The Night Ferry

2

The funerals are at two o’clock. I am dressed in a black vest, black jacket, black trousers and black shoes. The only splash of color is my lipstick.

Samira uses the bathroom after me. It’s hard to believe that she’s just given birth. There are stretch marks across her belly but elsewhere her skin is flawless. Occasionally, I notice a tic or twitch of pain when she moves, but nothing else betrays her discomfort.

She is laying out her clothes on the bed, taking care not to crease her blouse.

“You don’t have to come,” I tell her, but she has already decided. She met Cate only twice. They spoke through Yanus in stilted sentences rather than having a proper conversation. Yet they shared a bond like no other. Unborn twins.

We sit side by side in the cab. She is tense, restless, as if at any moment she might unfurl a set of hidden wings and take flight. In the distance a chimney belches a column of white smoke like a steam train going nowhere.

“The police are going to find the twins,” I announce, as if we’re deep in conversation.

She doesn’t answer.

I try again. “You do want to find them?”

“My debt is paid,” she whispers, chewing at her lower lip.

“You owe these people nothing.”

Again she doesn’t answer. How can I make her understand? Without warning she offers an answer, placing her words in careful sentences.

“I have tried not to love them. I thought it would be easier to give them up if I did not love them. I have even tried to blame them for what happened to Hassan and Zala. This is unfair, yes? What else can I do? My breasts leak for them. I hear them crying in my dreams. I want the sound to stop.”

Twin hearses are parked outside the chapel at the West London Crematorium. A carpet of artificial grass leads to a ramp where a small black sign with movable white letters spells out Felix and Cate’s names.

Samira walks with surprising grace along the gravel path—not an easy thing to do. She pauses to look at the marble and stone crypts. Gardeners lean on their shovels and watch her. She seems almost alien. Otherworldly.

Barnaby Elliot is welcoming people and accepting condolences. Ruth Elliot is next to him in her wheelchair, dressed in mourning clothes that make her skin seem bloodless and brittle.

She sees me first. Her mouth twists around my name. Barnaby turns and walks toward me. He kisses me on each cheek and I smell the sharp alcohol scent of his aftershave.

“Who did you see in Amsterdam?” he asks.

“A detective. Why did you lie about Cate’s computer?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he raises his eyes to the trees, some of which are clinging to the yellow-and-gold remnants of autumn.

“I feel you should know that I have instructed a lawyer to gain custody of the twins. I want both of them.”

I look at him incredulously.

“What about Samira?”

“They’re our grandchildren. They belong with us.”

“Not according to the law.”

“The law is an ass.”

I glance across at Samira, who is hanging back, perhaps sensing trouble. Barnaby shows no such discretion. “Does she even want them?” he says, too loudly.

I have to unclench my jaw to speak. “You stay away from her.”

“Listen to me—”

“No! You listen! She has been through enough. She has lost everything.”

Glaring at me with a sudden crazed energy, he lashes out at a hedge with his fist. His coat sleeve snags and he jerks it violently, tearing the fabric, which billows and flaps. Just as quickly he regains his composure. It’s like watching a deep-breathing exercise for anger management. Reaching into his pocket, he takes out a business card.

“The trustee of Felix and Cate’s will is having a meeting in chambers at Gray’s Inn on Monday afternoon at three. He wants you there.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. This is the address.”

I take the card and watch Barnaby return to his wife. Reaching for his hand, she cocks her head into his palm, holding it against her cheek. I have never seen them share a moment—not like this. Maybe it takes one tragedy to mend another.

The chapel is softly lit with red lights flickering behind glass. Flowers cover the coffins and spill out down the center aisle almost to Ruth Elliot’s wheelchair. Barnaby is beside her, alongside Jarrod. All three of them are holding hands, as if steeling one another.

I recognize other family and friends. The only person missing is Yvonne. Perhaps she didn’t think she could cope with a day like this. It must be like losing a daughter.

On the other side of the church are Felix’s family, who look far more Polish than Felix ever did. The women are short and square, with veils on their heads and rosary beads in their fingers.

The funeral director is holding his top hat across his folded arm. His son, dressed identically, mimics his pose, although I notice a wad of chewing gum behind his ear.

A hymn strikes up, “Come Let Us Join Our Friends Above,” which is not really Cate’s cup of tea. Then again, it must be hard to find something appropriate for a person who once pledged her undying love to a photograph of Kurt Cobain.

Reading from the Bible, Reverend Lunn intones something about the Resurrection and how we’re all going to rise together on the same day and live as God’s children. At the same time, he rubs a finger along the edge of Cate’s coffin as if admiring the workmanship.

“Love and pain are not the same,” he says, “but sometimes it feels like they should be. Love is put to the test every day. Pain is not. Yet the two of them are inseparable because true love cannot bear separation.”

His voice sounds far away. I have been in a state of suspended mourning for Cate for the past eight years. Trivial, sentimental, everyday sounds and smells bring back memories—lost causes, jazz shoes, cola slushies, Simply Red songs, a teenager singing into a hairbrush, purple eye shadow…These things make me want to smile or swell painfully in my chest. There it is again—love and pain.

I don’t see the coffins disappear. During the final hymn I slip outside, needing fresh air. On the far side of the parking lot, in the shadows of an arch, I see a familiar silhouette, waiting, tranquil. He’s wearing an overcoat and red muffler. Donavon.

Samira is walking through the rose garden at the side of the chapel. She is going to see him when she clears the corner.

