The Ferry (6 page)

“Are you okay?” I shout, barely able to hear my own voice over the sound of the helicopter hovering just a little way above us. “Are you hurt?”

No reply. The figure simply stares at me, as if he doesn’t understand a word I said. Thin, torn scraps of clothing on his body are being rippled and whipped up by the wind, and in the morning’s cold light I can’t help but notice that his remaining skin seems decidedly off-color, with a faint, yellowish tinge. I drop to my knees next to him and look for any sign of an injury, but there’s no blood and a brief visual check shows no sign of broken bones or even any lacerations. When I try to find his pulse, he instinctively pulls back, but not before I’ve felt his ice-cold skin. If this guy has been washed away from the wrecked ferry and has made it to shore without any serious injuries, it’s the biggest miracle I’ve ever encountered in my life.

“Do you understand me?” I ask, as he continues to stare at me. “Do you have any pain anywhere?”

Again, no reply.

Grabbing my radio, I hit the button on the side. “I’ve got a survivor!” I shout, as the helicopter comes lower and the sound of the rotor fills my ears. “I need help here! I need a doctor!”

***

“We’re checking him over now,” says Dan Farrah a short while later, as we head to the medical trailer. “I spoke to David Carter a few minutes ago and he said there’s no sign of pressing injury so far, but he’s still conducting his exam. We’re waiting for a proper medical team to get here, should be an hour or two at most.”

“He can’t be completely unhurt,” I reply. “The ferry was more than four miles out when it broke apart and the waves were twenty feet high in places, they were dashing him against the rocks. There’s no way this guy made it to shore in one piece.”

“I’m just telling you what I know,” Farrah says, stopping at the door and knocking twice. “We can’t treat a patient for the injuries he
should
have, only for the ones we can find. He’s lost some skin, but the wound isn’t open. Somehow the skin has grown around the spaces. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, it’s almost like…”

I wait for him to continue. “Like what?”

“Carter nearly bit my head off for saying this,” he replies, “but… I swear the flesh seems dead in places.”

Before I can ask what he means, the door opens and I look up to see a stern-faced, angry man glaring down at me.

“So you’re the idiot who went scrambling over the rocks, huh?” Stratton asks. “Well done, you broke fifteen separate rules and you almost got yourself killed in the process. Do you realize how many reports I’m going to have to file when this is over, explaining how to tighten our procedures?”

“Hi,” I reply, “my -”

“And that’s not even counting the fact that you went out with Phillips and Sinclair in a helicopter without express permission. Were the three of you not aware that all flights were grounded at that point? Do you even have ADAC clearance?”

“My name -”

“I know your name,” he mutters, clearly annoyed. “You probably don’t know mine, though. David Statton, I’m in charge around here.” He reaches out to shake my hand. “Do you realize what that means? It means that from now on, you don’t do, say or even
think
anything without my express permission. You’re lucky I haven’t already had you thrown out, but I’ve been advised that you’re actually useful in a crisis and that you might know something about this ferry. You’re getting the benefit of the doubt for now.”

“What do you know so far?” I ask.

“Come and see for yourself,” he replies, stepping back as I climb up into the trailer. “I don’t suppose you know anything about obscure African and Middle Eastern languages, do you?”

Looking along the trailer’s interior, I see that the rescued survivor is sitting on a stool at the far end, while Carter shines a light into the man’s ears. As soon as I spot the figure, I realize that he’s staring straight at me with those same dark, unblinking eyes that seem to characterize all the people who were on the ferry. I’d be flattered if the sensation wasn’t a little creepy.

“We can’t get a word out of him,” Stratton continues. “Nothing intelligible, anyway. We’ve sent some recordings and other data to specialists in London, but they still haven’t got back to us, so I guess they’re drawing a blank too. The best we’ve come up with so far is that it
might
be some variant of Urdu, but even that’s a long-shot.” He turns to me. “Do you speak anything that might help?”

