Dead Tomorrow

by Peter James

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  He tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s believing it – in here.’

  ‘I do,’ Roy Grace said, then smiled wryly. ‘Trust me, I’m a copper.’

  81

  Dr Ross Hunter sat on the edge of Caitlin’s bed, while Lynn was downstairs, fussing up a cup of tea for him.

  The chaotic room was stuffy and airless, and thick with the rancid smell of Caitlin’s perspiration. He could feel the clammy heat coming off her as he stared through his half-moon tortoiseshell glasses at her deeply jaundiced face and the heavy dark rings around her eyes. Her hair was matted. She lay under the bedclothes, propped up against the pillows, wearing a pink dressing gown over her nightdress, with her headphones hanging around her neck, and the small white iPod lying on top of her duvet, alongside a paperback about Jordan’s life and several fluffy bears.

  ‘How are you feeling, Caitlin?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve been sent glitter,’ she mumbled, her voice barely audible.

  ‘Glitter?’ He frowned.

  ‘Someone sent me glitter, on Facebook,’ she mumbled, only semi-coherently.

  ‘What exactly do you mean by glitter?’

  ‘It’s like, you know, a Facebook thing. My friend Gemma sent it. And I’ve been poked by Mitzi.’

  ‘OK.’ He looked bemused.

  ‘I got sent wheels by Mitch Symons – you know – so I can get around more easily.’

  The doctor peered around the room, looking for wheels. He stared at the dartboard on the wall, with a purple boa hanging from it. At a saxophone case propped up against a wall. Then at a tiny toy horse on wheels, standing amid the shoes scattered all over the carpet.

  ‘Those wheels?’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she mumbled, and windmilled her right hand, as if trying to tease a thought out from inside her head. ‘It’s a sort of Facebook thing. To get around. They’re sort of virtual.’

  Her eyes closed, as if she was exhausted from the effort of speaking.

  He bent down and opened his medical bag. At that moment Lynn came back in with the tea and a digestive biscuit lying in the saucer.

  He thanked her, then turned his attention to Caitlin.

  ‘I just want to take your temperature and blood pressure, is that OK?’

  Still with her eyes shut she nodded, then whispered, ‘Whatever.’

  *

  Ten minutes later he walked back downstairs, followed by Lynn. They went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. She knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth, just from the worried set of his face.

  ‘Lynn, I’m very worried about her. She’s extremely ill.’

  Feeling her eyes watering, Lynn was tempted, desperately tempted, to open up and confide in him about what she was doing. But she could not predict how he would react. She knew he was a man of the deepest integrity and that, whether or not he believed in the course she was taking, he could never condone it. So she just nodded, silently and bleakly.

  ‘Yes,’ she gulped, her heart heaving. ‘I know.’

  ‘She needs to be back in hospital. Shall I phone for an ambulance?’

  ‘Ross,’ she blurted. ‘Look – I . . .’ Then she shook her head and sank her face into her hands, trying desperately to think clearly. ‘Oh, God, Ross, I’m at my wits’ end.’

  ‘Lynn,’ he said gently. ‘I know you think you can look after her here, but the poor girl is in a lot of discomfort, quite apart from danger. She’s raw all over her body from scratching. She has a high temperature She’s going downhill very quickly. I’m shocked how she’s deteriorated since I last saw her. If you want the brutal truth, she’s not going to survive here, like this. I spoke to Dr Granger about her earlier. A transplant is her only option and she needs one very urgently, before she gets too weak.’

  ‘You want her back in the Royal?’

  ‘Yes. Right away. Tonight, really.’

  ‘Have you ever been there, Ross?’

  ‘Not for some years, no.’

  ‘The place is a nightmare. It’s not their fault. There are some good people there. It’s the system. The National Health management. The government. I don’t know where the blame lies – but it’s a living hell to be there. It’s easy for you to say she should be in hospital, but just what does that mean? Sticking her in a mixed ward, with confused old people who try to climb into bed with her in the middle of the night? Where you have to fight to find a wheelchair to move her around? Where I’m not supposed to be with her, to comfort her, after eight-thirty at night?’

  ‘Lynn, they don’t put children into adult wards.’

  ‘They have done it. When they were overcrowded.’

  ‘I’m sure we can see that it doesn’t happen again.’

  ‘I’m so damn scared for her, Ross.’

  ‘She’ll get a transplant quickly now.’

  ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure, Ross? Do you know how the system works?’

  ‘Dr Granger will make sure of it.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sure Dr Granger means well, but he doesn’t know his way around their bloody system any more than you do. They meet once a week, on Wednesdays, to decide who gets a transplant that week – assuming a matching liver becomes available. Well, it’s now Thursday night, so the earliest we’d get a green light would be next Wednesday. Almost a whole week. Is she going to survive another week?’

