by Finn Óg
“How did I wake up, wee love?” Sam asked Isla. “After I was in the water?”
Isla was busy applying gauze tape to his wounds and Sam thought it an opportune moment to question her while she was distracted. He couldn’t work out how he’d been resuscitated. It was extremely unlikely that the women would have performed CPR on him. No Muslim woman who wore a full veil was likely to feel able to do that.
“One of the grown-ups pushed on your tummy,” she said. “I made them do it. I said, ‘You can’t start this boat without my daddy!’”
Sam shook his head in wonder at the little woman’s strength of character. It was as if Shannon was telling him the story. Isla was turning into her mother before she’d even turned seven.
“One of them pushed your tummy up and down and up and down,” she said. “Then on your top tummy, right here.”
He turned a little to see her place her palms against her chest.
“Then they turned you over onto your side and you puked all over the place.”
He was mildly concerned about the possibility of infection. In his time in the navy he’d seen two strong men die, not from the ripping and tearing of their flesh and limbs, but from an unseen attacker carried on the air and visible only when it was too late. One of his sergeants was killed through something as simple as a nick on his hand, but he lost an arm in roaring agony before his body had been taken from him.
Sam began putting the pieces together as she worked on his flank. The CPR made sense but Sam was struggling with the rest of it.
“How did they lift me into the boat, Isla? They’re not strong enough.”
Sam weighed fifteen stone of lean steak. The propeller had severed his belt, he’d had no shirt on, nothing to grab. His body must have been as hard to grip as a fish, and breathless bodies tend to float face down.
“I don’t know.” He could sense her shrugging. “They just lifted you up.”
“Right up onto the bathing platform?”
“Yeah,” she said, as if it was no big deal.
“And they managed to drag me into the cockpit?”
“Yes, Daddy, I told you.”
Sam thought for a moment. It still didn’t add up.
“Isla, I don’t think those women are strong enough to have done all that, wee love,” he said gently, not wanting her to think he was doubting her but keen to get to the bottom of it.
“But the man is strong enough, Daddy.”
6
“So how many people were actually in the boat?”
Habid could tell Tassels was developing a grudging regard for the line of business he’d created. “Ten,” said Habid. “Always ten.”
“Why only ten?” asked Big Suit. “Why not take more?”
“This is a premium service,” said Habid with pride and indignation. “Besides, if you start sending dozens, hundreds of people to sea, you’ll get caught sooner or later because you need a big boat.”
“What do you mean?” asked Big Suit.
“The boats the amateurs use, they are much too large. They’re maybe fifty, sixty feet long and cheap, pathetic, dangerous. There’s only one thing such boats are made for.”
“What?” said Big Suit, who struggled to keep up with basic conversations.
Tassels closed his eyes in bewilderment and embarrassment. “Trafficking,” said the senior cop sighing.
“But he uses boats for trafficking?” said Big Suit, permanently baffled.
“That’s the point,” Tassels spat, which made Habid feel the boss was siding with him a little. The big bloke might be handy but he was evidently as thick as bricks.
“If the authorities find such a boat,” Habid elaborated, “it is seized and the courier thrown in jail forever.”
“So you buy smaller boats,” Tassels said – more a statement than a question.
“Yes. Manageable. To be carried by four people. That way they can be easily rolled up and hidden in a lorry, brought to Alexandria and carried to the sea.”
“And who are the four people who help you carry it to the sea?” Big Suit chimed, oblivious to the collective opinion on his intellect.
“The people who pay for the privilege,” said Habid with a hint of pride. It was rather like making a condemned man dig his own grave at the feet of a firing squad.
Tassels swung back on his creaky timber chair and stared at Habid. “And how can you be sure that passing boats or NGOs won’t simply let your clients drown?”
“Well, you see, there is a way,” said Habid, growing in confidence and erring a little too far towards the raconteur for the smaller cop’s liking.
“Just get on with it,” said Tassels as the front legs of his chair hit the floor and Big Suit’s grip tightened with longing on the bolt cutters.
“Women and children. We take three men, three women and three children,” he said.
“And the navigator is one of them?” asked Tassels.
“Yes,” said Habid, and then froze at his mistake, stunned by what he’d said.
“That makes nine.”
Tassels’ head rose and Big Suit’s eyebrows arched as he began to nod vigorously.
“Yes, so who is the tenth person?” Big Suit chipped in, only to be hushed by Tassels.
Habid sat stock-still and silent.
Tassels pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.
Habid held out, and so the smaller cop opened his palm again, as if sowing seeds, and Big Suit set about clipping Habid’s sweetmeats.
Sam burst two of his makeshift stitches as he bounded up the companionway and reached past the woman with the niqab and gripped the front of the burka on the second adult. He ripped it forward before realising it was all one garment, but despite the strength of the fightback from beneath he managed to get his fingers into the eye slot and tear it open. A black head of hair appeared first and Sam grabbed a fistful to turn the face upwards ready to strike it back down with his raised fist but was turned by the niqab-clad woman’s scream. All thoughts of violence vanished when he saw the look on his daughter’s face.
“Don’t hit him, Daddy,” she said, confused and terrified.
