Out of the Ice (32 page)

•  •  •

At 10.30pm I sat waiting for Fabio in the empty lobby. Reception was closed, Silvia tucked away in her apartment. I was rugged up in a coat, scarf and gloves. I’d put my plastic overboots back over my shoes. As soon as the sun had set the temperature had plummeted and the night was icy – a dank, close cold, unlike the clear chill of Antarctica.

There was still no sign of Georgia, nor any word from David. I prayed that I would meet up with Georgia at the docks where the children were due to arrive. The more I thought of it, the more convinced I became. I was uneasy about going without hearing from her, but my overwhelming emotion was for the boy.

I jumped as my phone pinged with an email. For a moment I didn’t recognise the name – and then I remembered that Astrid Bredesen was the translator at Harvard.

I flipped up her message. She had found a reference in Ingerline’s diary to the tunnels. Strangely, her attention had been drawn to it by a small handwritten annotation in Spanish, scrawled in the margin:
Read this. The entrance.
My eyes flew over the translated extract, where Ingerline outlined the importance of the tunnels for storing alcohol and cigarettes. It appeared that in the later years of the whaling station, the Halvorsens had branched out to make money another way as the whaling stocks declined. They had traded in hard liquor and tobacco, and I suspected none of it was legal. The ships picked up the contraband on their way over, proving useful for ballast. Then, when the oil and other whale by-products were low because of a poor season, the ships had taken the alcohol and tobacco back to Norway, or sold it en route.

The tunnels were a tightly kept secret. At the bottom of the page, Ingerline mentioned an entrance: through a false door at the rear of the kitchen pantry in her house. The house where her portrait still kept watch. A shiver tore through me. I’d looked in all those cupboards. And Ingerline’s house was where I’d seen the man – and where the boy’s T-shirt had been found. Now I knew how they’d got there, and where they’d gone. From underground, they’d come up into the kitchen, and then retreated back down under the ice by the time we’d returned. Hope rose: if the boys from Chatham were destined for South Safety Island, replacing the boys who were coming to Venice,
we would be able to find them.

‘You’re here. Good.’ Fabio walked in briskly. He saw my overboots. ‘You won’t need those.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Georgia?’

‘She’s still not back. Do you think she might already be at the docks?’

‘Yes,’ said Fabio, which gave me some comfort. ‘She knows the time and location from my message. There must be a reason she’s not here.’ He frowned. ‘Our police in Venice give very little away. Georgia could be acting under orders.’

‘Do you think it’s all right that I’m coming?’ I knew Georgia probably hadn’t meant me to actually be on the docks, but rather to identify the boy at the police station.

‘Of course. You must.’ Fabio was definite. And I wanted desperately to make sure the boy was safe when he arrived.

I took off my overboots and left them under the chair. Fabio crooked his arm through mine and we went out into the night, where heavy clouds scudded across a full moon, and a mist hung low, swirling over cobblestones. The tide had gone down; the footpaths were dry.

I tried to digest the news about the tunnels, dying to tell Georgia about the entrance. We finally had what we needed to crack open the ring. I wanted to phone and leave messages for both her and David, but Fabio was leading me through dark alleys and there was an urgency to the task at hand. As we went down a space between buildings so tight we had to walk in single file, I ran into Fabio’s heels when he stopped at a dead-end. A canal splashed in front, its water black and opaque beneath a thin veil of mist. My heart thundered, and for a terrible moment I wondered who this man was. He was a human rights lawyer, but I only had his word that he had been in contact with Georgia. What if he wasn’t? I’d been so preoccupied I wasn’t thinking straight. I’d just walked into a blind alley with a total stranger, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. My legs turned to jelly.

But a sleek boat came swishing along and Fabio helped me down into it. ‘We go to Porto Marghera,’ he said. ‘On the other side of the lagoon, on the mainland. To the container depot.’

As we motored away, the elderly driver, silver-haired with a sailor’s weatherworn face, said nothing. Inside the small cabin, Fabio lit a cigarette. I pulled out my phone and texted Georgia and David, saying I was on my way to the docks.

The mist thickened to fog as we sped up and headed out across the lagoon. The water was choppy, the boat slapped over waves. The temperature plummeted further.