  ‘She won’t survive here,’ he said bluntly.

  She reached out and gripped his hand, and through a flood of tears she said, ‘She has a better chance here, Ross, believe me. She does. Just don’t ask. Please just don’t sodding ask.’

  ‘What do you mean by that, Lynn?’

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I’ll get her back to the Royal the instant you have a liver for her. Until then, she stays here. That’s what I mean. OK?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said. ‘That’s a promise.’

  ‘I know you will. Just so long as you understand, I’m her mother, and I will do what I can.’

  82

  Fat snowflakes were falling as Ian Tilling parked his clapped-out Opel Kadett on an empty stretch of street, just a couple of hundred yards from the front entrance of the Gara de Nord. As usual when he turned off the ignition, the engine rattled on, continuing to turn over, coughing and firing for several seconds before finally quitting.

  He climbed out, along with Andreea and Ileana, and slammed the door. He liked Ileana. She was a committed carer, totally dedicated to helping the deprived of Bucharest. She had a pretty face, even with her predatory, aquiline nose, but, almost as if to deliberately deter admirers, she kept her fair hair fiercely combed back into a matronly bun, wore unflattering glasses and dressed in functional rather than feminine clothes.

  On more than one occasion when they had worked together, he had thought about how stunning she could look with a makeover. He had also been amused by how persistently the randy Subcomisar Radu Constantinescu had attempted to get her to come for a drink with him, and how adroitly she had rebuffed him on each occasion.

  Sometimes there were prostitutes out along the street here, but to his disappointment there were none tonight. This was where they had been hoping to find the girl called Raluca. With Ileana leading, they walked up the steps in the icy night air, and into the cavernous, gloomy interior of Bucharest’s mainline railway terminus. Almost immediately, Ian noticed a gaggle of street kids over to their left. A hundred yards further on, beneath the feeble sodium glow of the overhead bulbs, a small group of policemen stood smoking and sharing a joke.

  ‘Those are friends of Raluca, over there,’ Ileana said to him quietly, jerking her gloved thumb at the group.

  ‘OK. Let’s take them something.’

  Followed by the two girls, he walked across the deserted concourse, past the closed METROPOL café, and an old, bearded man, in a woollen hat, ragged clothes and gumboots, swigging a bottle of spirits, who had been th
ere, sitting on the ground with his back against the wall, in this same location, in those same clothes, for as long as he could remember. He sidestepped and dropped a five lei note on to the small group of coins spread out in front of the man and received a cheery wave for his troubles.

  In the echoing silence, Tilling heard the clanking of a train’s wheels, steadily picking up speed, departing from a nearby platform, and his eyes mechanically flicked up to the departures and arrivals board. The confectionery stall was about to close for the night, but Ian persuaded its surly proprietor to allow him to purchase an armful of chocolate bars, biscuits, crisps and soft drinks, which they then lugged over, in several bulging plastic bags, to the street kids.

  He knew a few of them. A tall, thin boy of about nineteen, called Tavian, wearing his blue woollen hat with ear flaps, and military camouflage jacket over a windcheater and several layers beneath. He held a sleeping baby, wrapped up tightly in a blanket. Tavian always smiled – whether it was his nature or because he was permanently smashed on Aurolac, Tilling did not know, but suspected the latter.

  ‘I have some presents for you!’ the former English police officer said, in Romanian, holding out the bags.

  The group grabbed them, jostling each other to peer inside, then digging into the contents. No one thanked him.

  Ileana turned to another girl in the group, a Romany of indeterminate age, dressed in a pink day-glo shell-suit top and shiny green bottoms, with a scarf wound around her neck.

  ‘Stefania,’ she said, in Romanian. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not so good,’ the girl said, ripping open a packet of crisps. ‘The weather’s shitty, no? It’s a really bad time. Nobody has money to give to beggars. Where are the tourists? Christmas is coming, right? Nobody has money.’

  A tall, sullen youth, with a small moustache, wearing an embroidered woollen hat, a black fleece and grimy jeans, and gripping the neck of a plastic carrier, doubtless containing Aurolac, began ranting about how the turkeys – their slang for the police – were treating them recently. Then he peered into one of the bags Stefania was holding open and pulled out a chocolate bar.

  ‘They don’t leave us alone. They just don’t leave us alone.’

  ‘I’m looking for Raluca,’ Ileana said. ‘Has anyone seen her tonight?’

  The group shot each other glances. Although it was clear they knew her, they all shook their heads.

  ‘No,’ Stefania said. ‘We don’t know any Raluca.’

  ‘Come on, she was here with you last week. I spoke to her with you all!’ Ileana said.

  ‘What has she done wrong?’ another girl asked.

  ‘She’s done nothing wrong,’ Ileana reassured her. ‘We need her help. Some of you street kids are in real danger. We wanted to warn you about something.’

