The crew didn’t discover she was missing until several hours after the sun had risen then vanished behind a bank of black cloud that moved south from the Balkans. She had climbed on top of a container and found a place that was shielded from view by stacks three high either side and at the same time protected her from the worst of the wind. She was wearing the dead man’s jacket, held close to her body by the belt she had taken. Gusts of wind brought the smell of a heavy aftershave from the material to her nostrils.
She heard voices below her and crawled to peer over the edge of the container. A party of at least five men was methodically sweeping the ship, trying the doors of the containers and looking into the narrow crevices between them. They went up and down the length of the vessel twice then began to check the tops of the lower containers with the help of a metal ladder that was slammed against the container ends. She slunk to the far corner of her box, climbed to the third storey and waited, quite comfortably, pressing her back against one container and resting her feet on a ridge on another. A man made a cursory investigation of the top of her container. She saw a bald head fleetingly but then it disappeared and gradually the voices receded from her part of the deck.
Although the ship wasn’t large by the standards of some container vessels, there were many other places they would need to search, so she reasoned she was safe for a while. Her challenge now was to stay undiscovered until the ship reached its destination, and to do that she would need food and water and somewhere warm to sleep.
The ship sailed on and hit the bad weather that had been threatening all day, causing it to pitch and roll in a furious wind that ripped spray from the top of the waves, repeatedly soaking her. This reminded her of the last time she had been at sea, crossing the Adriatic to Venice with Samson. She allowed herself to think of those few days spent exploring the outlying backwaters of the city and finding such delight in each other. And she thought of Samson – hopeless, brilliant and sexy, and kinder than she would ever be. A lover, not a husband.
At dusk the deck lighting began to burn and she decided that it would be risky to break cover – watchful eyes on the bridge could easily pick her out. She waited a further five hours, during which time she saw no movement at all on the deck and heard nothing, but that was understandable, since the weather was atrocious. She often had to throw herself flat on the roof of the container to stop herself from falling off. Then, as midnight approached and the winds abated, she let herself down and moved with great stealth to the shadows of the containers nearest the bridge, where she could see more clearly the layout of the stern of the ship. If she was to steal food, this is where she would have to go. She watched for a full half-hour before satisfying herself that there was no one around – it seemed incredible they weren’t looking for her. She wondered if the decks were covered by CCTV but there were no cameras on the lighting masts and none, as far as she could tell, on the bridge that rose above her.
She slipped through the shadows and found a companionway that descended to a deck where there were several doors leading to the bridge and main quarters. She went down, stopping to listen every other step. There was no noise except the churn of the engine. At the bottom, to her right, she saw a row of portholes facing out to sea. No lights shone from them. To her left was another short companionway that led to a door that spilled light on to a gangway. She went down, using the rails, her feet barely touching the steps. Through the door she heard the noise of someone working deep in the heart of the ship’s main quarters. She listened hard. It sounded as though they were scrubbing a floor with a brush and a hose. Music was playing in the background. She crept past the door and moved along the passage. The first door was open on to a storeroom filled with cleaning supplies, piles of cloth and drums of cooking oil. The next appeared to be a dumping ground for old furniture – broken tables and chairs, light fittings and coils of fine chain were heaped on the floor; safety netting, lamp torches and some mini traffic cones were arranged neatly on the side. Above them, hanging on a row of pegs, were life vests and high-visibility jackets with the name of the ship printed on the back: CS Black Sea Star. She put one on and tucked her hair into the collar. At a distance, in the dark, she might pass for a member of the ship’s crew.
The passage led to a large, well-lit space with long stainless-steel surfaces, square ventilation ducts and a tiled floor. She had found the galley, but there was no food in sight. To her left there was a smaller room with two sizable fridges and a door marked ‘Cold Store’. It was here that the man was working. He was kneeling down, facing the cold store, chipping away at something on the floor with a knife. The music was very loud – something Latin American – and he did not hear her as she sped past a series of ovens and huge gas rings. She now found herself in a darkened service area. A line of vending machines contained canned drink and snacks; there were tables and chairs and a dark TV set was mounted on the wall. She hunted around under the counter and found a kitchen knife, which she pocketed, then a jar of cereal, a cardboard box full of cookies in wrappers, croissants in cellophane and some little containers of butter and jam, presumably laid out for the crew’s breakfast. She stuffed as much as she could into her pockets and retraced her steps, carrying the cereal jar under her arm.