The mainland came into sight like an impressionist painting through the fog, and we slipped up the coast past several huge container ports, their lights blazing, seeping into the ghostly air.

Finally, we stopped at a wharf piled high with towering multi-coloured steel containers, and three men ran down to meet us. We climbed a steep ladder up to the dock and the boat took off. I tensed as I realised I was even more isolated here in this vast industrial wasteland. Anything could happen. I prayed I was right to trust Fabio. What if there wasn’t a shipload of boys coming at all?

We hurried along through the swirling mist. One of the men, an overweight giant, grabbed my arm and propelled me faster, pinching my flesh. Who were they? They didn’t look like detectives or immigration officials. They looked like thugs. Where were the police? And where was Georgia?

The giant pulled me past containers stacked high. Ahead, there were loud mechanical clanks. In the fog I could just make out a monster crane lifting containers onto a ship.

We moved quickly, heading to a dark area at the end of the dock. There was nothing there. Panic set in. I wanted to run. I’d been an idiot coming on my own. I must still be toasty from Antarctica, not thinking straight. Should I flee onto the ship that was being loaded? The giant held me tight. I tried to calm down, but couldn’t. Had Georgia been lured here by Fabio last night, before she vanished?

The moon appeared, full and bright through the clouds, as a blustery gust momentarily parted the fog. A boat was puttering slowly towards the dock.

Fabio reached out and pulled me into black shadows. The giant flanked my other side. If there weren’t boys on the boat, it could be me heading out to sea. I tried to keep my fear under control, preparing to sprint for my life if the boat was empty.

A man called quietly, and the giant and another man ran down and caught thick ropes that were tossed up. They tied them tightly to the dock as the boat bobbed in the water.

And then they came, one by one, through the fog. Young teenage boys, dark-haired, their faces as pale as ghosts. One, two, three. And then two more. I ran over with Fabio as they clambered up a ladder. ‘
Hola
,
hola
,’ they mumbled. ‘
A dónde vamos
?’ Where are we going, they were asking. In Spanish.

I replied rapidly in Spanish, and the boys blinked. I told them they were in Venice and we were going to look after them; all the time I was looking over their shoulders, for the boy who looked like Hamish. But he didn’t come.

‘Is there another?’ I asked in Spanish. ‘Another dark-haired boy, thin-faced, brown-eyed?’ They each shook their head. They all fitted that description, but my Hamish wasn’t there. Claws of pain slashed through my stomach.

We spoke in Spanish. Fabio watched us, and I noticed he was discreetly filming everything on his phone. ‘Where are you from?’ I asked the boys.

‘Mexico,’ one replied.

‘Guatemala,’ said another, ‘but I came through Mexico.’

‘Me too,’ croaked a tiny boy who looked about ten.

‘After that?’ I said.

‘They took us somewhere. A big house. Down below, in a basement. And then we went to sea. Then we flew. Far away. Vamoose. To the ice.’ The boy worked his hands this way and that, illustrating the length of his journey.

‘Under the ice?’ I said, trying to keep my voice calm, and they nodded.

‘Are there boys still there?’ I demanded. ‘A boy about twelve, thin and dark?’

They nodded. My chest tightened.

‘How many?’

They shrugged and said nothing.

I paused, praying my boy was still at Fredelighavn and nothing had happened to him on the journey. ‘Did everyone who set off get here?’

‘Yes,’ said the tallest boy.

My knees went weak with relief. At least my boy hadn’t drowned. ‘What happened to you down there?’ I asked.

They shut their mouths tightly. Fabio repeated the question, gently, speaking Spanish. He’d understood everything we’d said.

The boys stayed silent.

‘We get paid,’ the tallest boy said finally. ‘We go now.’ He took a boy’s hand on either side and headed off.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked, following.

‘We meet someone. We thought you, but not.’

The boys hurried away in a pack. I raced after them, with Fabio. ‘Don’t be frightened!’ he called. ‘Please don’t be afraid!’

But the boys were running fast now, galloping down the dock like startled animals. Fabio grabbed one and the boy kicked him in the shin. The other men who’d come with us stood staring, by the boat. As I glanced back I saw money changing hands with the man who’d brought the boat in.