“A little French from school,” I reply, maintaining eye contact with the figure, who seems far more interested in me than in the man who’s trying to check him over. “Some German, Spanish… Do you not even have a name yet?”

“We have nothing.”

“Ethnic characteristics?” I turn to Stratton. “He looks… I mean, I don’t know what he looks like.”

“Me neither,” he replies, keeping his voice low. “We have no idea what part of the world this man is from. Europe? Asia? Africa? The Americas? Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Did you examine his clothing?”

“It’s some kind of very simple fabric with a wide fiber. Basic, no label, looks like maybe it was homemade. We’re trying to work out where the fabric originated, so we can start pinning the guy down.” He sighs. “We’ll nail this son-of-a-bitch eventually. I’ve put in a request to get some people here from London as fast as possible, because right now I don’t have a clue. I don’t even know where to start. It’s as if he just popped out of nowhere along with that ferry.”

“Can I try talking to him?”

“You?” he asks, clearly surprised by the idea.

“It’s worth a shot.”

“I was under the impression that your expertise was reckless rescue attempts,” he replies, “not interrogating survivors.”

“I like to multi-task.”

“You don’t have the right clearance to talk to a survivor.”

“Then I’d better hope nobody reports me, hadn’t I?”

Stepping past him, I make my way along to the far end of the trailer, stopping when I get closer to the figure. He’s still staring at me, and I’m starting to feel a little unnerved not only by the way he seems so focused on me, but by the way all the others on the ferry were doing the same thing. There’s something strangely calm about him, too, as if he’s in no way troubled by everything that has happened to him. Back on the boat, none of the passengers seemed bothered about trying to get to safety, and then again when he was in the water, I didn’t see any sign that this guy was trying to save himself. And now, sitting here, he just seems content to wait.

“Good luck,” Stratton mutters, having followed me along the trailer.

“Hi,” I say, forcing a smile as I grab a chair and sit opposite the survivor. “My name’s Sophie Carpenter. Do you remember me? I was the first one who got to you out on the rocks?”

I wait for a reply, but of course he simply stares at me.

“Sophie,” I say again, more clearly this time, before pointing at my chest. “
Sophie
.” I hold my hand out for him to shake, but he looks down at it as if he doesn’t understand. “What’s your name?” I ask.

No reply.

Now that I’m closer, I can see that his head is completely bald. Even his eyebrows and eyelashes seem to have been removed, and there’s no stubble or regrowth that I can see anywhere. There are thick wrinkles in his skin, though, and at a rough estimate I’d say that he’s in his fifties or even sixties, while his yellowish skin suggests some kind of underlying medical problem. His eyes, which share that yellowness, are also specked with blood.

“England,” I say after a moment. “Britain. You’re in the United Kingdom. Do you understand?”

He stares at me.

Taking my phone out, I bring up a map app and quickly locate the UK, before turning the screen for him to see.

“England,” I say again, pointing at the image. “You’re in England.”

He stares at the screen, squinting slightly, but there’s no hint of recognition in his eyes.

Zooming out on the app, I show him a map of the world.

“Home?” I ask, pointing at the map again. “Can you show me? Where is home, for you?”

He stares at the map.

“Where is
home
?” I ask again.

“This is hopeless,” Stratton mutters, watching from nearby.

Ignoring him, I bring up a news page and start a video from last night, showing the stricken ferry being rocked by waves. I kind of expect this, at least, to bring about some kind of reaction, but the survivor simply stares passively at the screen as the video plays.

“You,” I say, pointing at the phone. “Last night,
you
were on that boat! Do you understand?”

He stares at the screen for a moment longer, before turning to look back at me.

I look over at Carter. “Is there any chance he’s suffered a head injury?”

“That’s what I thought at first,” he replies, “but I don’t see evidence of one. Anything serious enough to cause concussion should show some kind of surface-level trauma, but there’s nothing. Maybe the proper medical team will have more luck, but the storm’s making it hard for them to reach us.”