Instinctively, I close the gap. Any witness would say that my body language borders on violence. I grab Donavon’s arm, twisting it behind his back, before shoving him against a wall, pressing his face to the bricks.

“Where are they? What have you done with them?”

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

I want him to struggle. I want to hurt him. Samira is behind me, hanging back.

“Do you know this man?”

“No.”

“The Englishman you met at the orphanage. You said he had a cross on his neck.” I pull aside Donavon’s muffler, revealing his tattoo.

She shakes her head. “A gold cross. Here.” She traces the outline on her collar.

Donavon laughs. “Wonderful detective work, yindoo.”

I want to hit him.

“You were in Afghanistan.”

“Serving Queen and country.”

“Spare me the patriotic who-dares-wins crap. You lied to me. You saw Cate before the reunion.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

I let him go and he turns, blinking slowly, his pale eyes a little more bloodshot than I remember. Mourners are leaving the chapel. He glances at the crowd with a mixture of embarrassment and concern. “Not here. Let’s talk somewhere else.”

I let him lead the way. Leaving the cemetery, we walk east along the Harrow Road, which is choked with traffic and a conga line of buses. Sneaking sidelong glances at Donavon, I watch how he regards Samira. He doesn’t seem to recognize her. Instead he keeps his eyes lowered in a penitent’s demeanor, framing answers to the questions that he knows are coming. More lies.

We choose a café with stools at the window and tables inside. Donavon glances at the menu, buying time. Samira slips off her chair and kneels at the magazine rack, turning the pages quickly, as though expecting someone to stop her.

“The magazines are free to read,” I explain. “You’re allowed to look at them.”

Donavon twists the skin on his wrist, leaving a white weal. Blood rushes back to the slackened skin.

“I met Cate again three years ago,” he announces. “It was just before my first tour of Afghanistan. It took me a while to find her. I didn’t know her married name.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see her.”

I wait for something more. He changes the subject. “Have you ever been skydiving?”

“No.”

“What a rush. There’s no feeling like it—standing in the doorway of a plane at 10,000 feet, heart pounding, charged up. Take that last big step and the slipstream sucks you away. Falling—only it doesn’t feel like falling at all. It’s flying. Air presses hollows in your cheeks and screams past your ears. I’ve jumped high altitude, low opening, with oxygen from 25,000 feet. I swear I could open my arms and embrace the entire planet.”

His eyes are shining. I don’t know why he’s telling me this but I let him continue.

“The best thing that ever happened to me was getting booted out of school and joining the Paras. Up until then I was drifting. Angry. I didn’t have any ambition. It changed my life.

“I got a little girl now. She’s three. Her mother doesn’t live with me anymore, they’re in Scotland, but I send ’em money every month and presents on her birthday and at Christmas. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m a different person.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to understand. You think I’m a thug and a bully but I changed. What I did to Cate was unforgivable but she forgave me. That’s why I went looking for her. I wanted to find out how things turned out for her. I didn’t want to think I screwed up her life because of what I did to her.”

I don’t want to believe him. I want to keep hating him because that’s the world according to me. My recorded history.

“Why would Cate agree to see you?”

“She was curious I guess.”

“Where did you meet?”

“We had a coffee in Soho.”

“And?”

“We talked. I said I was sorry. She said it was OK. I wrote her a few letters from Afghanistan. Whenever I was home on leave we used to get together for lunch or a coffee.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Like I said, you wouldn’t understand.”

It’s not a good enough reason. How could Cate forgive Donavon before she forgave me?

“What do you know about the New Life Adoption Center?”

“Cate took me there. She knew Carla couldn’t decide what to do about the baby.”

“How did Cate know about the adoption center?”

He shrugs. “Her fertility specialist is on the adoption panel.”

“Dr. Banerjee. Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Julian Shawcroft and Dr. Banerjee know each other. More lies.

“Did Cate tell you why she went to Amsterdam?”

“She said she was going to have another round of IVF.”

I glance toward Samira. “She paid for a surrogate.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There are twins.”

Donavon looks dumbfounded. Speechless.

“Where?”

“They’re missing.”

I can see the knowledge register in his mind and match up with other details. News of the twins is already on the radio and in the early editions of the Evening Standard. I have shaken him more than I thought possible.

“What Cate did was illegal,” I explain. “She was going to blow the whistle. That’s why she wanted to talk to me.”

Donavon has regained a semblance of composure. “Is that why they killed her?”

“Yes. Cate didn’t accidentally find Samira. Someone put them together. I’m looking for a man called “Brother”—an Englishman, who came to Samira’s orphanage in Kabul.”

“Julian Shawcroft has been to Afghanistan.”

“How do you know?”

“It came up in conversation. He was asking where I served.”

I flip open my mobile and punch the speed dial. “New Boy” Dave answers on the second ring. I haven’t talked to him since Amsterdam. He hasn’t called. I haven’t called. Inertia. Fear.

“Hello, sweet boy.”

He sounds hesitant. I don’t have time to ask why.

“When you did the background check on Julian Shawcroft, what did you find?”

“He used to be executive director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Manchester.”

“Before that.”

“He studied theology at Oxford and then joined some sort of religious order.”

“A religious order?”

“He became a Catholic brother.”

There’s the link! Cate, Banerjee, Shawcroft and Samira—I can tie them together.

Dave is no longer on the phone. I can’t remember saying goodbye.

Donavon has been talking to me, asking questions. I haven’t been listening.

“Did they look like Cate?” he asks.

“Who?”

“The twins.”

I don’t know how to answer. I’m not good at describing newborn babies. They all look like Winston Churchill. Why should he care?