The Night Ferry

4

Once more I walk past the Oude Kerk and Trompettersteeg. Hokke was right—the red light district is different at night. I can almost smell the testosterone and used condoms.

As I pass each window, I press a photograph against the glass. Some of the prostitutes shout at me or shake their fingers angrily. Others offer seductive smiles. I don’t want to meet their eyes, but I must make sure they look at Samira.

I walk through Goldbergersteeg and Bethlemsteeg, making a mental note of those windows where the curtains are closed so I can return later. Only one woman tries to encourage me indoors. She puts two fingers to her lips and pokes her tongue between them. She says something in Dutch. I shake my head.

In English this time. “You want a woman.” She shakes her claret covered breasts.

“I don’t sleep with women.”

“But you’ve thought about it.”

“No.”

“I can be a man. I have the tools.” She is laughing at me now.

I move on, around the corner, along the canal through Boomsteeg to Molensteeg. There are three windows side by side, almost below ground. The curtain is open on the center one. A young woman raises her eyes. Black lights make her blond hair and white panties glow like neon. A tiny triangle barely covers her crotch and two higher on her chest are pulled together to create a cleavage. The only other shadows darken the depression on either side of her pubic bone where the bikini is stretched tightly across her hips.

A balloon hangs from the window. Streamers. Birthday decorations? I hold the photograph against the glass. A flash of recognition. Something in her eyes.

“You know her?”

She shakes her head. She’s lying.

“Help me.”

There are traces of beauty in her cheekbones and the curve of her jaw. Her hair is parted. The thin scalp line is dark instead of white. She lowers her eyes. She’s curious.

The door opens. I step inside. The room is scarcely wide enough for a double bed, a chair and a small sink attached to the wall. Everything is pink, the pillows, sheets and the fresh towel lying on top. One entire wall is a mirror, reflecting the same scene so it looks like we’re sharing the room with another window.

The prostitute sips from a can of soft drink. “My name is Eve—just like the first woman.” She laughs sarcastically. “Welcome to my Garden of Eden.”

Leaning down she picks up a packet of cigarettes beneath her stool. Her breasts sway. She hasn’t bothered closing the curtain. Instead she stays by the window. I look at the bed and the chair, wondering where to sit.

Eve points to the bed. “Twenty euros, five minutes.”

Her accent is a mixture of Dutch and American. It’s another testament to the power of Hollywood which has taught generations of people in distant corners of the world to speak English.

I hand over the money. She palms it like a magician making a playing card disappear.

I hold up the photograph again. “Her name is Samira.”

“She’s one of the pregnant ones.”

I feel myself straighten. Invisible armor. Knowledge.

Eve shrugs. “Then again, I could be wrong.”

The thumbprint on her forearm is a bruise. Another on her neck is even darker.

“Where did you see her? When?”

“Sometimes I get asked to help with the new ones. To show them.”

“To show them what?”

She laughs and lights a cigarette. “What do you think? Sometimes they watch me from the chair or from the bed, depending on what the customer has paid for. Some of them like being watched. Makes it quicker.”

I’m about to ask about why she needs a chair, when I notice the strip of carpet on the floor to protect her knees.

“But you said she was pregnant. Why would you need to show her this?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m giving you the five-minute version. That’s what you paid for.”

I nod.

“I saw her the first time in January. I remember because it was so cold that day.” She motions to the sink. “Cold water only. Like ice. They brought her to watch. Her eyes were bigger than this.” The prostitute makes fists with her hands. “I thought she was going to throw up. I told her to use the sink. I knew she was never going to make it as one of us. It’s only sex. A physical act. Men come and go. They cannot touch me here or here,” she says pointing to her heart and her head. “This girl acted as though she was saving herself. Another fucking virgin!” She flicks the ash from her cigarette.

“What happened?”

“Time’s up.” She holds out her hand for more money.

“That wasn’t five minutes.”

She points to the wall behind me. “You see that clock? I lie on my back and watch it for a living. Nobody judges five minutes like Ido.”

