The Night Ferry

“Would you mind if I took a look at the driver’s statement?”

He doesn’t see a problem with that. He leads me to an office and motions to a chair. A computer hums on the desk and box files line the shelves like cardboard bricks. The sergeant hands me a file and a video. For a moment he hovers near the door, unwilling to leave me alone.

The driver’s name was Earl Blake and his occupation is listed as stevedore. He was moonlighting as a minicab driver to make extra money, he said.

The video is time coded down to the second and begins with wide-angle shots of the street, taken in the shaky camera style of a holiday video. Partygoers are milling outside the gates of Oaklands, some still holding drinks or draped with streamers.

Earl Blake is in the distance, talking to a policeman. He notices the camera and seems to turn away. It might mean nothing.

There are statements from a dozen witnesses. Most heard the screech of brakes and saw the impact. Farther along the road, two cabbies were parked near the corner of Mansford Street. The minicab came past them slowly, as though searching for an address.

I look for any mention of Donavon. His name and address were taken down by investigators but there isn’t a statement.

“Yeah, I remember him,” says the sergeant. “He had a tattoo.” He points to his neck, tracing a cross below his Adam’s apple. “He said he didn’t see a thing.”

“He saw it happen.”

The sergeant raises an eyebrow. “That ain’t what he told me.”

I make a note of Donavon’s address on a scrap of paper.

“You’re not trying to run a private investigation here are you, Detective Constable?”

“No, sir.”

“If you have any important information regarding this accident, you are obliged to make it known to me.”

“Yes, sir. I have no information. Mr. Donavon tried to save my friend’s life. I just want to thank him. Good manners, you see. My mother bred them into me.”

6

Earl Blake’s address is a small terrace off Pentonville Road in the neglected end of King’s Cross. There is nobody home. My legs have gone to sleep I’ve been sitting here for so long, staring out the windscreen, tapping a rhythm on the wheel.

A drug pusher leans against a low wall outside a pub on the corner, his face half hidden under the brim of a baseball cap. Two teenage girls walk by and he says something, smiling. They toss back their hair and sashay a little faster.

A red hatchback pulls into a parking space ahead of me. A woman in her fifties emerges, dressed in a nurse’s uniform. She collects a bag of groceries from the boot and walks to the terrace, cursing as she drops her keys.

“Are you Mrs. Blake?” I ask.

“Who wants to know?” Her blue-gray hair is lacquered into place.

“I’m looking for your husband.”

“You trying to be funny?”

She has opened the door and stepped inside.

“Your husband was involved in a car accident last Friday night.”

“Not bloody likely.”

She is disappearing down the hallway.

“I’m talking about Earl Blake.”

“That’s his name.”

“I need to speak to him.”

Shouting over her shoulder: “Well, missy, you’re six years too late. That’s when I buried him.”

“He’s dead!”

“I sure hope so.” She laughs wryly.

The house smells of damp dog and toilet freshener.

“I’m a police officer,” I call after her. “I’m sorry if there’s been a mistake. Do you have a son called Earl?”

“Nope.”

Dumping her shopping on a table in the kitchen, she turns. “Listen, love, either come in or stay out. This place costs a fortune to bloody heat.”

I follow her into the house and shut the door. She has taken a seat at the table and kicked off her shoes, rubbing her feet through her support hose.

I look around. There are medications lined up on the windowsill and food coupons stuck under fridge magnets. A picture of a baby in a hollowed-out pumpkin is on the calendar.

“Put the kettle on will you, love.”

The tap spits and belches.

“I’m sorry about your husband.”

“Nowt for you to be sorry about. He dropped dead right there—face-first into his egg and chips. He was moaning about how I over-cooked the eggs and then whump!” Her hand topples onto the table. “I told him not to wear his underwear to breakfast but he never listened. All the neighbors watched him wheeled out of here in his old Y-fronts.”

She tosses her shoes in the corner beside the back door. “I know all men leave eventually but not when you’ve just made ’em egg ’n’ chips. Earl was always bloody inconsiderate.”

Mrs. Blake pushes herself upward and warms the teapot. “You’re not the first, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some bloke came here yesterday. He didn’t believe me either when I said Earl was dead. He said Earl owed him money. As if! Can’t see him gambling from beyond.”

“What did this man look like?”

“Had this tattoo on his neck. A cross.”

Donavon is searching for Blake.

“I hate tattoos,” she continues. “Earl had ’em on his forearms. He was in the merchant navy before I met him. Traveled all over the place and came back with these souvenirs. I call ’em skin complaints.”

“Did he have one just here?” I point to my chest. “A Crucifixion scene.”

“Earl weren’t religious. He said religion was for people who believed in hell.”

“Do you have a photograph of him?”

“Yeah, a few. He was handsome once.”

She leads me to the sitting room, which is full of seventies furniture and faded rugs. Rummaging in a cupboard next to the gas fire, she pulls out a photo album.

“Course it’s easier keeping the place clean now. He was a real slob. Dropped clothes like they was crumbs.”

She hands me a snapshot. Earl is wearing a jacket with a fur collar and fluorescent strips. He looks nothing like the driver of the minicab, although both are roughly the same age.

“Mrs. Blake, do you ever get mail for your late husband?”

“Yeah, sure, junk stuff. Banks are always sending him applications for credit cards. What’s he going to do with a credit card, eh?”

“Did you cancel his driver’s license?”

“Didn’t bother. I sold his old van. Bought meself the hatchback. Reckon the dealer ripped me off, the Paki