The Night Ferry

I didn’t imagine ever feeling sorry for Barnaby—not after what happened. I thought I saw his true nature on the day he dropped me at the railway station in Cornwall. He couldn’t even look at me or say the word goodbye.

I still don’t know if he told his wife. I doubt it. Barnaby is the type to deny, deny and deny, until faced with incontrovertible proof. Then he will shrug, apologize and play the tragic hero, brought down by loving too much rather than too little.

When I first saw him at the hospital, when Cate was in a coma, it struck me how he was still campaigning, still trying to win votes. He caught glimpses of his reflection in the glass doors, making sure he was doing it right, the grieving. Maybe that’s unfair—kicking a man when he’s down.

Ruiz is asleep. I take the glass from his hand and rinse it in the sink. Than I tuck the bottle into my bag.

I’m still no closer to knowing what to do. It’s like running a race where I cannot tell how many laps there are to go or who’s winning or who’s been lapped. How do I know when to kick on the final bend and start sprinting for home?

A taxi drops me at the hotel. The driver is listening to a football game being broadcast on the radio. The commentator has a tenor voice that surges with the ebb and flow of the action. I have no idea who is playing but I like the thunderous sound of the crowd. It makes me feel less melancholy.

There is a white envelope poking out of my pigeonhole at the reception desk. I open it immediately.

Three words: “Hello, sweet girl.”

The desk clerk moves her eyes. I turn. “New Boy” Dave is standing behind me.

His arms wrap around me and I bury my face in his shirt. I stay there. Holding him tightly. I don’t want him to see my tears.

7

One second I’m sleeping and the next I’m awake. I look at the clock. Four a.m. Dave is lying next to me on his side with his cheek pressed flat against the sheet and his mouth vibrating gently.

Last night we didn’t talk. Exhaustion and a hot shower and the touch of his hands put me to sleep. I’ll make it up to him when he wakes. I’m sure it doesn’t do much for the male ego, having a woman fall asleep on them.

Propped on one elbow, I study him. His hair is soft and rumpled like a tabby cat with tiny flecks of blond amid the ginger. He has a big head. Does that mean he would have big babies, with big heads? Involuntarily I squeeze my thighs together.

Dave scratches his ear. He has nice ears. The one I can see has the faintest hint that at one time it might have been pierced. His hand is stretched toward me on the sheet. The nails are wide and flat, trimmed straight across. I touch his fingers with mine, awkward at being so happy.

Yesterday was perhaps the worst day of my life, and I held him last night like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to the debris. He made me feel safe. He wrapped his arms around me and the pain leaked away.

Maybe that’s why I feel this way, lying so still—not wanting this moment to end.

I have no experience of love. Ever since adolescence I have avoided it, renounced it, longed for it. (Such a dichotomy is one of the symptoms.) I have been an agony aunt for all my girlfriends, listening to their sob stories about arranged marriages, unfaithful husbands, men who won’t call or commit, missed periods, sexual neuroses, wedding plans, postnatal depression and failed diets. I know all about other people’s love affairs but I am a complete novice when it comes to my own. That’s why I’m scared. I’m sure to mess it up.

Dave touches my bruised cheek. I flinch. “Who did that?” he asks.

“His name is Yanus.”

I can almost see him storing this information away for future reference. He and Ruiz are similar in that way. There is nothing halfcocked or hotheaded about them. They can wait for their shot at revenge.

“You were lucky he didn’t break your cheekbone.”

“He could have done a lot worse.”

I step closer and kiss him on the lips, quickly, impulsively. Then I turn and go to shower. Spinning back to say something, I catch him punching the air in victory.

He blushes.

“It wasn’t that good a kiss.”

“It was to me.”

Later, he sits on the bed and watches me dress, which makes me feel self-conscious. I keep my back to him. He reaches across and cups my breasts before my bra embraces them.

“I volunteer for this job,” he says.

“That’s very noble, but you’re not holding my breasts all day.”

I gently push his hands away and continue dressing.

“You really like me, don’t you?” he says. His big goofy grin is reflected in the wardrobe mirror.

“Don’t push it,” I warn him.

“But you do. You really like me.”

“That could change.”

His laugh isn’t entirely convincing.

We breakfast at a cafe on Paleisstraat near Dam Square. Blue-and-white trams clatter and fizz past the window beneath humming wires. A weak sun is barely breaking through the clouds and a wind tugs at the clothes of pedestrians and cyclists.

The cafe has a zinc-topped counter running the length of one side. Arranged above it is a blackboard menu and barrels of wine or port. The place smells of coffee and grilled cheese. My appetite is coming back. We order sliced meats, bread and cheese; coffee with frothed milk.

I take Dave through everything that’s happened. Occasionally he interrupts with a question, but mostly he eats and listens. This whole affair is laced with half-truths and concocted fictions. The uncertainties and ambiguities seem to outweigh the facts and they nag at me, making me fretful and uncomfortable.

I borrow his notebook and write down names.

Brendan PearlYanusPaul DonavonJulian Shawcroft

On the opposite side of the page I write another list: the victims.

Cate and Felix BeaumontHassan KhanSamira Khan

There are likely to be others. Where do I list those who fall in between, people like Barnaby Elliot? I still think he lied to me about Cate’s computer. And Dr. Banerjee, her fertility specialist. It was more than a coincidence that he turned up at my father’s birthday party.

I’m not sure what I hope to achieve by writing things down. Perhaps it will give me a fresh slant on events or throw up a new link. I have been searching for a central figure behind events but maybe that’s too simplistic a notion. People could all be linked like spokes of a wheel that only touch in the center.

There is another issue. Where was the baby—or the babies—going to be handed over? Perhaps Cate planned to take a holiday or a weekend break to the Netherlands. She would go into “labor” tell everyone she had given birth and then bring her newborn home to live happily ever after.

Even a baby needs travel documents. A passport. Which means a birth certificate, statutory declarations and signed photographs. I should call the British consulate in The Hague and ask how British nationals register a foreign birth.

In a case like this it would be much easier if the baby were born in the same country as the prospective parents. It could be a home birth or in a private house, without involving a hospital or even a midwife.

Once the genetic parents took possession of the baby nobody could ever prove it didn’t belong to them. Blood samples, DNA and paternity tests would all confirm their ownership.

Samira said Hassan was going to the U.K. ahead of her. She expected to follow him. What if that’s where