I hand her another twenty euros. “You said she was pregnant.”

“That was the next time I saw her.” Eve mimes the bump. “She was at a doctor’s clinic in Amersfoort. She was in the waiting room with a Serbian girl. Both of them were pregnant. I figured it was a welfare scam or they were trying to stay in the country by having a baby.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. I remember being surprised because I thought she was going to be the world’s last virgin.” The cigarette is burning near her knuckles.

“I need the name and address of the clinic.”

“Dr. Beyer. You’ll find him in the book.”

She crushes the cigarette beneath a sling-back shoe. A knock on the glass catches her attention. A man outside points first to me and then to Eve.

“What’s your name?” she whispers conspiratorially.

“Alisha.”

She reaches for the door. “He wants both of us, Alisha.”

“Don’t open it!”

“Don’t be so shy. He looks clean. I have condoms.”

“I’m not a—”

“Not a whore. Not a virgin either. You can make some money. Buy some decent clothes.”

There is a small commotion outside. More men are peering through the window. I’m on my feet. I want to leave. She is still trying to convince me. “What have you got to lose?”

I want to say my self-respect.

She opens the door. I have to squeeze past her. Her fingernail runs down my cheek and the tip of her tongue moistens her bottom lip. Men crowd the passageway, where the cobbles are slick and hard. I have to shoulder my way past them, smelling their bodies, brushing against them. My foot strikes a step and I stumble. A hand reaches out to help me but I slap it away irrationally, wanting to scream abuse at him. I was right about Samira. Right about the baby. That’s why Cate faked her pregnancy and carried Samira’s photograph.

A small patch of gray sky appears above the crush. Suddenly I’m out, in a wider street, drawing deep breaths. The dark water of the canal is slashed with red and lilac. I lean over a railing and vomit, adding to the color.

My mobile vibrates. Ruiz is on the move.

“I might have found someone,” he says, puffing slightly. “I was showing Samira’s photograph around Central Station. Most people didn’t want to know but this one kid acted real strange when he saw the picture.”

“You think he knew her?”

“Maybe. He wouldn’t tell the truth if God Almighty asked him for it.”

“Where is he now?”

“He took off. I’m fifty yards behind him.”

The DI rattles off a description of a teenage boy in a khaki camouflage jacket, jeans and sneakers.

“Damn!”

“What’s up?”

“My mobile is running low. Should have charged it last night. Nobody ever bloody calls me.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well, that just goes to show you should get a life. I’ll try to give you a cross street. There’s a canal up ahead.”

“Which one?”

“They all look the same.”

I hear music in the background and a girl shouting from the windows.

“Hold on. Barndesteeg,” he says.

Standing in the ocher glow of a streetlight, I open a tourist map and run my finger down the names until I find the street grid reference. They’re not far away.

Movies and TV shows make it look easy to follow someone and not be seen, but the reality is very different. If this were a proper police tail, we’d have two cars, a motorcyclist and two, maybe three officers on foot. Every time the target turned, someone new would be behind him. We don’t have that luxury.

Crossing over Sint Jansbrug, I walk quickly along the canal. Ruiz is a block farther east, heading toward me along Stoofsteeg. The teenager is going to walk straight past me.

The pavement is crowded. I have to step left and right, brushing shoulders with passersby. The air is thick with hashish and fried-food smells.

I don’t see him until the last moment. He’s almost past me. Gaunt-cheeked, hair teased with fingers and gel, he skips from the pavement to the gutter and back again, dodging people. He’s carrying a canvas bag over his shoulder. A bottle of soft drink protrudes from the top. He looks over his shoulder. He knows he’s being followed but he’s not scared.

Ruiz has dropped back. I take over. We reach the canal and cross the bridge, almost retracing my steps. The boy walks nearer the water than the buildings. If he wants to lose a tail, why take the open side of the street?

Then it dawns on me—he’s leading Ruiz away. Someone at the station must have known Samira. He didn’t want Ruiz finding them.

