Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

Something shifts deep in his chest. A groan. “I told you to leave my daughter’s affairs alone.”

I don’t expect this reaction. Surely he must be curious. Doesn’t he want to know the outcome? Then it dawns on me that none of this is new. He knows already.

He lied about finding Cate’s computer, which means he must have read her e-mails. If he knows, why hasn’t he gone to the police?

“What are you doing Barnaby?”

“I’m getting my grandchildren.”

He has no idea what he’s dealing with. “Listen to me, Barnaby. This isn’t what you think. Cate broke the law.”

“What’s done is done.”

“These men are killers. You can’t negotiate with them. Look what happened to Cate.”

He isn’t listening. Instead he charges ahead, trying to attach logic and fairness to what should happen next.

“Stop, Barnaby. This is crazy.”

“It’s what Cate would have wanted.”

“No. You’ll get yourself killed. Just tell me where you are. Let’s sit down and talk.”

“Stay out of this. Don’t interfere.”

The line goes dead. He won’t answer again.

Before I can dial Spijker there is another call. DI Forbes’s voice is hoarse with a cold and the clicking sound in his throat is muffled by phlegm. I can imagine one of his children bringing the infection home from school and spreading it through the house like a domestic plague.

“Having a nice holiday?”

“It’s not a holiday.”

“You know the difference between you and me? I don’t run away when things get tough. I’m a professional. I stick with the job. I got a wife and kids, responsibilities…”

And wandering hands.

He sneezes and blows his nose. “I’m still waiting for your fucking statement.”

“I’m coming home.”

“When?”

“By Friday.”

“Well you can expect a warm welcome. A Chief Superintendent North has been on the phone. Says you didn’t show up for work. He’s not happy.”

“It’s not important,” I say, trying to change the subject. I ask him about the two trucks that couldn’t be accounted for on the ferry that carried Hassan and the other illegals. One was stolen from a German freight yard three months ago, he says. It was resprayed and registered in Holland. According to the manifest it was carrying plumbing supplies from a warehouse in Amsterdam, but the pickup address doesn’t exist. The second truck was leased from an owner-driver five weeks ago. He thought it was doing a run from Spain to the Netherlands. The leasing documents and bank accounts are in false names.

This case is populated with people who seem to be ghosts, floating across borders with false papers. People like Brendan Pearl.

“I need a favor.”

He finds this amusing. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

“We’re on the same side.”

“Cellar-dwellers.”

“Running into form.”

“What do you want?”

“I need you to check the Customs and Immigration files for the past two years. Among the stowaways and illegals were any of them pregnant?”

“Off the top of my head I can think of two in the past three months. They were hidden in the back of a container.”

“What happened to them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you find out?”

“Yeah, sure. Along with a thousand other fucking things on my plate.”

I feel the heat in my cheeks.

“There’s something else. Hassan Khan has a sister, Samira. She’s pregnant. I think traffickers are going to try to move her into the U.K.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. You might want to give Customs a heads-up.”

“I’m not a free agent here.”

“It’s only a phone call. If you don’t want to do it, just say so.”

“How are they going to move her?”

“They’ll probably stick to what they know.”

“We can’t search every truck and container.”

I can hear him scratching a note on a pad. He asks me about Spijker and I give him the nuts and bolts of the surrogacy scam.

“I’ve never known anyone who attracts trouble like you do,” he says.

“You sound like my mother.”

“Do you take any notice of her ?”

“Not much.”

The call ends and I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them again, I see a class of schoolchildren with their teacher. The girls are dressed like Madeline in navy blue raincoats with yellow hats, and they are all holding hands as they wait for the traffic lights to change. Inexplicably, I feel a lump forming in my throat. I’ll never have one of those.

A police car is parked outside the hotel. A uniformed officer waits in reception, standing almost to attention.

“New Boy” Dave hovers like a jealous suitor. “Where have you been?”

“I had to see someone.”

He grips my hand tightly.

The officer introduces himself and holds out a police radio. I place it against my ear. Spijker’s voice comes from far away. I can hear water. Seagulls. “We’ve found someone.”

“Who is it?”

“I’m hoping you can tell me.”

Something soft and wet flips over in my stomach.

The officer takes back the radio to receive further instructions.

“I’ll come with you,” says Dave.

“What about your flight?”

“There’s still time.”

We sit in silence on the journey. Frustration is etched into his forehead. He wants to say something planned, thought-out, about last night but it’s not the right time.

I feel oddly ambivalent. Maybe that means I’m not ready to marry and I’m not really in love. The whole idea was one of those “what if” moments that doesn’t survive the hangover or the harsh light of day.

The Dutch officer has a vocabulary of four English words and is unwilling or unable to explain where we’re going. Meanwhile, he navigates the narrow streets and bridges, taking us through an industrial area with docks and warehouses. We seem to pass the same gray squares of water several times before pulling up beside a weathered wooden pier. Police cars nose together as though drinking from the same trough.

Spijker is a head taller than the other detectives. He is wearing a dark suit and polished shoes but still seems miscast in life; as though he’s playing dress-up in his father’s clothes.

There is a wooden ramp that slopes into the water from the dock. Halfway down it is a Zodiac made of heavy rubberized canvas with a wooden bottom. Another is already waiting on the water with four men on board.

Spijker hands me a pair of rubber boots and a waterproof jacket to wear over my sweater. He finds similar clothes for Dave and then pulls on his own rubber boots.

The Zodiac launches in a fluid movement. Spijker holds out his hand and helps me step on board. The throttle engages and we pull away. The sky is like a solid gray sheet with no depth at all. A quarter mile off I see the flat of a paddle, lifting and dipping, as a canoeist follows the shore. Farther out is a ferry, snub-nosed and puffing smudges of black smoke.

I try to orientate myself. Some six miles to the west is the North Sea. We seem to be following a western dock. The air smells sweet—of chocolate. Perhaps there is a factory nearby. Dave is beside me. I feel him when I rock sideways, brushing his left arm with my breast.

Spijker is comfortable steering a boat. Perhaps it rubs off, living below sea level, protected by dikes and flood barriers.

“How much do you know about the sea, DC Barba?”

What is there to know? It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s salty…

“My father was a merchant seaman,” he explains without waiting for me to answer. “He divorced my mother when I was seven but I used to spend holidays with him. He didn’t go to sea anymore and he wasn’t the same man on shore. He seemed smaller.”