Turning back to the survivor, I can’t help but feel increasingly concerned by his stare. I’m probably being paranoid, but I feel as if it’s me, out of all the people in this room, who seems to have attracted his attention the most.

“Where are you from?” I ask, starting to run out of ideas already. Figuring it’s worth a shot, I try the only sign language I know, but nothing seems to be getting through to him.

“We’re going to have to wait until someone arrives from London,” Stratton says, over my shoulder. “They’ll get the guy talking. There’s not a language in the world that those guys don’t know.”

“Hang on,” I mutter. Leaning over to a nearby desk, I grab a piece of paper and a pen, and I quickly write my name before holding it up for the man to see. “Sophie,” I say clearly and slowly, while pointing at the letters, before holding the paper and pen out for him, hoping he’ll take them. I wait, but he simply continues to stare at me. When I try to slip the pen into his hand, he ignores it completely and lets it drop to the floor.

“I need to check my equipment,” Carter says, heading over to another desk. He sounds frustrated, and I can definitely sympathize right now.

Staring at the man, I finally realize that there’s no way I can get through to him. I need to leave this to the professionals, whenever they get here. “You’ll be okay,” I tell him finally, as I get to my feet. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but -”

Suddenly he says something, just a few words in a gravely, husky voice that sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

“I’m sorry,” I reply, “can you say that again?”

He speaks a few more short, rasping words. I have no clue what he’s trying to tell me, but his eyes are still fixed on mine.

“Sophie,” I say again, pointing at my chest before indicating the rest of the trailer. “England.”

He says something else, with a hint of urgency, but I can’t make out a word of it. This time he keeps going, as if he’s stringing together a sentence, before finally he falls quiet again.

“I don’t have a clue,” I say with a sigh, turning to Stratton. “He has to be from somewhere, but you need someone who really knows how to break things down and trace the root of the words coming from his mouth. You saw how he reacted to the paper and pen, he doesn’t seem remotely motivated to communicate with us. I guess he must be scared.” I pause for a moment. “Have you had any luck finding other survivors?”

“We’ve got teams out there now,” he replies, “and -”

I wait for him to continue. “And what?”

“Maybe we should take this outside,” he adds, glancing past me. “He might not want to talk to us, but your chap definitely seems happy to listen.”

Turning, I see that the man is still staring at me. I force a faint smile, before following Stratton to the door and stepping out into the wind and rain. In some weird way, the bad weather is actually refreshing as it batters my skin, and the gray, murky morning is a relief after the stormy night. Beneath my feet, the ground is soft and muddy.

“Something isn’t right here,” Stratton says, turning to me.

“No kidding,” I reply.

“I’ve covered rescues like this before,” he continues, “where there are questions about the origin of a vessel. They’re always different, always challenging, there’s always something that doesn’t quite fit, but
everything
about this one is throwing me for a complete loop. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“There’s something about him,” I reply. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something just felt wrong when I was talking to him. It was the same when I saw the rest of them out on the ferry, they just seemed so… calm. There was no fear in their eyes, no panic, no sense that they were scared of drowning.”

“Do you think maybe they were drugged?” he asks. “Maybe when they were put on the boat, they got drugged to keep them docile? We’ve heard of people-smugglers doing worse things in the past.”

“It’s possible,” I tell him, “but refugees and asylum-seekers are usually scared, they usually want to know what’s going to happen to them. This guy seems to view us as an irrelevance, it’s almost as if he’s waiting for something. Get someone to screen his blood, maybe there’s some kind of infection that could help zero in on his home. Check under his nails, check for parasites, just try to find markers that can narrow it down, even just a little. Anything’s worth a shot right now.” Feeling my phone vibrate, I pull it from my pocket and see that Rob’s trying to get in touch. I hesitate for a moment, before rejecting the call. I’ll make things right with him later, when I’m not so busy.