The teenager stops moving and waits. I walk past him. The DI doesn’t appear. The kid thinks he’s safe but doubles back to make sure.

When he moves again he doesn’t look back. I follow him through the narrow lanes until he reaches Warmoesstraat and then Dam Square. He waits near a sculpture until a slender girl appears, dressed in jeans and a pink corduroy jacket. Her hair is short and straight, the color of tea.

He argues and gesticulates, miming with his hands. I call Ruiz on the mobile. “Where are you?”

“Behind you.”

“Was there a girl at the station in jeans and a pink jacket? Dark haired. Late teens. Pretty for now.”

“Samira?”

“No. Another girl. I think he was trying to lead you away. He didn’t want you finding her.”

They’re still arguing. The girl shakes her head. He tugs at her coat sleeve. She pulls away. He shouts something. She doesn’t turn.

“They’re splitting up,” I whisper into my mobile. “I’ll follow the girl.”

She has a curious body, a long torso and short legs, with slightly splayed feet when she walks. She takes a blue scarf from her pocket and wraps it over her head, tying it beneath her chin. It is a hijab—a head covering. She could be Muslim.

I stay close behind her, aware of the crowds and the traffic. Trams joust on tracks that divide the wider roads. Cars and bicycles weave around them. She is so small. I keep losing sight of her.

One moment she’s in front of me and the next—Where has she gone? I sprint forward, looking vainly in doorways and shop windows. I search the side streets, hoping for a glimpse of her pink jacket or the blue of her hijab.

Standing on a traffic island, I turn full circle and step forward. A bell sounds urgently. My head turns. An unseen hand wrenches me backward as a tram washes past in a blur of noise and rushing air.

The girl in the pink jacket is staring at me, her heart beating faster than mine. The smudges beneath her eyes are signs of the premature or the beaten down. She knew I was following her. She saved me.

“What’s your name?”

Her lips don’t move. She turns to leave. I have to sprint several yards to get in front of her.

“Wait! Don’t leave. Can we talk?”

She doesn’t answer. Perhaps she doesn’t understand.

“Do you speak English?” I point to myself. “My name is Alisha.”

She steps around me.

“Wait, please.”

She steps around me again. I have to dodge people as I try to walk backward and talk to her at the same time. I hold my hands together as if praying. “I’m looking for Samira.”

She doesn’t stop. I can’t make her talk to me.

Suddenly, she enters a building, pushing through a heavy door. I don’t see her use a key or press a buzzer. Inside smells of soup and electric warmth. A second door reveals a large stark room full of tables and scraping chairs. People are sitting and eating. A nun in a black tunic fills bowls of soup from a trolley. A bikie type with a long beard hands out plates and spoons. Someone else distributes bread rolls.

An old man at the nearest table leans low over his food, dipping chunks of bread into the steaming mixture. He crooks his right arm around the bowl as though protecting it. Beside him a tall figure in a woolen cap is trying to sleep with his head on the table. There must be thirty people in the dining room, most with ragtag clothes, body tics and empty stomachs.

“Wou je iets om te eten?”

I turn to the voice.

In English this time: “Would you like something to eat?”

The question belongs to an elderly nun with a narrow face and playful eyes. Her black tunic is trimmed with green and her white hair sweeps back from her brow until it disappears beneath a wimple.

“No, thank you.”

“There is plenty. It is good soup. I made it myself.”

A work apron, the width of her shoulders, reaches down to her ankles. She is collecting plates from the tables, stacking them along her arm. Meanwhile, the girl has lined up metal tins in front of the soup pot.

“What is this place?”

“We are Augustinians. I am Sister Vogel.”

She must be in her eighties. The other nuns are of similar vintage although not quite so shrunken. She is tiny, scarcely five feet tall, with a voice like gravel spinning in a drum.

“Are you sure you won’t eat?”

“No. Thank you.” I don’t take my eyes off the girl.

The nun steps in front of me. “What do you want with her?”

