The Night Ferry

It makes me sound careless—as though I lose people all the time. Hokke has been sitting in a cafe. Zala must have passed by him but he doesn’t remember her.

“Perhaps I can help you look.”

I follow him, scanning the pedestrians, until we reach the pharmacy. The small shop has narrow aisles and neatly stacked shelves. A man in a striped shirt and white coat is serving customers at a counter. When he recognizes Hokke he opens his arms and they embrace. Old friends.

“A deaf girl—I’d remember her,” he announces, breaking into English.

“She had a note from Sister Vogel.”

The pharmacist yells to his assistant. A head pops out from behind a stand of postcards. More Dutch. A shrug. Nobody has seen her.

Hokke follows me back onto the street. I walk a few paces and stop, leaning against a wall. A faint vibration is coming off me; a menacing internal thought spinning out of control. Zala has not run away. She would not leave Samira willingly. Ever.

Police headquarters is on one of the outer canals, west of the city. Fashioned by the imagination of an architect, it looks scrubbed clean and casts a long shadow across the canal. The glass doors open automatically. CCTV cameras scan the foyer.

A message is sent upstairs to Spijker. His reply comes back: I’m to wait in the reception area. None of my urgency has any effect on the receptionist, who has a face like the farmer’s daughter in American Gothic. This is not my jurisdiction. I have no authority to make demands or throw my weight around.

Hokke offers to keep me company. At no point has he asked how I found Samira or what happened to Ruiz. He is content to accept whatever information is offered rather than seeking it out.

So much has happened in the past week yet I feel as though I haven’t moved. It’s like the clock on the wall above the reception desk, with its white face and thick black hands that refuse to move any faster.

Samira is somewhere above me. I don’t imagine there are many basements in Amsterdam—a city that seems to float on fixed pontoons held together by bridges. Perhaps it is slowly sinking into the ooze like a Venice of the north.

I can’t sit still. I should be at the hospital with Ruiz. I should be starting my new job in London or resigning from it.

Across the foyer the double doors of a lift slide open. There are voices, deep, sonorous, laughing. One of them belongs to Yanus. His left eye is swollen and partially closed. Head injuries are becoming a fashion statement. He isn’t handcuffed, nor is he being escorted by police.

The man beside him must be his lawyer. Large and careworn, with a broad forehead and broader arse, his rumpled suit has triple vents and permanent creases.

Yanus looks up at me and smiles with his thin lips.

“I am very sorry for this misunderstanding,” he says. “No hard feelings.”

He offers me his hand. I stare at it blankly. Spijker appears at his left shoulder, standing fractionally behind him.

Yanus is still talking. “I hope Mr. Ruiz is being looked after. I am very sorry I stabbed him.”

My eyes haven’t left Spijker. “What are you doing?”

“Mr. Yanus is being released. We may need to question him again later.”

The fat lawyer is tapping his foot on the floor impatiently. It has the effect of making his face wobble. “Samira Khan has confirmed that Mr. Yanus is her fiance. She is pregnant by him.” His tone is extravagantly pompous, with just a hint of condescension. “She has also given a statement corroborating his account of what happened last night.”

“No!”

“Fortunately, for you, Mr. Yanus has agreed not to make a formal complaint against you or your colleague for assault, malicious wounding and abducting his fiancee. In return, the police have decided not to lay charges against him.”

“Our investigations are continuing,” counters Spijker.

“Mr. Yanus has cooperated fully,” retorts the fat lawyer, dismissively.

Lena Caspar is so small that I almost don’t see her behind him. I can sense my gaze flicking from face to face like a child waiting for a grown-up to explain. Yanus has withdrawn his hand. Almost instinctively he slides it inside his jacket, where his knife would normally be.

I imagine that I must look dazed and dumbstruck, but the opposite is true. I can see myself reflected in the dozens of glass panels around the walls and the news hasn’t altered my demeanor at all. Internally, the story is different. Of all the possible outcomes, this one couldn’t be anticipated.

“Let me talk to Samira.”

“That’s not possible.”

Lena Caspar puts her hand on my arm. “She doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Where is she?”

“In the care of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.”

“Is she going to be deported?”

The fat lawyer answers for her. “My client is applying for a visa that will allow his fiancee to remain in the Netherlands.”

“She’s not his fiancee!” I snap.

The lawyer inflates even further (it barely seems possible). “You are very fortunate, Miss Barba, that my client is so willing to forgive. You would otherwise be facing very serious charges. Mr. Yanus now demands that you leave him alone, along with his fiancee. Any attempt by you to approach either of them will be taken very seriously.”

Yanus looks almost embarrassed by his own generosity. His entire persona has softened. The cold, naked, unflinching hatred of last night has gone. It’s like watching a smooth ocean after a storm front has passed. He extends his hand again. There is something in it this time—my mobile phone and passport. He hands them to me and turns away. He and the fat lawyer are leaving.

I look at Spijker. “You know he’s lying.”

“It makes no difference,” he replies.

Mrs. Caspar wants me to sit down.

“There must be something,” I say, pleading with her.

“You have to understand. Without Samira’s testimony there is no case to answer, no evidence of forced pregnancies or a black market in embryos and unborn babies. The proof might lie in DNA or paternity tests, but these can’t be done without Samira’s permission and invasive surgery that could endanger the twins.”

“Zala will confirm my story.”

“Where is she?”

The entrance doors slide open. The fat lawyer goes first. Yanus pulls a light blue handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his forehead. I recognize the fabric. He rolls it over and over in his fingers. It’s not a handkerchief. It’s a headscarf. Zala’s hijab!

Spijker sees me moving and holds me back. I fight against his arms, yelling accusations out the door. Yanus turns and smiles, showing a few teeth at the sides of his mouth. A shark’s smile.

“See in his hand—the scarf,” I cry. “That’s why she lied.”

Mrs. Caspar steps in front of me. “It’s too late, Alisha.”

Spijker releases my arms slowly and I shake his fingers loose. He’s embarrassed at having touched me. There’s something else in his demeanor. Understanding. He believes me! He had no choice but to release Yanus.

Frustration, disappointment and anger fill me until I feel like screaming. They have Zala. Samira is sure to follow. For all the bruises and bloodshed, I haven’t even slowed them down. I’m like Wile E. Coyote, flattened beneath a rock, listening to the Road Runner’s infernal, triumphant, infuriating “beep, beep!”