst of it.

The doctors and nurses have been very kind. They wanted me to leave the DI’s room last night. I argued. I begged. Then I seem to remember lying down on the linoleum floor, challenging them to carry me out. They let me stay.

I feel numb. Shell-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 frilled paper lid. There are biscuits. I’m not hungry.

So this is all about a baby. Two babies. Cate Beaumont tried unsuccessfully 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’ll keep watch.”

A local politieagent has been sitting outside the room all night. He looks very smart in dark blue trousers, light blue shirt, tie and jacket. Now he’s talking to a more senior colleague. 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. Tall and thin with a narrow face and thinning hair, he looks at me with watery eyes as though he’s already having an allergic reaction to what I might say.

A small mole on his top lip dances up and down as he speaks. “Your friend will be all right, I think.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I shall 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 rolls. The detective waits for me to be seated and takes out a fountain pen, resting it on a large white pad. His smallest 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 tell him the story, explaining events, it strikes me how implausible it all sounds. An Englishwoman transports fertilized embryos to Amsterdam inside a small cooler box. The eggs are placed in the womb of an unwilling 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 illegal.”

I tell 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 followed. 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 telling 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 tell 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 colleague 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 will 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 ball and flush it away. Maybe this is what he meant by shuffling people and priorities.