Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

At this hour of the morning it isn’t difficult to find a parking spot in Kennington, close to Forbes’s office. Most of the detectives start work at nine, which means the incident room is deserted except for a detective constable who has been working the graveyard shift. He’s about my age and quite handsome in a sulky sort of way. Perhaps I woke him up.

“Forbes asked me to come.” I lie.

He looks at me doubtfully. “The boss has a meeting at the Home Office this morning. He won’t be in the office until later.”

“He wants me to follow up a lead.”

“What sort of lead?”

“Just an idea, that’s all.”

He doesn’t believe me. I call Forbes to get approval.

“This better be fucking important,” he grumbles.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Who’s this?”

“DC Barba.”

“Don’t good morning me.”

“Sorry, sir.”

I can hear Mrs. Forbes in the background telling him to be quiet. Pillow talk.

“I need access to Shawcroft’s phone records.”

“It’s six in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

He’s about to say no. He doesn’t trust me. I’m bad news or bad luck. Everything I’ve touched has turned to shit. I sense another reason. A nervousness. Ever since he released Shawcroft, the DI has backtracked and made excuses. He must have copped some heat, but that goes with the territory.

“I want you to go home, DC Barba.”

“I have a lead.”

“Give it to the night detective. You’re not part of this investigation.” His voice softens. “Look after Samira.”

Why is he being so negative? And why the briefing at the Home Office? It must be about Shawcroft.

“How is your wife, sir?” I ask.

Forbes hesitates. She’s lying next to him. What can he say?

There is a long pause. I whisper, “We’re on the same side, sir. You didn’t screw me that night so don’t screw me now.”

“Fine. Yes, I can’t see a problem,” he answers. I hand the phone over to the night detective and listen to their yes-sir, no-sir exchange. The phone is handed back to me. Forbes wants a final word.

“Anything you find, you give to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

The call ends. The night detective looks at me and we smile in unison. Waking up a senior officer is one of life’s small pleasures.

The DC’s name is Rod Beckley but everyone calls him Becks. “On account of me being crap at football,” he jokes.

After clearing a desk and finding me a chair, he delivers a dozen ring-bound folders. Every incoming and outgoing call from the New Life Adoption Center is listed, including the numbers, the duration of each call, the time and the date they were made. There are six voice lines and two fax lines, as well as a direct-dial number into Shawcroft’s office.

Further folders cover his mobile phone and home line. Text messages and e-mails have been printed out and stapled together in chronological order.

Taking a marker pen, I begin to group the calls.

Rather than concentrate on the phone numbers, I look at the times. The ferry arrived in Harwich at 3:36 a.m. on Sunday morning. We know that Pearl walked off the ferry just after four. At 10:25 a.m. he bought nappies and baby formula from a motorway service station on the M25 before stealing a car.

I look down the list of calls to Shawcroft’s mobile. There was an incoming call at 10:18 a.m. that lasted less than thirty seconds. I check the number. It appears only once. It could be a wrong number.

DC Beckley is flicking at a keyboard across the office, trying to look busy. I sit on the edge of his desk until he looks up.

“Can we find out who this number belongs to?”

He accesses the Police National Computer and types in the digits. A map of Hertfordshire appears. The details are listed on a separate window. The phone number belongs to a public phone box at Potter’s Bar—a motorway service area near junction 24 on the M25. It’s the same service area where Brendan Pearl was last sighted. He must have phoned Shawcroft for instructions about where to deliver the twins. It is the closest I’ve come to linking the two men, although it’s not conclusive.

Going back to the folders, I strike a dead end. Shawcroft didn’t use his mobile for the next three hours. Surely if his plan was coming apart, he would have called someone.

I try to picture last Sunday morning. Shawcroft was on the golf course. His foursome teed off at 10:05. One of his playing partners said something when Samira interrupted their game and Shawcroft tried to drag her off the course: “Not again.”

It had happened before—a week earlier. After the phone call from Pearl, Shawcroft must have abandoned his round. Where did he go? He needed to let the buyer or buyers know that the twins had arrived. He had to bring the pickup forward. It was too risky using his own mobile so he looked for another phone—one that he thought couldn’t be traced.

I go back to Becks. “Is it possible to find out if there is a public phone located at a golf club in Surrey?”

“Maybe. You got a name?”

“Yes. Twin Bridges Country Club. It could be in a locker room or lounge. Somewhere quiet. I’m interested in outgoing calls timed between 9:20 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, October 29.”

“Is that all?” he asks facetiously.

“No. Then we have to cross-check them with the adoption waiting list at the New Life Adoption Center.”

He doesn’t understand, but he begins the search anyway. “You think we’ll find a match.”

“If we’re lucky.”

“New Boy” Dave hears my voice on the intercom and pauses for a moment before pressing the buzzer to unlock the front door. When I reach his flat the door is propped open. He is in the kitchen stirring paint.

“So you’re definitely selling.”

“Yep.”

“Any offers?”

“Not yet.”

There are two cups in the drainer and two cold tea bags solidifying in the sink, alongside a paint roller and a couple of brushes. The ceilings are to be a stowe white. I helped him choose the color. The walls are a misty green, cut back by 50 percent and the skirting boards and frames are full strength.

I follow Dave into the living room. His few pieces of furniture have been pushed to the center and covered in old sheets.

“How is Samira?” he asks.

The question is unexpected. Dave has never met her, but he will have seen the TV bulletins and read the papers.

“I’m worried about her. I’m worried about the twins.”

He fills the roller from the tray.

“Will you help me?”

“It’s not our case.”

“I might have found them. Please help me.”

Climbing the ladder he runs the roller across the ceiling creating long ribbons of paint.

“What does it matter, Dave? You’ve resigned. You’re leaving. My career is finished. It doesn’t matter what toes we tread on or who we piss off. There’s something wrong with this case. People are tiptoeing around it, playing softly softly, while the real culprits are shredding files and covering their tracks.”

The roller is gliding across the ceiling. I know he’s listening.

“You’re acting like these kids belong to you .”

I have to catch myself before my head snaps up. He looks down at me from the top of the ladder. Why do people keep questioning my motives? Eduardo de Souza, Barnaby, now Dave. Is it me who can’t see the truth? No, they’re wrong. I don’t want the twins for myself.

“I’m doing this because a friend of mine—my best friend—entrusted to me what she loved most, the most precious thing she had. I couldn’t save Cate and I couldn’t save Zala, but I can save the twins.”

There is a long silence. Only one of us feels uncomfortable. “New Boy” has always been defined more by what he dislikes than by what he likes. He doesn’t like cats, for instance, or hypocrites. He also loathes reality TV shows, Welsh rugby fans and tattooed women who scream at their kids in supermarkets. I can live with a man like that. His silences are another matter. He seems comfortable with them but I want to know what he’s thinking. Is he angry that I didn’t leave Amsterdam with him? Is he upset at how we left things? We both have questions. I want to know who answered the intercom last night, fresh from his shower.