This she nearly dropped when the man popped up from behind a steel cabinet with a look of enquiry on his face. He looked Chinese. He smiled and said, ‘Hi.’
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry – I felt hungry.’ She was searching his face to see what he would do, but he evidently had no idea who she was or why she was there. ‘It’s so cold out there,’ she said in her most normal voice. ‘I needed to eat. Hope you don’t mind.’
He shook his head. She wasn’t sure he understood. ‘Very cold,’ she said, making a rather hopeless attempt to mime a shiver.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You want drink? I got whiskey and Metaxa 12 star in cabin. We can watch movie and drink Metaxa.’ He was undoing his apron and smiling. ‘I finish now. We make party. We make good, good party.’ She returned his smile. Maybe he didn’t know about her and the dead men who had been heaved over the side earlier that day. Maybe this strange little man was aware of nothing outside his spotless, glistening galley.
He beckoned her to follow, which she did because she had no better option and, besides, she reasoned that, if she were with him in his cabin, she might be able to prevent him from raising the alarm. He reached up to switch off the lights and fans in the galley and indicated that she should go through the door first.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.
‘Sleeping,’ he said simply.
‘The men I saw on the deck?’
He shrugged. ‘They drink then they sleep.’
It was possible that they had given up the search because they knew there was nowhere for her to flee, but that seemed odd, considering the lengths they’d gone to to snatch her on the road and eliminate all the witnesses to her abduction. None of it made sense to her, but she was too cold and hungry to wrestle with the problem.
The man led her to the end of the row of dark cabins she had noted on the way down to the galley and ushered her into a space with a bed, a TV set, a computer and clothes in two neat piles. On a shelf were a photograph of an elderly Chinese woman and one of a young girl standing in front of a blossom tree. He dropped into a large, revolving office chair and gestured for her to perch on his bed, switched on a small table lamp and reached into a cabinet to retrieve two bottles.
‘I need to eat something first,’ she said, taking the croissants and cookies from her jacket pocket. ‘Where are you from?’
‘I’m Chinese from Malaysia, but I no go there for many, many years.’
‘You have family?’ she said, pointing to the photographs.
He shook his head. ‘All dead.’
‘You have a home?’
‘This my home.’ He poured two glasses of Metaxa and handed her one, which she put on the shelf at the end of the bed. ‘Now we see movie.’ He tapped a key on his laptop and the screen came to life with a still from a porn video. Two women and a man were frozen in a comically ecstatic position.
‘That is not my kind of movie,’ she said.
He looked amazed. ‘This good film. We make party and see them do the fucking.’ He giggled.
She had eaten two croissants and was beginning to feel a little better so took a sip of the brandy. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Zhao Liu.’
He took out a very long cigarette and sat gaping at the threesome, the cigarette hanging unlit from his mouth. The two women were taking turns to fellate the man, a muscular brute who was shaved all over and had a sleeve tattoo.
‘Zhao, can we watch something else? I don’t like this. It’s so ugly.’
‘This good part.’
‘I don’t want to watch.’ She found it hard to believe she was having this conversation. ‘Have you got a phone? Can I use your email?’
He shook his head and pointed up. ‘Internet not work. No phone.’
‘The ship must have satellite communication with the internet. I need to speak to my husband. Can you show me where I can do that?’
He shook his head. ‘I am chef – I know only cooking but I am good cook.’
‘But you could show me where I can send a message to my husband. There must be some place the crew communicate with the shore.’ But he wasn’t paying attention. ‘Will you show me, Zhao?’
He shrugged. ‘I have other movie.’
‘Anything’s better than this. Besides, seems like you know it quite well.’