Fabio was lunging at the boys, trying to grab them, but they kept slipping away. Again I wondered who he was. He could be a paedophile himself, snatching the new arrivals who had been handed to him on a plate. But that made no sense – why would he have wanted me along if that were the case? To lull the boys into a sense of security before spiriting them away? And then dealing with me. My blood drained.

The boys were getting away. They were nimble, darting through the shadows, swallowed into the fog. Fabio was losing ground. I sprinted faster, but now we were among the containers and the boys split up and went down different aisles through the dark metal boxes. I chased the smallest boy. He took corners faster than I could, leading me in a circle, and then he disappeared. I stopped, a stitch burning my side, my breathing raw in the freezing air. I was alone. I stood stock still, listening. But all I could hear was the wind and the roar of the crane and machines loading ships.

The moon came out again and the fog cleared momentarily. I was surrounded by empty shadows.

I tried to decide what to do. Could I trust Fabio to get me back to Venice? Or should I go off into the night and find another way back? I was tired; my bones ached. I was bitterly disappointed that Hamish wasn’t here.

There could be any number of dangers in the shipyards, and in a wave of anger, I headed off away from the dock. And then it hit me. Fabio was a
professor
. Snow, too, had been a professor. I started to run. I could hear Fabio calling me, and when I turned I saw him following. I sped up, increasing the distance between us, weaving through containers until I lost him.

I ran into a deserted street leading out of the port. Breathless, checking no one was behind me, I staggered to hide in bushes at the side of the road and phoned Silvia at the hotel. There was no answer. I checked my email – still no reply from anyone.

Georgia hadn’t been at the docks. I felt desperate about her, and helpless.

I stayed in the undergrowth until the fog lifted and pink clouds filled the dawn sky, then I tried again to reach Silvia. No answer. Trucks roared past. I sat back into the bushes and kept calling until finally the phone clicked at the other end.

‘
Pronto
?’ Silvia’s voice was thick with sleep. I gabbled what had happened. At first she couldn’t understand who I was or what I was saying. Then finally she did.

‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘I’ll send someone. They’ll phone as they come up. It’s early and who knows what men are on the docks at this hour. Please don’t come onto the road until you get the call.’

Twenty minutes later my phone rang. A girl announced herself as Chiara, and moments later a stylish woman in her early twenties drove up in a red sports car. I clambered in. ‘I’m Silvia’s daughter,’ she said, shaking my hand. ‘We go to the airport and I arrange a
motoscafi
. I get you back to the hotel. You are safe now.’

19

S
ilvia rushed onto the tiny landing as my water taxi pulled in. ‘Why were you at Porto Marghera?’ she said as she hauled me up and ushered me through into the lobby. ‘It’s a terrible place to be at night. No place for a woman.’

‘I went with the professor. I hoped Georgia might be there,’ I replied, deliberately vague on detail. ‘We were separated and I got lost. And then I called you.’ I hugged her. ‘Thank you so much.’

Silvia hugged me back, her arms strong and reassuring. ‘And still no sign of Georgia?’ Her face was lined with worry.

‘No,’ I said desolately. ‘Can we call the police again?’

Silvia picked up the telephone, spoke rapidly, and waited. When she put down the receiver, she was grim. ‘No news.’

Despondent, I went into the lift and clunked up to my room, where I checked my phone yet again.
Why
wasn’t David replying?

I lay on the bed. What were they doing to my boy who looked like Hamish? And where was Georgia? A sick, leaden feeling weighed me down. Georgia had been gone too long.

•  •  •

I woke to strange, musical sirens wafting through the air. Two angelic tones, repeated over and over. They sounded eerie but not urgent, like humpback whales singing to each other. I rubbed my dry eyes and checked the time: 11.30am. I sat up as last night’s events came flooding back. Was I right to have run or was Professor Fabio Natuzzi genuine? Even in the light of day I couldn’t tell. Why had one of his men given the boat captain money? Fabio had led me to believe there would be police there – and it hadn’t looked to me like there were. Certainly the thuggish men hadn’t identified themselves as police.

I still had my clothes on from last night, but I didn’t want to waste time showering or changing, so I went straight downstairs.