The Night Ferry

She seemed more interested in my love life. “When are you going to lose your virginity?”

“When I’m ready.”

“Who are you waiting for?”

I told her “Mr. Right,” when really I meant “Mr. Considerate” or “Mr. Worthy” or any “mister” who wanted me enough.

Maybe I was my mother’s daughter after all. She was already trying to find me a husband—my cousin Anwar, who was reading philosophy at Bristol University. Tall and thin with large brown eyes and little wire spectacles, Anwar had great taste in clothes and liked Judy Garland records. He ran off with a boy from the university bookshop, although my mother still won’t accept that he’s gay.

Ruiz has scarcely said a word since our flight left Heathrow. His silences can be so eloquent.

I told him that he didn’t have to come. “You’re retired.”

“True, but I’m not dead,” he replied. The faintest of smiles wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

It’s amazing how little I know about him after six years. He has children—twins—but doesn’t talk about them. His mother is in a retirement home. His stepfather is dead. I don’t know about his real father, who’s never come up in conversation.

I have never met anyone as self-sufficient as Ruiz. He doesn’t appear to hunger for human contact or need anyone. You take those survivor shows on TV where people are separated into competing tribes and try to win “immunity.” Ruiz would be a tribe of one—all on his own. And the grumpy old bugger would come out on top every time.

Amsterdam. It makes me think of soft drugs, sanctioned prostitution and wooden shoes. This will be my first visit. Ruiz is also a “Dutch virgin” (his term, not mine). He has already given me his thumbnail appraisal of the Dutch. “Excellent lager, a few half-decent footballers and the cheese with the red wax.”

“The Dutch are very polite,” I offered.

“They’re probably the nicest people in the world,” he agreed. “They’re so amenable that they legalized prostitution and marijuana rather than say no to anyone.”

For all his Gypsy blood Ruiz has never been a wanderer. His only foreign holiday was to Italy. He is a creature of habit—warm beer, stodgy food and rugby—and his xenophobia is always worse the farther he gets from home.

We managed to get bulkhead seats which means I can take off my shoes and prop my feet against the wall, showing off my pink-and-white-striped socks. The seat between us is empty. I’ve claimed it with my book, my bottle of water and my headphones. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Outside the window the Dutch landscape is like an old snooker table, patched with different squares of felt. There are cute farmhouses, cute windmills and occasional villages. This whole below-sea-level thing is quite strange. Even the bridges would be underwater if the dikes ever failed. But the Dutch are so good at reclaiming land that they’ll probably fill in the North Sea one day and the M11 will stretch all the way to Moscow.

On the journey from the airport our taxi driver seems to get lost and drives us in circles, crossing the same canals and the same bridges. The only clue we have to Cate’s movements is the tourist map of central Amsterdam and a circle drawn around the Red Tulip Hotel.

The desk clerk greets us with a wide smile. She is in her mid-twenties, big boned and a pound or two away from being overweight. Behind her is a notice board with brochures advertising canal boat cruises, bicycle tours, and day trips to a tulip farm.

I slide a photograph of Cate across the check-in counter. “Have you seen her?”

She looks hard. Cate is worth a long look. The woman doesn’t recognize her.

“You could ask some of the other staff,” she says.

A porter is loading our cases onto a trolley. In his fifties, he’s wearing a red waistcoat stretched tight over a white shirt and a paunch, putting the buttons under pressure.

I show him the photograph. His eyes narrow as he concentrates. I wonder what he remembers about guests—their faces, their cases, the tips they leave?

“Room 12,” he announces, nodding vigorously. His English is poor.

Ruiz turns back to the desk clerk. “You must have a record. She might have stayed here during the second week of February.”

She glances over her shoulder, worried about the manager, and then taps at the keyboard. The screen refreshes and I glance down the list. Cate isn’t there. Wait! There’s another name I recognize: “Natalia Radzinsky.”

The porter claps his hands together. “Yes, the countess. She had one blue bag.” He measures the dimensions in the air. “And a smaller one. Very heavy. Made of metal.”

“Was she with anyone?”

He shakes his head.

“You have a very good memory.”

He beams.

I look at the computer screen again. I feel as though Cate has left me a clue that nobody else could recognize. It’s a silly notion, of course, to imagine the dead leaving messages for the living. The arrogance of archaeologists.

The Red Tulip Hotel has sixteen rooms, half of them overlooking the canal. Mine is on the first floor and Ruiz’s room is above me. Sunlight bounces off the curved windows of a canal boat as it passes, taking tourists around the city. Bells jangle and bike riders weave between pedestrians.

Ruiz knocks on my door and we make a plan. He will talk to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), which deals with asylum seekers in the Netherlands. I will visit Hassan Khan’s last known address.

I take a taxi to Gerard Doustraat in a quarter known as de Pijp, or “the Pipe” as my driver explains. He calls it the “real Amsterdam.” Ten years ago it had a seedy reputation but is now full of restaurants, cafes and bakeries.

The Flaming Wok is a Chinese restaurant with bamboo blinds and fake bonsai trees. The place is empty. Two waiters are hovering near the kitchen door. Asian. Neat, wearing black trousers and white shirts.

From the front door I can see right through to the kitchen where pots and steamers hang from the ceiling. An older man, dressed in white, is preparing food. A knife stutters in his hand.

The waiters speak menu English. They keep directing me to a table. I ask to see the owner.

Mr. Weng leaves his kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He bows to me.

“I want to know about the people who were living upstairs.”

“They gone now.”

“Yes.”

“You want to rent frat? One bedroom. Very crean.”

“No.”

He shrugs ambivalently and points to a table, motioning me to sit, before he orders tea. The waiters, his sons, compete to carry out the instructions.

“About the tenants,” I say.

“They come, they go,” he replies. “Sometimes full. Sometimes empty.” His hands flutter as he talks and he clasps them occasionally, as if fearful they might fly away.

“Your last tenants, where were they from?”

“Everywhere. Estonia, Russia, Uzbekistan…”

“What about this boy?” I show him the charcoal drawing of Hassan. “He’s older now. Sixteen.”

He nods energetically. “This one okay. He wash the dishes for food. Others take food from bins.”

The green tea has arrived. Mr. Weng pours. Tea leaves circle in the small white cups.

“Who paid the rent?”

“Pay money up front. Six months.”

“But you must have had a lease.”

Mr. Weng doesn’t understand.

“A contract?”

“No contract.”

“What about the electricity, the telephone?”