The Night Ferry

The foursome are more than 300 yards away but I can see them clearly enough through binoculars. Samira is standing on the edge of the green, watching and waiting.

Shawcroft finally snaps. “Get off this golf course or I’ll have you arrested.”

Waving his club, he storms toward her. She doesn’t flinch.

“Steady on, old boy,” someone suggests.

“Who is she, Julian?” asks another.

“Nobody.”

“She’s a pretty thing. She could be your ball washer.”

“Shut up! Just shut up!”

Samira hasn’t moved. “I paid my debt, Brother.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You said God would find a way for me to pay. I paid it twice. Twins. I paid for Hassan and for me, but he’s dead. Zala didn’t make it either.”

Shawcroft grabs her roughly by the arm and hisses, “I don’t know who sent you here. I don’t know what you want, but I can’t help you.”

“What about the job?”

He is walking her away from the group. One of his partners yells, “Where are you off to, Julian?”

“I’m going to have her thrown off the course.”

“What about the round?”

“I’ll catch up.”

The car dealer mutters, “Not again.”

Another foursome is already halfway down the fairway. Shawcroft marches past them still holding Samira by the arm. She has to run to keep from falling.

“You’re hurting me.”

“Shut up you stupid slut. I don’t know what you’re playing at but it won’t work. Who sent you here?”

“I paid my debt.”

“Fuck the debt! There is no job! This is harassment. You come near me again and I’ll have you arrested.”

Samira doesn’t give up. God, she’s good.

“Why did Hassan die?”

“It’s called life. Stuff happens.”

I don’t believe it. He’s quoting Donald Rumsfeld. Why doesn’t stuff happen to people like Shawcroft?

“It took me a long while to find you, Brother. We waited in Amsterdam for you to come or to send word. In the end we couldn’t wait any longer. They were going to send us back to Kabul. Hassan came alone. I wanted to go with him but he said I should wait.” Her voice is breaking. “He was going to find you. He said you had forgotten your promise. I told him you were honorable and kind. You brought us food and blankets at the orphanage. You wore the cross…”

Shawcroft twists her wrist, trying to make her stop.

“I had the babies. I paid my debt.”

“Will you shut up!”

“Someone killed Zala—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They’re nearing the clubhouse. Forbes is out of the car, moving toward them. I hang back. Shawcroft flings Samira into a flower bed. She bangs her knee and cries out.

“That qualifies as assault.”

Shawcroft looks up and sees the detective. Then he looks past him and spies me.

“You have no right! My lawyer will hear about this.”

Forbes hands him an arrest warrant. “Fine. For your sake I hope he’s not playing golf today.”

6

Shawcroft regards himself as an intellectual and a textbook lawyer, although he seems to have mixed up the Crimes Act and the Geneva convention as he yells accusations of inhuman treatment from his holding cell.

Intellectuals show off too much and wise people are just plain boring. (My mother is forever telling me to save money, go to bed early and not to lend things.) I prefer clever people who hide their talents and don’t take themselves too seriously.

A dozen officers are going through the files and computer records of the New Life Adoption Center. Others are at Shawcroft’s house in Hayward’s Heath. I don’t expect them to find a paper trail leading to the twins. He’s too careful for that.

There is, however, a chance that prospective buyers initially came to the center looking to adopt legally. At our first meeting I asked him about the brochure I found at Cate’s house, which advertised a baby boy born to a prostitute. Shawcroft was adamant that all adopting parents were properly screened. This should mean interviews, psych reports and criminal background checks. If he was telling me the truth then whoever has the twins could once have been on a waiting list at the adoption center.

It is four hours since we arrested him. Forbes arranged to bring him through the front door, past the public waiting area. He wanted to cause maximum discomfort and embarrassment. Although experienced, I sense that Forbes is not quite in the same league as Ruiz, who knows exactly when to be hard-nosed and when to let someone sweat for another hour in a holding cell, alone with their demons.

Shawcroft is waiting for his lawyer, Eddie Barrett. I could have guessed he would summon the “Bulldog,” an old-fashioned ambulance chaser with a reputation for courting the media and getting right up police noses. He and Ruiz are old adversaries, sharing a mutual loathing and grudging respect.

Wolf whistles and howls of laughter erupt in the corridor. Barrett has arrived, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a plaid shirt and a ten-gallon hat.

“Look it’s Willie Nelson!” someone calls.

“Is that a six-shooter in your pocket, Eddie, or are you just dawg-gone pleased to see me?”

Someone breaks into a hoedown. Eddie tucks his thumbs into his belt and gives them a few boot-scootin’ moves. He doesn’t seem to mind them taking the mickey out of him. Normally it’s the other way round and he makes police look foolish during interviews or in court.

Barrett is a strange-looking man with an upside-down body (short legs and a long torso), and he walks just like George W. Bush with his arms held away from his body, his back unnaturally straight and his chin in the air. Maybe it’s a cowboy thing.

One of the uniforms escorts him to an interview room. Shawcroft is brought upstairs. Forbes slips a plastic plug into his ear—a receiver that will allow us to talk to him during the interrogation. He takes a bundle of files and a list of questions. This is about looking prepared as much as being prepared.

I don’t know if the DI is nervous but I can feel the tension. This is about the twins. Unless Shawcroft cracks or cooperates we may never find them.

The charity boss is still wearing his golfing clothes. Barrett sits next to him, placing his cowboy hat on the table. The formalities are dispensed with—names, the location and time of interview. Forbes then places five photographs on the table. Shawcroft doesn’t bother looking at them.

“These five asylum seekers allege that you convinced them to leave their homelands and illegally enter the U.K.”

“No.”

“You deny knowing them?”

“I may have met them. I don’t recall.”

“Perhaps if you looked at their faces.”

Barrett interrupts. “My client has answered your question.”