“Just to talk.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why?”

“She will not hear you.”

“No, you don’t understand. If I can just speak—”

“She cannot hear you.” Her voice softens. “She is one of God’s special children.”

I finally understand. It’s not about language or desire. The girl is deaf.

The soup tins have been filled. The girl screws a lid on each tin and places them in a shoulder bag. She raises the strap over her head, adjusting it across her chest. She unfolds a paper napkin and wraps two pieces of bread. A third piece she takes with her, nibbling at the edges.

“Do you know her name?” I ask.

“No. She comes three times a week and collects food.”

“Where does she live?”

Sister Vogel isn’t going to volunteer the information. There is only one voice she obeys—a higher authority.

“She’s done nothing wrong,” I reassure her.

“Why do you wish to speak with her?”

“I’m looking for someone. It’s very important.”

Sister Vogel puts down the soup dishes and wipes her hands on her apron. Rather than walking across the room she appears to float a fraction above the wooden floorboards in her long tunic. I feel leaden-footed alongside her.

She steps in front of the girl and taps the palm of her hand before making shapes with her fingers.

“You can sign!” I say.

“I know some of the letters. What do you wish to ask?”

“Her name.”

They sign to each other.

“Zala.”

“Where is she from?”

“Afghanistan.”

I take the photograph from my pocket. Sister Vogel takes it from me. The reaction is immediate. Zala shakes her head adamantly. Fearfully. She won’t look at the image again.

Sister Vogel tries to calm her down. Her voice is soft. Her hands softer. Zala continues to shake her head, without ever lifting her gaze from the floor.

“Ask her if she knows Samira.”

Sister Vogel tries to sign but Zala is backing away.

“I need to know where Samira is.”

The nun shakes her head, scolding me. “We don’t frighten people away from here.”

Zala is already at the door. She can’t run with the soup weighing her down. As I move to follow her, Sister Vogel grabs my arm. “Please, leave her alone.”

I look at her imploringly. “I can’t.”

Zala is on the street. She looks back over her shoulder. Her cheeks are shining under the streetlamps. She’s crying. Hair has escaped from beneath her hijab. She cannot spare a hand to brush it away from her face.

The DI isn’t answering his mobile. His battery must be dead. Dropping back, I stay behind Zala as she leads me away from the convent. The streets and canals are no longer familiar. They are lined with aging, psoriatic houses, subdivided into bedsits, flats and maisonettes. Doorbell pushers form neat lines.

We pass a small row of shops that are shuttered and locked. At the next corner Zala crosses the road and enters a gate. It belongs to a large, rundown apartment block at the heart of a T junction. The shrubs outside are like puffs of green against the darkness of the bricks. There are bars on the downstairs windows and shutters on the upper floors. Lights burn behind them.

I walk past the gate and check there are no other entrances. I wish Ruiz were here. What would he do? Knock on the door? Introduce himself? No, he’d wait and watch. He’d see who was coming and going. Study the rhythm of the place.

I look at my watch. It has just gone eight. Where is he? With luck, he’ll get my text message with the address.

The wind has picked up. Leaves dance with scraps of paper at my feet. Hidden in a doorway, I’m protected by the shadows.

I don’t have the patience for stakeouts. Ruiz is good at them. He can block everything out and stay focused, without ever daydreaming or getting distracted. When I stare at the same scene for too long it becomes burned into my subconscious, playing over and over on a loop until I don’t register the changes. That’s why police surveillance teams are rotated every few hours. Fresh eyes.

A car pulls up. Double-parks. A man enters the building. Five minutes later he emerges with three women. Neatly groomed. Dressed to kill. Ruiz would say it smells like sex.

Two different men stop outside to smoke. They sit on the steps with their legs splayed, comfortable. A young boy creeps up behind one of them and covers his eyes playfully. Father and son wrestle happily until the youngster is sent back inside. They look like immigrants. It’s the sort of place Samira would go, seeking safety in numbers.

