The Night Ferry

by Michael Robotham

  “Which is illegal.”

  “She had one of your brochures.”

  “Which is not illegal.” Shawcroft doesn’t take offense or become defensive. “Where is your friend now?”

  “She’s dead. Murdered.”

  He repeats the word with renewed respect. His hands are unfailingly steady.

  “The brochure contained an advertisement for a baby boy whose mother was a prostitute and a former drug addict. It mentioned a facilitation fee and medical expenses.”

  Shawcroft lets his palm glide over his cheek, giving himself time. For a moment something struggles inside him. I want a denial. There isn’t one.

  “The facilitation fee is to cover paperwork such as visas and birth certificates.”

  “Selling children is illegal.”

  “The baby was not for sale. Every applicant is properly vetted. We require referees and assessment reports. There are group workshops and familiarization. Finally, there is an adoption panel that must approve the adopter before a child can be matched to them.”

  “If these adoptions are aboveboard, why are they advertised using post box numbers?”

  He gazes straight ahead as if plotting the distance of his next shot.

  “Do you know how many children die in the world every year, Alisha? Five million. War, poverty, disease, famine, neglect, land mines and predators. I have seen children so malnourished they don’t have the energy to swat flies away and starving women holding babies to their withered breasts, desperate to feed them. I have seen them throw their babies over the fences of rich people’s houses or, worse still, into the River Ganges because they can’t afford to look after them. I have seen AIDS orphans, crack babies and children sold into slavery for as little as £15. And what do we do in this country? We make it harder for people to adopt. We tell them they’re too old, or the wrong color, or the wrong religion.”

  Shawcroft makes no attempt to hide the bitterness in his voice. “It takes courage for a country to admit it can’t take care of its smallest and weakest. Many countries who are not so brave would prefer to see abandoned children starve than to leave for a better life.

  “The system is unfair. So, yes, I sometimes cut corners. In some countries contracts can be signed with birth mothers. Hollywood movie stars do it. Government ministers do it. Children can be rescued. Infertile couples can have families.”

  “By buying babies.”

  “By saving them.”

  For all his avuncular charm and geniality, there is steel in this man’s nature and something vaguely dangerous. A mixture of sentimentality and spiritual zeal that fortifies the hearts of tyrants.

  “You think that what I’m doing is immoral. Let me tell you what’s more immoral. Doing nothing. Sitting back in your comfortable chair in your comfortable home thinking that just because you sponsor a child in Zambia you’re doing enough.”

  “It shouldn’t mean breaking the law.”

  “Every family that adopts here is vetted and approved by a panel of experts.”

  “You’re profiting from their desperation.”

  “All payments go back into the charity.”

  He begins listing the number of foreign adoptions the center has overseen and the diplomatic hurdles he has had to overcome. His arguments are marshalled so skillfully that I have no line of reasoning to counter them. My objections sound mean-spirited and hostile. I should apologize.

  “Your friend’s death is very unfortunate, DC Barba, but I would strongly counsel you against making any rash or unfounded claims about what we do here. Police knocking on doors, asking questions, upsetting families, that would be very unfortunate.”

  He has made his first mistake. I can accept his passionate beliefs and his rationale for them, but I don’t appreciate emotional blackmail.

  Stella appears on the terrace and calls to Shawcroft, miming a phone call with her hand.

  “I have to go,” he says, smiling tiredly. “The baby you referred to was born in Washington four weeks ago. A boy. A young couple from Oxford are adopting him.”

  I watch him return along the path, gravel rasping beneath his soft-soled shoes. Meredith is still in the garden. He motions for her to come inside. It is getting cold.

  “New Boy” Dave falls into step beside me and we follow the path in the opposite direction toward the car park, passing a statue of a young girl holding an urn and another of a Cupid with a missing penis.

  “So what do you think?” he asks.

  “What sort of adoption center has surveillance cameras?”

  14

  “Finding Donavon” sounds like the title of an Irish art-house movie directed by Neil Jordan. “Deconstructing Donavon” is another good title and that’s exactly what I plan to do when I find him.

  Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe it’s not a coincidence, but I don’t like the way that his name keeps popping up whenever I trace Cate’s movements. Donavon claims to know when someone is lying. That’s because he’s an expert on the subject—a born deceiver.

  On the drive back to London we go over the details of our meeting with Shawcroft. Ruiz doesn’t see a problem with adoption having a financial element if couples are vetted properly. Too much control allows black markets to flourish. Perhaps he’s right, but a zealot like Shawcroft can turn compassion into a dangerous crusade.

  “New Boy” Dave has work to do. We drop him at the Harrow Road police station and I make him promise to run a check on Shawcroft. He kisses my cheek and whispers, “Leave this alone.”

  I can’t. I won’t. He adds something else. “I did like being married to you.”

  Timewise it was even shorter than Britney Spears’s first wedding, but I don’t tell him that.

  Nobody answers the door at Donavon’s house. The curtains are drawn and his motorbike isn’t parked outside. A neighbor suggests we try the markets in Whitechapel Road. Donavon has a weekend stall there.

