Now the floor beneath her feet was no larger than a narrow ledge, no wider than a bookshelf. The rest had already disappeared into the wall. And if Martin hadn’t opened the door to the cleaners’ entrance the blue shelf wouldn’t have had a floor at all any more. He had activated an emergency stopping mechanism which had halted the opening of the dumping chute.
At the last second.
One centimetre more and Naomi Lamar wouldn’t have been able to hold on any longer.
One third of her feet were protruding over the edge. She looked like a swimmer waiting for the starting gun before plunging into the water below. Martin was sure that the next time the Sultan pitched, Anouk’s mother would disappear into the ocean.
‘Naomi,’ Martin yelled, but she was as paralysed with shock as her daughter had been earlier. She didn’t react. Perhaps she hadn’t even heard him; the Atlantic was roaring so noisily beneath her.
From below, spray slapped her scratched face. This filthy woman, her skin covered in weals, was dripping all over. Martin, too, was soaked by the showers of water.
‘Come.’ He was holding on to the edge of the vessel door, leaning perilously forwards into the shaft. He held out his free right arm as far as he could into the refuse compactor. With a little courage, surely Naomi would be able to grab his hand. But Anouk’s mother gave Martin an impression of world-weariness and looked anything but courageous. As if she didn’t want him to help her. At any rate she wasn’t showing the slightest inclination to move towards him. She stood there as if screwed to the floor, staring into the foam bubbling at her feet.
‘Anouk’s alive!’ he shouted, and the mention of her daughter’s name did seem to have an effect.
Naomi moved her head. Raised it. Turned her chin to the side, in his direction. Looked at him. And opened her lips.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, or something similar.
Her voice was far too weak to compete with the raging of the sea.
‘Noooooo!’ Martin screamed, because it appeared as if Naomi were about to take a step forwards. To death. If she jumped now she’d inevitably be sliced to pieces by the ship’s propeller.
‘Your abductor is dead!’ he yelled.
Naomi paused one last time. Opened her lips as if for a final farewell, but then something in her expression changed. The corners of her mouth wrinkled. To begin with it looked as if she were crying. But then as if she were trying to laugh. Finally it seemed like she was doing both at once.
Martin noticed that she was no longer staring at him, but at a point above his shoulder.
He glanced behind. The reason for the change in her emotions was standing right behind him.
Anouk.
She’d finally found the way there.
At the last second.
Holding the torch, she slowly came closer.
Her face was wearing an expression he’d not seen in the girl before. Hardly surprising, as she was smiling.
He heard a cry of joy, which came not only from the girl but Naomi too.
Martin turned back towards the mother, now bellowing her daughter’s name. So loudly that even the Atlantic couldn’t swallow it up.
Naomi was laughing too. Raucously, a huge belly laugh. A big mistake. For the joyful trembling and quivering that had seized her entire body made Naomi stumble.
Once more she looked like someone on the edge of a pool, but this time she gave the appearance of a non-swimmer thrashing her arms about in a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable.
Plunging into the sea.
‘Come to me,’ Martin yelled, this time in German as the tension of the situation had overtaken him. It was more by luck than design that Naomi grabbed hold of his hand as she lurched forwards.
Martin felt a jolt that darted from his shoulder to his jaw, which he clenched as tightly as possible while trying not to let either of his hands slip. Not the one Naomi was dangling from, her feet centimetres from the seething surface of the water. And certainly not the one stopping him from falling to his own death. Luckily Anouk’s mother weighed barely more than a little girl. The lack of food that had almost killed her might now prove to be her salvation if…
… I don’t let go of her.
Naomi was light, morbidly emaciated, but her hand was damp. Wet. Slippery.
Martin felt as if he were holding onto a soapy leash. The more he squashed her hand, the faster it seemed to slither from his. And this made him furious.
I haven’t gone through all this shit…
With a mighty jerk that he felt all the way down to his lumbar column…
… only to fail…
… he pulled the mother towards him…
… just before the end.
… over the edge of the blue shelf. Onto the floor of the platform. Beside the vessel. To safety.
Made it!
Martin lay on the ground, totally shattered. He tried breathing in and out at the same time, which unavoidably produced a coughing fit. But he felt good.
He looked at Naomi, whose joy at being reunited with her daughter gave her more strength than him, for she managed to get to her feet and stretch out her arms.
To her daughter, who staggered towards Naomi, no less wobbly on her feet.
Martin closed his eyes in satisfaction.
Although it wasn’t his son who he’d saved, not even a child, he’d managed to avert the death of a mother, reunite a family – and provide Anouk with a smile.
And thus, on this shaking floor beside the blue shelf, which reeked of cold rubbish and sea salt, he felt happy for the first time in a long while, very happy.
Albeit only briefly.
Just until the smile she’d greeted her mother with vanished from Anouk’s face, and she struck Naomi in the chest. Rapidly executed, not a particularly hard blow, not even for an eleven-year-old, but strong enough for Naomi Lamar to lose her balance and fall backwards into the blue shelf, towards the water.