Hope to Die

‘You’ve spoken to Customs?’

He nods. ‘They didn’t pick up anything at the Border, but apparently outgoing freight isn’t routinely searched, not unless there’s intelligence and that’s pretty much always about contraband or drugs, not people. I mean, it’s not the Channel, is it, plus it’s going the wrong bloody way.’

‘But we can get Dutch Police to pick it up the other end? When do the boats dock?’

‘First one gets in at four thirty our time, so don’t worry – we’re on it.’

‘Bloody well done, Gis. That was great work. The whole team’s pulled a blinder on this.’

‘Thanks, boss.’

He heads for the door, then turns suddenly, his face troubled now. ‘But what if all this is just another diversion? Rowan sends us careering off across the North Sea like the Keystone Cops and all the while she’s just quietly changed cars and headed off God-knows-where in a pair of sunnies and a pink wig?’

I smile, despite myself. ‘They don’t call her the chameleon girl for nothing. But she’d need to get that new car from somewhere, wouldn’t she, and we haven’t found any record of Sullivan getting her one.’

He considers. ‘She could have just rolled up and asked for a rental?’

‘True, but she’d need documentation, which seriously ups the chances of getting caught. And in any case, remember what my old governor used to say about the simplest possible explanation?’

He smiles. ‘Osbourne’s Razor.’

‘Right, so let’s rule these crossings out first before we go looking for any more trouble.’

As soon as the door closes I reach for my phone. It’s a bloody antisocial time to call anyone, but I don’t have much choice.

‘DI O’Neill? Adam Fawley. Sorry if I woke you. I need you to check something for me. Got a pen? Yes, it’s about Andrea Sullivan. Can you see if she has any links to the haulage industry? Brother, father, mate, anything.’ A pause. ‘In one – we think she could be on a lorry.’

* * *

It’s pretty basic, as accommodation goes, but after all those years inside, one-star counts as deluxe, and a three-foot divan feels like queen size. She tosses her bags on the floor and flings herself down on the bed, feeling her shoulders start to relax. There’s a stain on the ceiling, and a vague smell of diesel, and a throbbing sound from somewhere nearby, but she doesn’t care. It’s her own space, for as long as she’s here. Hers alone. There’s even a bathroom en suite, Sullivan made sure of that. She sighs at the thought of a proper bath, all to herself, that she can stay in all night if she chooses. And with that special bath oil Sullivan gave her –

A knock at the door. She sits up, feeling her heart rate go into long-learnt overdrive. Stop it, she thinks, it’ll be nothing. Just some routine check or shit like that.

She slides to the edge of the bed and gets to her feet. Another knock, more insistent. The sound of someone just beyond the door.

She moves as quietly as she can to the door, and slips the chain on. Then she takes a deep breath and opens it a crack.

She’s never seen this person before, but she’s seen pictures; she knows who they are.

A raised eyebrow, a half-smile.

‘I think you’re expecting me?’

* * *

Adam Fawley

30 October

02.47

I was going to go in the spare room, but when I get home there’s a light on in the nursery. Alex is sitting in the old chair her mother gave her when she was pregnant with Jake, Lily nursing quietly in her arms, the lamp on the table throwing gentle golden shadows.

I stop in the doorway and just stand there, watching. She looks up and beckons me over, but I shake my head; I don’t want to break the moment. ‘You look like a Vermeer.’

She smiles. ‘Wonderful what soft lighting can do,’ she whispers.

‘How is she?’

‘Fine, the health visitor came today and was really pleased with her.’ She looks down at her daughter and reaches a hand to touch her cheek. Lily gazes up at her, her eyes huge in the half-dark. I remember reading a description once of what newborn babies can see. Not in one of those childcare manuals, it was a novel. Something about how eyes unfocused and washed with newness see the world only as a kaleidoscope of colour and shape, but can still recognize, from a sense even deeper than sight, the warm glow of their mother’s face and the halo of her hair.

And then I remember Noah. The first Noah, who would have been twenty-one now, who barely got to see his mother except through the glass wall of an incubator; and the second, whose last sight of the woman who bore him was as the suffocating black plastic closed over his face.

* * *

‘There’s a bed, and a telly, though obviously keep that off until we’re through. Some people find it claustrophobic in there with the partition shut, but it’s never bothered me. Figure you’ll probably be the same, eh?’

It’s a fair assumption about anyone who’s been inside. As Rock evidently has. Rowan didn’t need to see the tatts to know that.