Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

“I knew Cate weren’t having no baby,” she explains. “She didn’t have no baby inside her. I know when a woman is with child. I can see it in her eyes and on her skin. I can smell it. Sometimes I can even tell when a woman’s having another man’s baby, on account of the skin around her eyes, which is darker ’cos she’s frightened her husband might find out.

“I tried to say something to Mrs. Elliot but she called me crazy and laughed. She must have told young Cate ’cos she avoided me after that. She wouldn’t come to the house if I was working.”

Details shiver and shift, finding their places. Events are no longer figments or mysteries, no longer part of my imagining. Barnaby knew I was in Amsterdam. And even before I mentioned Samira he knew she was having twins. He read Cate’s e-mails and began covering her tracks.

At first he probably intended to protect his precious reputation. Later he and his wife came up with another plan. They would finish what Cate started. Barnaby contacted Shawcroft with a message: “Cate and Felix are dead but the deal isn’t.”

Why would Shawcroft agree? He had to. Barnaby had the e-mails. He could go to the police and expose the illegal adoptions and baby broking. Blackmail is an ugly word. So is kidnapping.

At the funeral Barnaby told me he was going to fight for the twins. “I want both of them,” he said. I didn’t realize what he meant. He already had one—Claudia. He wanted the boy. And his tirade at the lawyer’s office and the scene at my house weren’t just for show. He was frightened that he might be denied, if not by Samira, then by me.

The Elliots swore Yvonne to secrecy. They charged her with looking after Claudia and hopefully her brother if they could unite the twins. If the scandal unraveled and Shawcroft was exposed, they could play the grieving parents, trying to protect their daughter’s precious legacy, their grandchildren.

Yvonne accepted the heaviest burden. She couldn’t risk taking Claudia to a doctor. She tried her own remedies: running hot taps, filling the bathroom with steam, trying to help her breathe. She dosed her with droplets of paracetamol, rubbed her with warm flannels, lay awake beside her through the night, listening to her lungs fill with fluid.

Barnaby came to see the baby, his thumbs hitched in his belt and his feet splayed. He peered over the cot with a fixed smile, looking vaguely disappointed. Perhaps he wanted the boy—the healthy twin.

Meanwhile, Claudia grew sicker and Yvonne more desperate.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she whispers, lifting her gaze to the ceiling. “She was dying. Every time she coughed her body shook until she didn’t have the strength to cough. That’s when I called the ambulance.”

She blinks at me. “She’s going to die, isn’t she?”

“We don’t know that.”

“It’s going to be my fault. Arrest me. Lock me up. I deserve it.”

I want to stop her talking about death. “Who chose the name?”

“It’s Mrs. Elliot’s name.”

“Her first name is Ruth.”

“Her middle name. I know you don’t have much time for Mrs. Elliot but she’s harder on herself than she is on anyone else.”

What I feel most is resentment. Maybe that’s part of the process of grieving. Cate doesn’t feel as though she’s gone. I keep thinking that she’s just walked off in the middle of things and will come back presently and sort this mess out.

I have spent weeks delving into her life, investigating her movements and motives and I still don’t understand how she could have risked so much and endangered so many. I keep entertaining the hope that I’ll stumble upon the answer in some cache of her papers or a dusty bundle of letters. But I know it’s not going to happen. One half of the truth is lying upstairs, pinned like an insect to a glass display case. The other half is being looked after by Social Services.

It sounds preposterous but I’m still trying to justify Cate’s actions, trying to conjure up a friendship from the afterlife. She was an inept thief, a childless wife and a foolish dreamer. I don’t want to think about her anymore. She has spoiled her own memory.

“The police are going to need a statement,” I say.

Yvonne nods, wiping her cheeks.

She doesn’t stand as I leave. And although her face is turned to the window, I know she’s watching me.

“New Boy” Dave is still beside Claudia in the NICU, sitting forward on a chair, peering through the glass. We sit together. He takes my hand. I don’t know for how long. The clock on the wall doesn’t seem to change. Not even for a second. Perhaps that’s what happens in a place like this: time slows down. Every second is made to count.

You are a very lucky little girl, Claudia. Do you know why? You have two mothers. One of them you’ll never meet but that’s OK, I’ll tell you about her. She made some mistakes but I’m sure you won’t judge her too harshly. Your other mother is also very special. Young. Beautiful. Sad. Sometimes life can turn on the length of an eyelash, even one as small as yours.

The ward manager touches my shoulder. A police officer wants to talk to me on the phone.

Forbes sounds far away. “The Gallaghers have given a statement. I’m on my way to arrest Julian Shawcroft.”

“That’s good. I found the girl. She’s very sick.”

He doesn’t rant this time. “Who should we be talking to?”

“Barnaby Elliot and his wife, along with their housekeeper, Yvonne Moncrieffe.”

Behind me a door opens and I hear the sound of an electronic alarm. Through an observation window I notice curtains being drawn around Claudia’s crib.

The phone is no longer in my hand. Like everyone else I seem to be moving. I push through the curtains. Someone pushes me back and I stumble.

“What’s wrong? What are they doing?”

A doctor is issuing instructions. A hand covers Claudia’s face, holding a mask. A bag is squeezed and squeezed again. The mask is lifted briefly and a tube is slipped into her nose before being slowly fed into her lungs. White tape crosses her cheeks.

Dave has hold of my arm, trying to pull me away.

“What’s happening?”

“We have to wait outside.”

“They’re hurting her.”

“Let them do their job.”

This is my fault. My mistake. If I had been stronger, fitter, faster, I would have saved Claudia from Pearl. She would have gone straight to hospital instead of being smuggled off the ferry. She would never have gone to Yvonne or caught a lung infection.

Thoughts like this plague me as I count down the minutes—fifteen of them, stretched and deformed by my imagination. The door swings open. A young doctor emerges.

“What happened?”

“The blood gas monitor triggered the alarm. Her oxygen levels had fallen too low. She’s too weak to breathe on her own so we’ve put her on a ventilator. We’ll help her breathe for a while and see how strong she is tomorrow.”

The sense of relief saps what energy I have left and I feel suddenly dizzy. My eyes are sticky and I can’t get rid of the coppery taste in my mouth. I still haven’t told Samira and already my heart has been shredded.

Sometimes London is a parody of itself. Today is like that. The sky is fat and heavy and the wind is cold, although not cold enough to snow. Ladbrokes is offering 3 to 1 on a white Christmas in London. All it takes is a single snowflake to fall on the rooftop of the Met Office.

The bail hearing is today. I’m wearing my court clothes: a red pencil skirt, cream blouse and a short jacket that is cut well enough to have an expensive label but has no label at all.

Shawcroft has been charged with people trafficking, forced pregnancy and offenses under the Child Protection Act. The penalty for trafficking alone is up to fourteen years. More charges are pending, as well as possible extradition to the Netherlands.