  Parking behind the Royal London Hospital, we follow the insurrection of noise, color and movement. Dozens of stalls spill out from the pavement. Everything is for sale—Belgian chocolates from Poland, Greek feta from Yorkshire, Gucci handbags from China and Rolex watches draped inside trench coats.

  Traders yell over one another.

  “Fresh carnations. Two-fifty a bunch!”

  “Live mussels!”

  “Garden tomatoes as red as your cheeks!”

  I can’t see Donavon but I recognize his stall. Draped from the metal framework there are dozens of intricate necklaces or perhaps they’re wind chimes. They twirl in the light breeze, fragmenting the remains of the sunlight. Beneath them, haphazardly displayed, are novelty radios, digital clocks and curling tongs from Korea.

  Carla looks cold and bored. She’s wearing red woolen tights and a short denim skirt stretched over her growing bump.

  I close the gap between us and slide my hand under her sweater, across her abdomen until I feel the warmth of her skin.

  “Hey!”

  I pull my hand away as if scalded. “I just wanted to be sure.”

  “Sure about what?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Carla looks at me suspiciously and then at Ruiz. A faint, fast vibration is coming off her, as though something terrible and soundless is spinning inside.

  “Have you seen him?” she asks anxiously.

  “Who?”

  “Paul. He hasn’t been home in two days.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “On Saturday. He had a phone call and went out.”

  “Did he say where?”

  “No. He never leaves it this long. He always calls me.”

  Female intuition is often a myth. Some women just think they’re more intuitive. I know I’m letting the sisters down by saying that, but gender isn’t a factor. It’s blood. Families can tell when something is wrong. Carla’s eyes dart across the crowd as though assembling a human jigsaw puzzle.

  “When are you due?” I ask.

  �
�Christmas.”

  “What can you tell me about the New Life Adoption Center?”

  Her mouth seems to frame something she’s too embarrassed to admit. I wait for her.

  “I don’t know what sort of mother I’m gonna make. Paul says I’ll be fine. He says I learned from one of the worst so I won’t make the same mistakes our mum did.” Her hands are trembling. “I didn’t want an abortion. It’s not because of any religious thing. It’s just how I feel, you know. That’s why I thought about adoption.”

  “You went to see Julian Shawcroft.”

  “He offered to help me. He said there were scholarships, you know. I always wanted to be a makeup artist or a beautician. He said he could arrange it.”

  “If you gave up the baby?”

  “Yeah, well, you can’t do both, eh? Not look after a baby and work full-time—not without help.”

  “So what did you decide?” asks the DI.

  Her shoulders grow rounder. “I keep changing me mind. Paul wants me to keep it. He says he’ll look after us all.” She gnaws at a reddened fingernail.

  A crew-cutted teenager stops and picks up a transistor radio shaped like a Pepsi can.

  “Don’t waste your money—this stuff is shite,” says Carla. The youth looks hard done by rather than grateful.

  “How did you hear about the New Life Adoption Center?”

  “A friend told Paul about it.”

  “Who?”

  Carla shrugs.

  Her mauve-tinted eyelids tremble. She doesn’t have the wherewithal to lie to me. She can’t see a reason. Glancing above her head, I notice the feathers and beads.

  I have seen one of these ornaments before—at Cate’s house, in the nursery. It was hanging above the new cot.

  “What are they?” I ask.

  Carla unhooks one from the metal frame above her and hangs it from her finger, watching me through a wooden circle crisscrossed with colored thread and hung with feathers and beads.

  “This is a dream catcher,” she explains. “American Indians believe the night air is filled with dreams, some good and some bad. They hang a dream catcher over a child’s bed so it can catch dreams as they flow by. The good dreams know how to slip through the holes and slide down the soft feathers where they land gently on the child’s head. But the bad dreams get tangled in the web and perish when the sun comes up.”

  Blowing gently, she makes the feathers bob and swirl.

  Donavon didn’t go to the reunion to “make his peace” with Cate. He had seen her before. He gave her a dream catcher or she bought one from him.

  “How well did your brother know Cate Beaumont?”

  Carla shrugs. “They were friends, I guess.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  She bridles. “I’m not lying. When Paul was in the Paras, she wrote to him. I seen the letters.”

  “Letters?”

  “He brought them home from Afghanistan. He kept her letters.”

  I hear myself quizzing her, wanting to know the where, when and why, but she can’t answer for her brother. Trying to pin her down to specific dates and times makes her even more confused.

  Ruiz intervenes and I feel a twinge of guilt at having browbeaten a pregnant woman who’s worried about her brother.

  The afternoon sun is sliding below rooftops, leaving behind shadows. Stallholders are shutting up, loading wares into boxes, bags and metal trunks. Buckets of ice are tipped into the gutter. Plastic awnings are rolled and tied.

  After helping Carla load up the red Escort van, we follow her home. The house is still empty. There are no messages waiting for her on the answer phone. I should be angry with Donavon, yet I feel a nagging emptiness. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would Cate write letters to someone who sexually assaulted her? She was talking to him the night of the reunion. What were they saying?

  Ruiz drops me home. Turning off the engine, we stare at the streetscape as if expecting it to suddenly change after more than a century of looking almost the same.

  “You want to come in?”