I can’t stay here all night. And I can’t afford to leave and risk losing my link to her. It’s almost nine. Where the hell is Ruiz?

The men on the steps look up as I approach.

“Samira Khan?”

One of them tosses his head, indicating upstairs. I step around them. The door is open. The foyer smells of cooking spices and a thousand extinguished cigarettes.

Three children are playing at the base of the stairs. One of them grabs hold of my leg and tries to hide behind me before dashing off again. I climb to the first landing. Empty gas bottles have collected against the walls beside bags of rubbish. A baby cries. Children argue. Canned laughter escapes through thin walls.

Two teenage girls are sitting outside a flat, heads together, swapping secrets.

“I’m looking for Samira.”

One of them points upstairs.

I climb higher, moving from landing to landing, aware of the crumbling plaster and buckling linoleum. Laundry hangs over banisters and somewhere a toilet has overflowed.

I reach the top landing. A bathroom door is open at the far end of the corridor. Zala appears in the space. A bucket of water tilts her shoulders. In the dimness of the corridor I notice another open door. She wants to reach it before I do. The bucket falls. Water spills at her feet.

Against all my training I rush into a strange room. A dark-haired girl sits on a high-backed sofa. She is young. Familiar. Even dressed in a baggy jumper and peasant skirt she is obviously pregnant. Her shoulders pull forward as if embarrassed by her breasts.

Zala pushes past me, putting her body between us. Samira is standing now, resting a hand on the deaf girl’s shoulder. Her eyes travel over me, as though putting me in context.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

In textbook English: “You must leave here. It is not safe.”

“My name is Alisha Barba.”

Her eyes bloom. She knows my name.

“Please leave. Go now.”

“Tell me how you know me?”

She doesn’t answer. Her right hand moves to her distended abdomen. She caresses it gently and sways slightly from side to side as if rocking her passenger to sleep. The motion seems to take the fight out of her.

She signs for Zala to lock the door and pushes her toward the kitchen where speckled linoleum is worn smooth on the floor and a shelf holds jars of spices and a sack of rice. The soup canisters are washed and drying beside the sink.

I glance around the rest of the apartment. The room is large and square. Cracks edge across the high ceiling and leaking water has blistered the plaster. Mattresses are propped against the wall, with blankets neatly folded along the top. A wardrobe has a metal hanger holding the doors shut.

There is a suitcase, a wooden trunk, and on the top a photograph in a frame. It shows a family in a formal pose. The mother is seated holding a baby. The father is standing behind them, a hand on his wife’s shoulder. At her feet is a small girl—Samira—holding the hem of her mother’s dress.

I turn back to her. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Please go.”

I glance at the swell of her pregnancy. “When are you due?”

“Soon.”

“What are you going to do with the baby?”

She holds up two fingers. For a moment I think she’s signing something to Zala but this has nothing to do with deafness. The message is for me. Two babies! Twins.

“A boy and a girl,” she says, clasping her hands together, beseeching me. “Please go. You cannot be here.”

Hair prickles on the nape of my neck. Why is she so terrified?

“Tell me about the babies, Samira. Are you going to keep them?”

She shakes her head.

“Who is the father?”

“Allah the Redeemer.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I am a virgin.”

“You’re pregnant, Samira. You understand how that happens.”

She confronts my skepticism defiantly. “I have never lain down with a man. I am a virgin.”

What fantasies are these? It’s ridiculous. Yet her certainty has the conviction of a convert.

“Who put the babies inside you, Samira?”

“Allah.”

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

“How did he do it?”

“The doctors helped him. They put the eggs inside me.”

She’s talking about IVF. The embryos were implanted. That’s why she’s having twins.

“Whose eggs were put inside you?”

Samira raises her eyes to the question. I know the answer already. Cate had twelve viable embryos. According to Dr. Banerjee there were five IVF procedures using two eggs per treatment. That leaves two eggs unaccounted for. Cate must have carried them to Amsterdam. She arranged a surrogacy.

