Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

Samira shudders.

“Just shut up, will you?”

He gives me his shark’s smile.

Night presses against the porthole. There might be five hundred passengers on board the ferry, but right now it feels as though the cabin light is burning in a cold hostile wasteland.

Samira tilts her head back until she can look into my eyes.

“Zala?” she asks.

I wish I could lie to her but she reads the truth on my face. I can almost see her slipping backward into blackness, disappearing. It is the look of someone who knows that fate has abandoned them to a sadness so deep that nothing can touch it.

“I should never have let her go,” she whispers.

“It’s not your fault.”

Her chest rises and falls in a silent sob. She has turned her eyes away. It is a gesture that says everything. I vowed to find Zala and keep her safe. I broke my promise.

The contractions seem to have eased. Her breathing steadies and she sleeps.

Pearl has replaced Yanus.

“How is she?”

“Exhausted.”

He braces his back against the door, sliding down until he settles on his haunches, draping his arms over his knees. In such a small space he appears larger, overgrown, with big hands. Yanus has feminine hands, shapely and delicate, fast with a blade. Pearl’s are like blunt instruments.

“You’ll never get away with this, you know that.”

He smiles. “There are many things I know and many more things I don’t know.”

“Listen to me. You’re only making this worse. If she dies or the babies die they’ll charge you with murder.”

“They won’t die.”

“She needs a doctor.”

“Enough talk.”

“The police know I’m here. I saw you earlier. I told the captain to radio ahead. There will be a hundred police officers waiting at Harwich. You can’t get away. Let me take Samira. There could be a doctor on board or a nurse. They’ll have medical supplies.”

Pearl doesn’t seem to care. Is that what happens when you spend most of your life in prison or committing acts that should put you there?

My scalp tingles. “Why did you kill my friend Cate and her husband?”

“Who?”

“The Beaumonts.”

His eyes, not quite level with each other, give the impression of lopsidedness until he talks and his features suddenly line up. “She was greedy.”

“How?”

“She could only pay for one baby but wanted both of them.”

“You asked her to choose ?”

“Not me.”

“Someone else did?”

He doesn’t have to answer.

“That’s obscene.”

He shrugs. “Pitter or Patter—seems simple enough. Life is about choices.”

That’s what Cate meant—at the reunion—when she said they were trying to take her baby. They wanted her to pay double. Her bank account was empty. She had to choose: the boy or the girl. How can a mother make a decision like that and live for the rest of her life gazing into the eyes of one child and seeing a reflection of another that she never knew?

Pearl is still talking. “She threatened to go to the police. We warned her. She ignored it. That’s the problem with folks nowadays. Nobody takes responsibility for their actions. Make a mistake and you pay for it. That’s life.”

“Have you paid for your mistakes?”

“All my life.” His eyes are closed. He wants to go back to ignoring me.

A knock. Pearl slides the pistol from his belt and points it toward me while holding a finger to his lips. He opens the door a fraction. I can’t see a face. Someone is asking about a missing passenger. They’re looking for me.

Pearl yawns. “Is that why you woke me?”

A second voice: “Sorry, sir.”

“What does she look like?”

I can’t hear the description.

“Well, I ain’t seen her. Maybe she went for a swim.”

“I hope not, sir.”

“Yeah, well, I got to sleep.”

“Sorry, sir, you won’t be disturbed again.”

The door closes. Pearl waits for a moment, pressing his ear to the door. Satisfied, he tucks the pistol back in his belt.

There’s another knock on the door. Yanus.

“Where the fuck were you?” demands Pearl.

“Watching,” replies Yanus.

“You were supposed to fucking warn me.”

“Would have made no difference. They’re knocking on every door. They won’t come back now.”

Samira sits bolt upright screaming. The contraction is brutal and I scissor my legs around her, holding her still. An unseen force possesses her, racking her body in spasms. I find myself drawn to her pain. Caught up in it. Breathing when she breathes.

Another contraction comes almost immediately. Her back arches and her knees rise up.

“I have to push now.”

“No!”

“I have to.”

This is it. I can’t stop her. Sliding out from behind her, I lie her down and take off her underwear.

Pearl is unsure of what to do. “Take deep breaths, that’s a good girl. Good deep breaths. You thirsty? I’ll get you a drink of water.”

He fills a glass in the small bathroom and returns.

“Shouldn’t you be checking the cervix?” he asks.

“And I suppose you know all about it.”

“I seen movies.”

“Take over anytime you want.”

His tone softens. “What can I do?”

“Run some hot water in the sink. I need to wash my hands.”

Samira unclenches her teeth as the pain eases. Short panting breaths become longer. She focuses on Pearl and begins issuing instructions. She needs things—scissors and string, clips and towels. For a moment I think she’s delirious but soon realize that she knows more about childbirth than any of us.

He opens the door and passes on the instructions to Yanus. They argue. Pearl threatens him.

Samira has another instruction. Men cannot be present at the birth. I expect Pearl to say no but I see him wavering.

I tell him: “Look at this place. We can’t go anywhere. There’s one door and a porthole fifty feet above the water.”

He accepts this and glances at his watch. It’s after two. “An hour from now she has to be back in the truck.” His hand is on the door handle. He turns and addresses me.

“My ma is a good Catholic. Pro-life, you understand? She’d say there were already five people in this room, babies included. When I come back I expect to see the same number. Keep them alive.”

He closes the door and Samira relaxes a little. She asks me to fetch a flannel from the bathroom. She folds it several times and wedges it between her teeth when she feels a contraction coming.

“How do you know so much?”

“I have seen babies born,” she explains. “Women would sometimes come to the orphanage to give birth. They left the babies with us because they could not take them home.”

Her contractions are coming forty seconds apart. Her eyes bulge and she bites down hard on the flannel. The pain passes.

“I need you to see if I’m ready,” she whispers.

“How?”

“Put two fingers inside me to measure.”

“How do I tell?”

“Look at your fingers,” she says. “See how long they are. Measure with them.”

Opening her legs, I do as she asks. I have never touched a woman so intimately or been so terrified.

“I think you’re ready.”

She nods, clenching the flannel between her teeth through the first part of the contraction and then breathing in short bursts, trying to ease the pain. Tears squeeze from her eyes and mingle with her sweat. I smell her exertions.

“I have to get to the floor,” she says.

“Are you going to pray?”

“No. I’m going to have a baby.”

She squats with her legs apart, bracing her arms between the bunk and the bench table. Gravity is going to help her.