The woman had wrapped her salt-stained dress around what Sam assumed was her own child to shield her from the imminent beating.
Sam stared at the man’s stretched face, then at his little girl, his left hand still gripping the back of the man’s head. Isla couldn’t comprehend what had triggered her father’s sudden lurch from the bunk, brushing her aside to get above deck. To her, there had been no deception – she had no grasp of what the wearing of a burka signified and she’d obviously heard him speak while Sam was unconscious. Isla had no point of reference to understand the conceit.
Sam also struggled to compute what was going on, not helped by the fact that his judgement was clouded by the severe pain he was in. But one thing was plain; he couldn’t allow Isla to witness a beating.
He dropped the man backwards with a thud. They stared at one another but Sam was utterly lost for words. He simply shook his head at the other adults in turn, demanding an explanation as the robed and curled form cowered beneath him on the cockpit floor. The palms of the man’s hands were open, his arms bent at the elbows, his knees raised expecting an attack, appealing to prevent one. When none came he gradually, gingerly, allowed his posture to relax and he slowly edged towards the woman, keeping one hand raised in an appeal for mercy. Sam watched and rotated to mirror the man’s progress as he reached towards the woman. She initially recoiled before relenting as he placed his arm around her. He babbled furiously in Arabic throughout – his free hand open in conciliation as his wrist flicked between himself and the woman with an occasional gesture towards the little girl. Then he clasped his hand to his heart and his eyes looked up at Sam, again appealing for understanding. Although Sam had spent considerable time in the Arab world, he only caught one phrase repeated over and over: “Min faDlak, min faDlak”, which he’d always understood to mean a mixture of excuse me, sorry and plea
se.
Sam watched the display for a few minutes and somehow drew the conclusion that the man was the woman’s husband and the child’s father. He turned to Isla. “I think he’s saying he’s the girl’s daddy.” He looked to his daughter for confirmation but she plainly had no idea what was going on. Sam realised that Isla was still confused as to why he’d been so angry. “Men aren’t supposed to wear the face cover, darlin’. That’s why I was cross. I thought he was being sneaky, trying to tell lies and fool us.”
“Why can’t men wear the mask?” she asked, which was too profound a question for Sam to attempt to answer in the circumstances.
“I don’t know, Isla. It’s their culture.”
The man was still gabbling away.
“What’s culture?”
“I’ll explain later,” Sam said.
“So why did he wear the mask?” Isla asked, which was a very good question.
Sam reached forward and clasped the remains of the head covering that hung limply like a hood around the man’s neck. He shook it at the man. “What’s this all about?” he barked with real anger.
That sparked a new series of gestures, none of which Sam followed. Then, noticing something, the man placed his palms in the air, apparently seeking some indulgence, and shimmied sideways, pleading again, appealing. He pointed at something to Sam’s right.
“What’s he looking at, Isla?” Sam said, refusing to alter his gaze or stance.
“I don’t know, Daddy. I think it might be my colouring book,” she said.
“Hand it to me, please.”
Isla got the book and gave it to her father. Sam handed it to the man who then began to mime writing.
“Pass me one of the felt tips, Isla,” Sam said, ensuring his daughter remained behind him and at a distance from the man who eagerly took the pen and began drawing.
Reluctantly Sam allowed his gaze to fall to the page where the man was outlining a rubber dinghy. He then drew lines shooting from a dot he’d drawn and blew through his lips, allowing them to smack together like a horse whinny.
“Oh, Daddy, I think he says their boat sank,” said Isla.
“Yes,” said Sam, who had worked that much out. He reached forward impatiently to shake the burka again, motioning the winding of a fishing reel: get to the point.
The man nodded vigorously and began a mixture of gestures and scribbles. He drew what could have passed as a ship and requested the bag of colouring pens. He selected a red one and drew a solid red cross on the side of the ship.
“Yes,” said Sam, “I understand. You wanted to be rescued by the Red Cross.”
“Red Cross,” the man repeated, nodding endlessly and returning to his picture. “Loo-joo,” he seemed to be saying, “Meh-men,” was all Sam could grasp until he started hugging himself before gesturing to the woman and child. He then returned to the page and drew a man, a woman and a child but crossed the man out. He kept pointing to himself and shaking a finger like an epileptic metronome. He returned to the page to draw arrows from the woman and child in the dinghy towards the ship but kept crossing out the man and looking to Sam, seeking understanding.
“What’s he saying, Daddy?”
“I think he’s saying that women and children get rescued by ships but men don’t,” Sam muttered vaguely, “or that men don’t get asylum.”
With mention of the word the man became over animated, as if he’d just won a game of charades.
“Ass-ee-lum, ass-ee-lum,” he kept saying, nodding and smiling.
“I think you’re right, Daddy,” said Isla. “What’s ass-ee-lum?”
“Not now, Isla,” he said, staring at the man and more determined than ever to get the passengers off his boat.
The screaming was disturbing. So much so that Tassels took a break and left the corridor of cells to stand outside and strike up a smoke. Acrid Egyptian-dried tobacco, sweepings off some grotesque, blackened floor. He’d found them in a drawer of the custody officer’s desk. They rasped his throat like a wood file.