  “I should go.”

  “I could cook.”

  He looks at me.

  “Or we could get takeaway.”

  “Got any alcohol?”

  “There’s an off-licence on the corner.”

  I can hear him whistling his way up the street as I open the front door and check my answering machine. All the messages are for Hari. His girlfriends. I should double his rent to pay the phone bill.

  The doorbell rings. It should be Ruiz—only it’s not. A younger man has come to the door, dressed in a pepper-gray suit. Clean-shaven with broad shoulders and Nordic features, his rectangular glasses seem too small for his face. Behind him are two more men, who are standing beside cars that are double-parked and blocking the street. They look official, but not like police officers.

  “DC Barba, we need you to accompany us.” He makes a clicking sound with his tongue that might be a signal or a sign of nerves.

  “Why? Who are you?”

  He produces a badge. SOCA. The Serious Organized Crime Agency. The organization is less than a year old and the media have labeled it Britain’s answer to the FBI, with its own Act of Parliament, budget and extraordinary powers. What do they want with me?

  “I’m a police officer,” I stammer.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Important people wish to speak to you.”

  I look for Ruiz. He’s hurrying down the pavement with a half bottle of Scotch tucked in his coat pocket. One of the men beside the cars tries to step in front of him. The DI feints left and drops his shoulder, propelling him over a low brick wall into a muddy puddle. This could get ugly.

  “It’s all right, sir.”

  “Who are they?”

  “SOCA.”

  The look on his face says it all. Fear and loathing.

  “You might want to pack a few things for the journey,” says the senior officer. He and Ruiz are sizing each other up like roosters in a henhouse.

  I pack a sports bag with a pair of jeans, knickers and a lightweight sweater. My gun is wrapped in a cloth on top of a kitchen cabinet. I contemplate whether I should take it with me, but dismiss the idea as being too hostile. I have no idea what these people want, but I can’t risk antagonizing them.

  Ruiz follows me to the car. A hand is placed on the back of my head as I slide into the rear seat. The brake is released suddenly and I’m thrown back against the new-smelling leather.

  “I hope we haven’t spoiled your plans for the evening, DC Barba,” says the gray-suited man.

  “You know my name, can I have yours?”

  “Robert Forbes.”

  “You work for SOCA?”

  “I work for the government.”

  “Which part of the government?”

  “The part people don’t often talk about.” He makes the clicking sound again.

  The car has reached the end of Hanbury Street. Beneath a streetlight, a solitary spectator, clad in black leather, leans against a motorcycle. A helmet dangles from his right hand. A fag end burns in his fist. It’s Donavon.

  Traffic meanders at an agonizingly slow pace, shuffling and pausing. I can only see the back of the driver’s head. He has a soldier’s haircut and wraparound sunglasses like Bono, who also looks ridiculous wearing sunglasses at night.

  I’m trying to remember what I’ve read about SOCA. It’s an amalgam of the old National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service, along with elements of Customs and Excise and the Immigration Service. Five thousand officers were specially chosen with the aim of targeting criminal gangs, drug smugglers and people traffickers. The boss of the new agency is a former head of MI5.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To a crime scene,” says Forbes.

  “What crime? There must be some mistake.”

  “You are Alisha Kaur Barba. You are twenty-nine years of age. You work for the Lon
don Metropolitan Police, most recently for the Diplomatic Protection Group. You have four brothers. Your father is a retired train driver. Your mother takes in sewing. You went to Falcon Street Primary School and to Oaklands Secondary. You graduated from London University with a degree in sociology and topped your class at Hendon Police Training College. You are an expert markswoman and former champion athlete. A year ago you were injured trying to apprehend a suspect who almost snapped your spine. You accepted a bravery medal but refused a disability pension. You seem to have recovered quite well.”

  “I set off metal detectors at airports.”

  I don’t know if his knowledge is supposed to impress or intimidate me. Nothing else is said. Forbes is not going to answer my questions until he’s ready. Silence is part of the softening-up process. Ruiz taught me that.

  We take the A12 through Brentwood and out of London. I don’t like the countryside at night. Even in moonlight it looks bruised and sullen like a week-old fall down the stairs.

  Forbes takes several phone calls, answering yes or no but offering nothing more apart from the clicking sound in his throat. He is married. The gold band on his wedding finger is thick and heavy. Someone at home irons his shirts and polishes his shoes. He is right-handed. He’s not carrying a gun. He knows so much about me that I want to even the scales.

  We continue through Chelmsford in Essex before bypassing Colchester and turning east toward Harwich along the A120. Convoys of prime movers and semitrailers begin to build up ahead of us. I can smell the salt in the air.

  A large sign above the road welcomes us to Harwich International Port. Following the New Port Entrance Road through two roundabouts we come to the freight entrance. Dozens of trucks are queuing at the gates. A customs officer with a light wand and a fluorescent vest waves us through.

  In the distance I see the Port of Felixstowe. Massive gantry cranes tower above the ships, lifting and lowering containers. It looks like a scene from War of the Worlds where alien machines have landed and are creating hatchlings for the next generation. Row after row of containers are stacked on top of one another, stretching for hundreds of yards in every direction.