The Night Ferry

8

Donavon gave the police an address in Hackney, not far from London Fields. Set back from the road, the crumbling terrace house has a small square front yard of packed dirt and broken concrete. A sun-faded red Escort van is parked in the space, alongside a motorcycle.

A young woman answers the door. She’s about twenty-five with a short skirt, a swelling pregnancy and acne scars on her cheeks. Cotton wool is wedged between her toes and she stands with her heels planted and toes raised.

“I’m looking for Donavon.”

“Nobody here by that name.”

“That’s too bad. I owe him some money.”

“I can give it to him.”

“You said he didn’t live here.”

“I meant he wasn’t here right now,” she says curtly. “He might be around later.”

“I’d prefer to give it to him personally.”

She considers this for a moment, still balancing on her heels. “You from the council?”

“No.”

“A welfare officer?”

“No.”

She disappears and is replaced by Donavon.

“Well, well, if it isn’t yindoo.”

“Give it a rest, Donavon.”

He runs his tongue along a nick in his front tooth while his eyes roam up and down over me. My skin is crawling.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?”

“My mother told me to beware of strangers who tell lies about owing me money.”

“Can I come in?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“I’m fucking certain I ordered a Thai girl but I guess you’ll do.”

He hasn’t changed. The pregnant girl is standing behind him. “This is my sister, Carla,” he says.

She nods, sullenly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Carla. I went to school with your brother. Did you go to Oaklands?”

Donavon answers for her. “I sort of shat in that particular nest.”

“Why did you run yesterday?”

He shrugs. “You got the wrong guy.”

“I know it was you.”

He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Are you gonna arrest me, Officer? I hope you brought your handcuffs. That’s always fun.”

I follow him along the hallway, past a coatrack and assorted shoes. Carla continues painting her nails at the kitchen table. She is flexible and shortsighted, pulling her foot almost up to her nose as she dabs on the varnish with a thin brush, unconcerned about exposing her knickers.

A dog beneath the table thumps its tail several times but doesn’t bother rising.

“You want a drink?”

“No. Thank you.”

“I do. Hey, Carla, nip up the road and get us a few cans.”

Her top lip curls as she snatches the twenty-quid note from his fist. “And this time I want the change back.”

Donavon gives a chair a gentle shake. “You want to sit down?”

I wait for him to be seated first. I don’t feel comfortable with him standing over me. “Is this your place?” I ask.

“My parents’. My dad’s dead. Mum lives in Spain.”

“You joined the army.”

“Yeah, the Paras.” His fingers vibrate against the tabletop.

“Why did you leave?”

He motions to his leg. “A medical discharge. I broke my leg in twelve places. We were on a training jump above Andover. One of the newbies wrapped his chute around mine and we came down under the one canopy. Too fast. They wouldn’t let me jump after that. They said I’d get a pension but the government changed the rules. I got to work.”

I glance around the kitchen, which looks like a craft workshop with boxes of leather strips, crystals, feathers and painted clay beads. On the table I notice a reel of wire and pliers.

“What are you making?”

“I sell stuff at the markets. Trinkets and shit. Don’t make much, you know…”

The statement trails off. He talks a little more about the Paras, clearly missing army life, until Carla returns with a six-pack of draft and a packet of chocolate biscuits. She retreats to the stairs with the biscuits, eating them while listening to us. I can see her painted toes through a gap in the stair rails.

Donavon opens a can and drinks noisily. He wipes his mouth.

“How is she?”

“She might be brain damaged.”

His face tightens. “What about the baby?”

“She wasn’t pregnant.”

“What?”

“She was faking it.”

“What do you mean—faking it? Why would she…? Makes no fucking sense.”

The phantom pregnancy seems harder for him to accept than Cate’s medical condition.

“Why are you interested in Earl Blake?”

“Same reason as you.”

“Yeah, sure. What difference does it make to you?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Fuck you!”

“You wish!”

“The bastard could have stopped,” he says suddenly, his anger bordering on violence.

“Did you see the car speed up? Did it veer toward them?”

A shake of the head.

“Then why are you so sure?”

“He was lying.”

“Is that it?”

He raises one shoulder as if trying to scratch his ear. “Just forget it, OK?”

“No, I want to know. You said the driver was lying. Why?”

He goes quiet. “I just know. He lied. He ran them down.”

“How can you be sure?”

He turns away, muttering, “Sometimes I just am.”

My mother always told me that people with green eyes are related to fairies, like the Irish, and that if I ever met someone with one green eye and one brown one, it meant that person had been taken over by a fairy, but not in a scary way. Donavon is seriously scary. The bones of his shoulders shift beneath his shirt.

“I found out some stuff about Blake,” he says, growing calmer. “He signed on with the minicab firm a week ago and only ever worked days. At the end of every shift he handed over eighty quid for the lease of the car but the mileage didn’t match the fares. He can’t have done more than a few miles. He told another driver that he had regular customers who liked to have him on call. One of them was a film producer but there’s no way some hotshot film producer is going around London in a beat-up Vauxhall Cavalier.”

He straightens up, into the story now. “So I ask myself, ‘Why does a guy need a car all day if it’s not going anywhere?’ Maybe he’s watching someone—or waiting for them.”

“That’s a big leap.”

“Yeah, well, I saw the look Cate gave him. She recognized him.”

He noticed it too.

Kicking back his chair, he stands and opens a kitchen drawer.

“I found this. Cate must have dropped it.”

He hands me a crumpled envelope. My name is on the front of it. The swirls and dips of the handwriting belong to Cate. Lifting the flap, I pull out a photograph. A teenage girl gazes absently at the camera. She has fine limbs and ragged dark hair, trimmed by the wind. Her wide lips curl down at the edges making her look melancholy rather than gloomy. She is wearing jeans, sandals and a cotton shirt. Her hands are by her sides, palms open, with a white band on her wrist.

I turn the photograph over. There is a name written on the back. Samira.

“Who is she?” asks Donavon.

“I don’t know.”

“What about the number?”

In the bottom right-hand corner there are ten digits. A phone number, perhaps.

I study the image again as a dozen different questions chase one another. Cate faked her pregnancy. Does this girl have anything to do with it? She looks too young to be a mother.

I take out my mobile and punch in the number. A recorded voice announces it is unavailable. The area code doesn’t belong in the U.K. It could be international.

The fight seems to have gone out of Donavon. Maybe alcohol mellows him.

“What are you gonna do?” he asks.

“I don’t know yet.”

On my feet, I turn to leave. He calls after me, “I want to help.”

“Why?”

He’s still not going to tell me.

Carla intercepts me before I reach the front door.

“He’s losing it,” she whispers. “He used to have it together but something happened in Afghanistan or wherever the hell they sent him. He’s not the same. He doesn’t sleep. He gets obsessed about stuff. I hear him at night, walking about.”

“You think he needs help?”

“He needs something.”