Three walls of separation plus thirty feet and he could still hear the whining. Big Suit was evidently having fun. That big ass better not kill the rat, thought Tassels, who sensed a real opportunity. He just needed more time to work out what was going on. This was direct policing, he mused: no faffing around with permissions and detection, just cut off a few balls and all will become clear.
Inside the interrogation room Big Suit stood back and began to panic. Blood was gushing down the rat’s legs. He’d been overzealous; nipped and tucked tighter than usual. Habid began to fail. His legs jellified and his sway became a fall, leaving him hanging from the hook. Big Suit dithered. He knew he was in trouble. The options were unattractive: summon Tassels and receive a roasting, or wait it out and see if the bleeding stopped. He knew in his heart that the flow wouldn’t cease of its own accord, so he dropped the cutters and ran outside.
“What?” Tassels coughed as Big Suit burst into the yard.
“He’s weak – he can’t take it,” Big Suit blubbed. “I think we need to get him some medical help.”
Grim and thick as he was, Big Suit had never actually managed to murder anyone before.
“What have you done, you idiot?”
“He’s bleeding. He’s losing consciousness.”
Tassels ran inside and lifted Habid’s head by the hair.
“This is your last chance – that donkey dick has managed to slice an artery,” he said but Habid was barely able to listen. Life was draining from his eyes.
“If you tell me now what your scam was, I’ll get you a doctor.”
Habid had endured all he was prepared to. There was just enough blood left around his brain to do the calculations: if I tell them, I’ll die on this hook like halal.
He mustered a few words. “Doctor first, then we cut a deal, then I tell you,” he said, and he promptly passed out.
“Why don't you like the man daddy?”
Sam smiled as warmly as he could at Isla, but his brow was bunched tight.
“It’s just going to take time to trust him.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't know what he wants.”
“I think he just wants to get to a nice country,” she said.
You’re so like your mam, he thought, but avoided saying so as he knew it would send her into silence and sadness.
“I’m just trying to understand what happened wee love.”
“You got really cross, Daddy.”
“I’m sorry darlin’, I’m really trying not to get so cross.”
“I thought you were going to punch his head in.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Punch his head in.”
Isla just shrugged.
“I don’t really want to punch anyone’s head in.”
“Yes you do,” she said, not looking at him.
“What do you mean?”
“Mammy said it was your way of minding us.”
“When?”
She shrugged again.
“What did mammy say?”
“She told me you had seen bad stuff and it made you cross sometimes, but it was just your way of looking after us.”
Sam stood at the wheel, slightly bemused that this conversation had taken place.
“Did she talk about the stuff I had seen, the bad stuff?”
“No, but I know it was in the army.”
“Not the army.”
“The navy then.”
“What do you know about that?” he said, peering below to see where the migrant family was. Isla shrugged once more and looked out to sea.
“I’m working on it wee love.”
“It’s OK. But you can't kill that man, Daddy.”
“I’m not going to kill anyone,” he raised his voice, then immediately hushed it – despite the fact that his instinct was to do just as his daughter described. In the dark corner of his consciousness he could see the scrawny man being left i
n the wake of the boat before disappearing into darkness.
“You promise?”
“Isla, I don’t just go round killing people,” he said, incredulously.
She gave him a look he had never known her capable of, a searching yet soft stare. It was broken only by his need to look away, guilty at his half-truth.
“I’m just confused about what happened, Isla. I don’t really know how or why he helped me on board.”
“I don't know, Daddy,” she said, confused and on the cusp of upset. He knew to leave her alone, she was too young to understand or explain.
He hunted for the positive and sought empathy for the man that, like Sam, was a father, a husband and someone who wanted – and strove for – a better life for his family. That, Sam could identify with. He resolved, therefore, to approach the man with an open mind rather than a hammer.
Tassels stared at Habid, half-dead in the bed. Of course a hospital was out of the question – there was no way of explaining how a prisoner had lost a thumb, a toe and a testicle while in custody. Even in Egypt that would cause consternation – even if the mutilated patient was a Libyan. Not that he looked like one now: white as a European, the blood drained from his face and arms.
Tassels had a cousin who’d been a doctor. The cousin had been sent for and had savagely cauterised the rat’s wounds. The doc had performed the searing smoky procedure on Habid where he hung, peering up and stroking a soldering iron of sorts into the seething tissue.
Then there was the need for blood, and the lack of testing facilities, and the gamble they took syphoning Big Suit – the first part of his punishment – the proceeds of which were pumped into the rat. The kit the cousin possessed was far from sufficient but calling for medical reinforcements wasn’t an option financially. The three men assembled a grubby ICU in the police station’s ‘infirmary’. The mood was intense, the care coarse and the unit a filthy former cell. Tassels became more agitated and angrier as the operation grew increasingly uncontainable. The outcome was inevitable. What should have been a two-way uneven cut of whatever scam the rat was running had now turned into a three-way split: the doctor and one-and-a-half cops. Still, Tassels suspected it would prove worthwhile, if the rat ever woke up.