That’s why she had to fake her pregnancy. She was going to give Felix his own child—a perfect genetic match that nobody could prove wasn’t theirs.

“Please leave,” says Samira. Tears are close.

“Why are you so frightened?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Just tell me why you’re doing this.”

She pushes back her hair with her thumb and forefinger. Her wide eyes hold mine until the precise moment that it becomes uncomfortable. She is strong-willed. Defiant.

“Did someone pay you money? How much? Did Cate pay you?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead she turns her face away, gazing at the window, a dark square against a dark wall.

“Is that how you know my name? Cate gave it to you. She said that if anything happened, if anything went wrong, you had to contact me. Is that right?”

She nods.

“I need to know why you’re doing this. What did they offer you?”

“Freedom.”

“From what?”

She looks at me as though I’ll never understand. “Slavery.”

I kneel down, taking her hand, which is surprisingly cool. There is a speck of sleep in the corner of her eye. “I need you to tell me exactly what happened. What were you told? What were you promised?”

There is a noise from the corridor. Zala reappears. Terror paints her face and her head swings from side to side, looking for somewhere to hide.

Samira motions for her to stay in the kitchen and turns to face the door. Waiting. A brittle scratching. A key in the lock. My nerve ends are twitching.

The door opens. A thin man with pink-rimmed eyes and bad teeth seems to spasm at the sight of me. His right hand reaches into a zipped nylon jacket.

“Wie bent u?” he barks.

I think he’s asking who I am.

“I’m a nurse,” I say.

He looks at Samira. She nods.

“Dr. Beyer asked me to drop by and check on Samira on my way home. I live not far from here.”

The thin man makes a sucking sound with his tongue and his eyes dart about the room as though accusing the walls of being part of the deceit. He doesn’t believe me, but he’s not sure.

Samira turns toward me. “I have been having cramps. They keep me awake at night.”

“You are not a nurse,” he says accusingly. “You don’t speak Dutch!”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. English is the official language of the European Union.” I use my best Mary Poppins voice. Officious. Matter-of-fact. I don’t know how far I can push him.

“Where do you live?”

“Like I said, it’s just around the corner.”

“The address?”

I remember a cross street. “If you don’t mind I have an examination to conduct.”

He screws his mouth into a sneer. Something about his defiance hints at hidden depths of brutality. Whatever his relationship to Samira or Zala, he terrifies them. Samira mentioned slavery. Hassan had a property tattoo on his wrist. I don’t have all the answers but I have to get them away from here.

The thin man barks a question in Dutch.

Samira nods her head, lowering her eyes.

“Lieg niet tegen me, kutwijf. Ik vermoord je.”

His right hand is still in his jacket. Lithe and sinewy like a marathon runner, he weighs perhaps 180 pounds. With the element of surprise I could possibly take him.

“Please leave the room,” I tell him.

“No. I stay here.”

Zala is watching from the kitchen. I motion her toward me and then unfold a blanket, making her hold it like a curtain to give Samira some privacy.

Samira lies back on the couch and lifts her jumper, bunching it beneath her breasts. My hands are damp. Her thighs are smooth and a taut triangle of white cotton lies at the top of them. The skin of her swollen belly is like tracing paper, stretched so tightly I can see the faint blue veins beneath the surface.

The babies move. Her entire torso seems to ripple. An elbow or a knee creates a peak and then slips away. I can feel the outline of tiny bodies beneath her skin, hard little skulls and joints.

She lifts her knees and raises her hips, indicating I should remove her underwear. She has more of an idea of what to do than I have. Her minder is still at the door. Samira fixes him with a defiant glare as if to say: You want to see this?

He can’t hold her gaze. Instead he turns away and walks into the kitchen, lighting a cigarette.

“You lie so easily,” Samira whispers.

“So do you.”

“Who is he?”

“Yanus. He looks after us.”

I look around the room. “He’s not doing such a good job.”

“He brings food.”

Yanus is back at the doorway.