He had lit the cigarette and was puffing on it excitedly as one of the women came, rather too theatrically to be convincing, and the man groaned.
She tried another tack. ‘Or maybe you can send a message. That would work just as well. I’ll give you an email address and a phone number. I have to get a message through, do you understand? It’s a matter of life and death.’
‘Sound of Music – Julie Andrews.’ He searched the computer and found the download.
‘Where are we going – which port are we going to, Zhao?’
He grinned mischievously. ‘You give me kiss then I tell.’
She thought for a moment. He might have an interest in porn but Zhao was no rapist. He was just a little guy bobbing on the ocean without friends or family or any place to go. He struck her as one of the loneliest individuals she had ever met. ‘A kiss – nothing else.’ She leaned forward and placed her lips on his cheek. ‘Which port?’
‘Odessa. Burgas. Not know.’
‘Bulgaria. Is the ship Bulgarian? Who owns the ship? Is it Russian?’
‘I not know.’
‘When do we get there – how long will it take?’
‘Day and half, maybe two days and half. I chef, not captain.’
‘I need to get this message through. I need that very badly, Zhao. Will you help me? Can I write down the number that you must call and an email address with a message?’
‘You my Julie Andrews,’ he said, evidently still swooning from the kiss.
‘I am your Julie Andrews if you do this one thing for me.’ She reached for some paper and a pen on the desk. ‘Can I write it for you?’
She kept it simple – the name of the ship, possible destinations, the nationality of those she had heard speaking, which she now thought was almost certainly Russian, the time she was writing the message, which was almost thirty-six hours after her kidnap. She put nothing of her circumstances, except that the two men had been killed and she had escaped from the container. She ended with ‘I love you.’ She folded it and placed it on the desk in front of Zhao.
‘Drink,’ he said.
‘Will you do this for me? Will you promise?’ She laid her hand on his. ‘Please, Zhao. My life depends on it.’
He nodded. ‘Drink brandy and we see Julie.’
She took a mouthful and suddenly felt very warm and drowsy. Before Julie had sung ‘Do-Re-Mi’, she had keeled on to her side and was asleep.
At four, she woke to find Zhao, still dressed, asleep by her side and holding her hand. There was barely room for the two of them on the narrow bed and his leg was hanging over the side. She moved her arm and he stirred. ‘I’m going now,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t tell anyone I was here. And Zhao, please, please send that message. Write it out as I have and send it to the email address.’
He mumbled something about his Julie.
His eyes had closed again. She nudged him. ‘Zhao, I need you to concentrate. Can you do this today? I will come back later if you do this for me. Do you understand?’
As she pushed herself up to swing a leg over him, she noticed a black cable-knit beanie hat and gloves on top of the cabinet by the door. ‘Can I borrow those? It’s cold out there.’
He raised his head and nodded.
‘Thank you, Zhao. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
She went into his little bathroom, peed, rubbed some toothpaste around her gums and put on the hat, stuffing her hair into it. She flipped up the collar of the high-visibility jacket and looked in the mirror, steadying herself against the movement of the ship with one hand against the side of the cabin. Her skin was grimy but still noticeably pale. She took a can of instant dye for grey roots on the Perspex shelf that she suspected Zhao used, sprayed it on her hands and wiped it all over her face, darkening her skin. By the time she came out, Zhao was sitting with both feet on the floor and a lost, regretful look in his eyes. She touched his shoulder.
‘You know, don’t you?’
He nodded.
‘Why aren’t they looking for me?’
He shrugged. ‘They find you in morning.’
‘Can I stay here?’ she said, suddenly realising it would be much safer. She crouched down and looked up into his eyes.
He shook his head. ‘If you here, Zhao dead.’
She put her hands on his knees. ‘Okay, I’ll go now. But Zhao, please send that email for your Julie.’
He smiled and nodded.
She slipped out into cold air, waited and listened for a few seconds before closing the door then climbing the companionway. She made for the stacks of containers, head bowed against the wind, hands thrust into the rib pockets of the jacket, shoulders hunched to bulk up her profile.