Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

I turn toward his bedroom. The door is open. I notice a suitcase against the wall and a blouse hanging on the back of the open door. I don’t realize I’m staring and I don’t notice Dave climb down the ladder and take the roller to the kitchen. He wraps it carefully in cling film, leaving it on the sink. Peeling off his shirt, he tosses it in a corner.

“Give me five minutes. I need to shower.” He scratches his unshaven chin. “Better make it ten.”

Two addresses: one just across the river in Barnes and the other in Finsbury Park, North London. The first address belongs to a couple whose names also appear on a waiting list at the New Life Adoption Center. The Finsbury Park address doesn’t appear on the files.

Sunday week ago—just after ten o’clock—both addresses received a call from a public phone in the locker room of the Twin Bridges Country Club in Surrey. Shawcroft was there when those calls were made.

It’s a hunch. It’s too many things happening at the same time to be coincidental. It’s worth a look.

Dave is dressed in light cords, a shirt and a leather jacket. “What do you want to do?”

“Check them out.”

“What about Forbes?”

“He won’t make this sort of leap. He might get there in the end by ticking off the boxes, methodically, mechanically, but what if we don’t have time for that?”

I picture the smallest twin, struggling to breathe. My own throat closes. She should be in hospital. We should have found her by now.

“OK, so you have two addresses. I still don’t know what you expect to do,” says Dave.

“Maybe I’m just going to knock on the front door and say, ‘Do you have twins that don’t belong to you?’ I can tell you what I won’t do. I won’t sit back and wait for them to disappear.”

Brown leaves swirl from a park onto the pavement and back to the grass, as if unwilling to cross the road. The temperature hasn’t strayed above single figures and the wind is driving it lower.

We’re parked in a typical street in Barnes: flanked by tall, gabled houses and plane trees that have been so savagely pruned they look almost deformed.

This is a stockbroker suburb, full of affluent middle-class families who move here for the schools and the parks and the proximity to the city. Despite the cold, half a dozen mothers or nannies are in the playground, watching over preschoolers who are dressed in so many clothes they look like junior Michelin Men.

Dave watches the yummy mummies, while I watch the house, No. 85. Robert and Noelene Gallagher drive a Volvo Estate, pay their TV license fee on time and vote Liberal Democrat. I’m guessing, of course, but it strikes me as that sort of area, that sort of house.

Dave rakes his fingers through his lopsided bramble of hair. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever loved me?”

I didn’t see this coming.

“What makes you think I don’t love you now?”

“You’ve never said.”

“What do you mean?”

“You might have used the word, but not in a sentence with my name in it. You’ve never said, ‘I love you, Dave.’”

I think back, wanting to deny it, but he seems so sure. The nights we lay together with his arms around me, I felt so safe, so happy. Didn’t I ever tell him? I remember my philosophical debates and arguments about the nature of love and how debilitating it can be. Were they all internal? I was trying to talk myself out of loving him. I lost, but he had no way of knowing that.

I should tell him now. How? It’s going to sound contrived or forced. It’s too late. I can try to make excuses; I can blame my inability to have children but the truth is that I’m driving him away. There’s another woman living in his flat.

He’s doing it again—not saying anything. Waiting.

“You’re seeing someone,” I blurt out, making it sound like an accusation.

“What makes you say that?”

“I met her.”

He turns his whole body in the driver’s seat to face me, looking surprised rather than guilty.

“I came to see you yesterday. You weren’t home. She answered the intercom.”

“Jacquie?”

“I didn’t take down her name.” I sound so bloody jealous.

“My sister.”

“You don’t have a sister.”

“My sister-in-law. My brother’s wife, Jacquie.”

“They’re in San Diego.”

“They’re staying with me. Simon is my new business partner. I told you.”

Could this get any worse? “You must think I’m such an idiot,” I say. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not the jealous type, not usually. It’s just that after what happened in Amsterdam, when you didn’t call me and I didn’t call you, I just thought—it’s so stupid—that you’d found someone else who wasn’t so crippled, or troublesome or such hard work. Please don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking at that car.”

I follow 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 small 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.

“Hello, what’s your name?”

“Molly.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“I know.”

“Is your mummy home?”

“She’s upstairs.”

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

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

“It’s an Indian lady,” says Molly.

Mrs. Gallagher 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 mentally deciding what to do. It’s more than natural caution.

“What beautiful curls,” I say, stroking Molly’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. Gallagher, 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. Gallagher is at the bottom of the stairs now. It’s too cold to leave the front door open. She either invites me inside or tells me to go.

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

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