“Well the babies are in good position,” I say loudly. “They’re moving down. The cramps could be Braxton Hicks, which are like phantom contractions. Your blood pressure is a little higher than it has been.”

I don’t know where this information is coming from; some of it must be via verbal osmosis, having heard my mother’s graphic descriptions of my nieces and nephews arriving in the world. I know far more than I want to about mucus plugs, fundal measurements and crowning. In addition to this, I am a world authority on pain relief—epidurals, pethidine, Entonox, TENS machines and every homeopathic, mind-controlling family remedy in existence.

Yanus turns away again. I hear him punch keys on his mobile phone. He’s calling someone. Taking advice. Time is running out.

“You met a friend of mine. Cate Beaumont. Do you remember her?”

Samira nods.

“Do your babies belong to her?”

The same nod.

“Cate died last Sunday. She was run down and killed. Her husband is also dead.”

Samira doubles over as though her unborn have understood the news and are grieving already. Her eyes flood with a mixture of disbelief and knowing.

“I can help you,” I plead.

“Nobody can help me.”

Yanus is in the doorway. He reaches into his jacket again. I can see his shadow lengthening on the floor. I turn to face him. He has a can of beans in his fist. He swings it, a short arc from the hip. I sense it coming but have no time to react. The blow sends me spinning across the room. One side of my head is on fire.

Samira screams. Not so much a scream as a strangled cry.

Yanus is coming for me again. I can taste blood. One side of my face is already beginning to swell. He hits me, using the can like a hammer. A knife flashes in his right hand.

His eyes are fixed on mine with ecstatic intensity. This is his calling—inflicting pain. The blade twirls in front of me doing figure eights. I was supposed to take him by surprise. The opposite happened. I underestimated him.

Another blow connects. Metal on bone. The room begins to blur.

Some things, real things, seem to happen half in the mind and half in the world; trapped in between. The mind sees them first, like now—a boot swings toward me. I glimpse Zala hanging back. She wants to look away but can’t drag her gaze from me. The boot connects and I see a blaze of color.

Fishing roughly in my pockets, Yanus takes out my mobile, my passport, a bundle of Euros…

“Who are you?”

“I’m a nurse.”

“Leugenaar!”

He holds the knife against my neck. The point pricks my skin. A ruby teardrop is caught on the tip of the blade.

Zala moves toward him. I yell at her to stop. She can’t hear me. Yanus swats her away, with the can of beans. Zala drops and holds her face. He curses. I hope he broke his fingers.

My left eye is closing and blood drips from my ear, warming my neck. He forces me upright, pulling my arms back and looping plastic cuffs around my wrists. The ratchets pull them tighter, pinching my skin.

He opens my passport. Reads the name.

“Politieagent! How did you find this place?” He spits toward Zala. “She led you here.”

“If you leave us alone I won’t say anything. You can walk out of here.”

Yanus finds this amusing. The point of his knife traces across my eyebrow.

“My partner knows I’m here. He’s coming. He’ll bring others. If you leave now you can get away.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Samira.”

He speaks to Samira in Dutch. She begins gathering her things. A few clothes, the photograph of her family…

“Wait for me outside,” he tells her.

“Zala.”

“Outside.”

“Zala,” she says again, more determined.

He waves the knife in her face. She doesn’t flinch. She is like a statue. Immovable. She’s not leaving without her friend.

The door suddenly blasts inward as if blown from its hinges. Ruiz fills the frame. Sometimes I forget how big he can make himself.

Yanus barely flinches. He turns, knife first. Here is a fresh challenge. The night holds such promise for him. Ruiz takes in the scene and settles on Yanus, matching his intensity.

But I can see the future. Yanus is going to take Ruiz apart. Kill him slowly. The knife is like an extension of him, a conductor’s baton directing an invisible orchestra. Listening to voices.

The DI has something in his hand. A half brick. It’s not enough. Yanus braces his legs apart and raises a hand, curling a finger to motion him onward.

Ruiz swings his fist, creating a disturbance in the air. Yanus feints to the left. The half brick comes down and misses. Yanus grins. “You’re too slow, old man.”

The blade is alive. I scarcely see it move. A dark stain blossoms on Ruiz’s shirtsleeve, but he continues stepping forward, forcing Yanus to retreat.

“Can you walk, Alisha?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get up and get out.”

“Not without you, sir.”

“Please, for once in your life—”

“I’ll kill you both,” says Yanus.

My hands are bound behind me. I can’t do anything. The acid sting of nausea rises in my throat. Samira goes ahead of me, stepping into the corridor. Zala follows, still holding her cheek. Yanus yells to her in Dutch, threateningly. He lunges at Ruiz who dodges the blade. I turn outside the door and run toward the stairs, waiting for the sound of a body falling.

On every landing I shoulder the locked doors, banging my head against them and yelling for help. I want someone to untie my hands, to call the police, to give me a weapon. Nobody answers. Nobody wants to know.

We reach the ground floor and the street, turning right and heading for the canal. Samira and Zala are ahead of me. What a strange trio we make hustling through the darkness. We reach the corner. I turn to Samira. “I have to help him.” She understands. “I want you to go straight to the police.”

She shakes her head. “They’ll send me back.”

I haven’t time to argue. “Then go to the nuns. Quickly. Zala knows the way.”

I can feel the adrenaline still pumping through my body. Running now, aware of the void in my stomach, I sprint toward the house. There are people milling outside. They’re surrounding a figure slumped on the steps. Ruiz. Someone has given him a cigarette. He sucks it greedily, drawing in his cheeks and then exhaling slowly.

Relief flows through me like liquid beneath my skin. I don’t know whether to weep or laugh or do both. Blood soaks his shirt. A fist is pressed against his chest.

“I think maybe you should take me to a hospital,” he says, struggling to breathe.

Like a crazy woman, I begin yelling at people to call an ambulance. A teenager summons the courage to tell me there’s one coming.

“I had to get close,” Ruiz explains in a hoarse whisper. His brow and upper lip are dotted with beads of sweat. “I had to let him stab me. If he could reach me I could reach him.”

“Don’t talk. Just be still.”

“I hope I killed the bastard.”

More people emerge from the flats. They want to come and see the bleeding man. Someone cuts away my cuffs and the plastic curls like orange peel at my feet.

Ruiz gazes at the night sky above the rooftops.

“My ex-wives have been wishing this on me for a long while,” he says.

“That’s not true. Miranda is still in love with you.”

“How do you know?”

“I can see it. She flirts with you all the time.”

“She can’t help herself. She flirts with everyone. She does it to be nice.”

His breathing is labored. Blood gurgles in his lungs.

“Wanna hear a joke?” he says.

“Don’t talk. Sit quietly.”

“It’s an old one. I like the old ones. It’s about a bear. I like bears. Bears can be funny.”

He’s not going to stop.

“There’s this family of polar bears living in the Arctic in the middle of winter. The baby polar bear goes to his mother one day and says, ‘Mum? Am I really a polar bear?’

“‘Of course you are, son,’ she says.

“And the cub replies, ‘Are you sure I’m not a panda bear or a black bear?’

“‘No, you’re definitely not. Now run outside and play in the snow.’

“But he’s still confused so the baby polar bear goes looking for his father and finds him fishing at the ice hole. ‘Hey, Dad, am I a polar bear?’

“‘Well, of course, son,’ he replies gruffly.

“‘Are you sure I don’t have any grizzly in me or maybe koala?’

“‘No, son, I can tell you now that you’re a hundred percent purebred polar bear, just like me and your mother. Why in the world do you ask?’

“‘Because I’m freezing my butt off out here!’”

The DI laughs and groans at the same time. I put my arms around his chest, trying to keep him warm. A mantra, unspoken, grows louder in my head: “Please don’t die. Please don’t die. Please don’t die.”

This is my fault. He shouldn’t be here. There’s so much blood.