  ‘Warn us about what?’ the sullen youth with the moustache said. ‘We are always in danger. No one cares about us.’

  Ian Tilling asked, ‘Have any of you been offered jobs abroad?’

  The youth gave a sneering laugh. ‘We’re still here, aren’t we?’ He broke off a slab of chocolate and crammed it into his mouth. Chewing, he said, ‘You think we’d still be here if we were offered a way to get out?’

  ‘Who is this man?’ A strung-out-looking girl at the back of the group pointed at Ian Tilling, suspicion in her voice.

  ‘He’s a good friend to us all,’ Ileana said.

  Andreea pulled the e-fit photographs of the three dead teenagers in Brighton out of one of her anorak pockets.

  ‘Can you all please look at these and see if you recognize any of them?’ she asked. ‘It is very important.’

  The group passed them round, some looking carefully, some indifferently. Stefania studied them for the longest and then, pointing at the face of the dead female, queried, ‘Is that Bogdana, possibly?’

  Another girl took the photograph and studied it. ‘No, I know Bogdana. We sheltered together for a year. That’s not her.’

  They handed them back to Ileana.

  ‘Does anyone know a boy called Rares?’ Ian Tilling asked. He held up the close-up of the tattoo.

  Again they all shook their heads.

  Then, suddenly, Stefania stared past him. Tilling turned around and saw a girl of about fifteen, with long, dark hair, clipped up, wearing a leather jacket, a leather miniskirt and knee-length shiny black boots walking towards them, looking furious. As she got closer, he saw she had a black eye and a graze on her opposite cheek.

  ‘Raluca!’ Ileana said.

  ‘Fucker!’ Raluca said angrily, addressing all of them and none of them. ‘Do you know what this man wanted me to do in his truck? I won’t tell you. I told him to go to hell and he hit me. Then he pushed me out into the street!’

  Ileana stepped away from the group, put an arm around Raluca and led her a short distance across the concourse, out of earshot of the others. She examined her eye and the graze for a moment and asked her if she wanted to go to hospital. The girl refused vigorously.

  ‘I need some help, Raluca,’ Ileana said.

  Raluca shrugged, still brimming with anger.

  ‘What help? What help does anyone give me?’

  ‘Listen to me a minute, please, Raluca,’ Ileana implored, ignoring the comment. ‘You told me, some weeks ago, that you had heard of a woman who was offering kids jobs abroad, with an apartment? Yes?’

  She shrugged again, then conceded that she had.

  Ileana showed her the photographs. ‘Do you recognize any of these?’

  Raluca pointed at one of the boys. ‘His face – I’ve seen him around, but I don’t know his name.’

  ‘This is really important, Raluca, believe me. Last week, these Romanian kids were found murdered in England. All their internal organs were taken. You must tell me what you know about this woman who offers the jobs.’

  Raluca blanched. ‘I don’t know her, but – I . . .’ Suddenly she looked very frightened. ‘You know Simona, and Romeo, her friend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I saw Simona, just a couple of days ago. She was really happy. She was telling me about this woman who has offered her a job in England. She is going to go – she had a medical . . .’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Oh shit. You have a cigarette?’

  Ileana gave her a cigarette, took one herself and pulled out her lighter.

  Raluca inhaled, then blew the smoke out quickly.

  ‘A medical?’

  ‘This woman told her she needed – you know – to check on her health. To get the travel documents.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She lives with her guy, Romeo, and a group, under the street, by the heating pipe.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I know the sector. Only that, she told me.’

  ‘We need to find her,’ Ileana said. ‘Will you come with us?’

  ‘I need money for my drugs. I don’t have time.’

  ‘We’ll give you money. As much as you could earn tonight. OK?’

  Minutes later they were hurrying towards Ian Tilling’s car.

  83

  The Airbus was on its landing approach, steadily sinking through the clear, but bumpy sky. The seat-belt lights had just pinged on. Grace checked his seat was upright, although he hadn’t touched it during the flight. He had been concentrating on the notes a researcher had prepared for him on liver failure, and planning what he wanted to get out of his meeting, later this morning, with the German organ broker.

  They were twenty-five minutes later than scheduled, due to air traffic control delays at take-off, which was a sizeable dent in the preciously short time he had here. From his window seat, he peered down. The snowy landscape looked very different from the previous time he had come here, in summer. Then it had been a flat, colourful patchwork quilt of farmland, now it was just a vast expanse of white. There must have been a recent heavy dump, he thought, because even most of the trees were covered.

  The ground was looming closer, the buildings getting
bigger with every second. He saw small clusters of white houses, their roofs covered in snow, then several thin copses and a small town. More clusters of houses and buildings. The light was so bright he regretted, for a moment, not bringing sunglasses.

  It was strange how time changed everything. Not long ago he had come here, to Munich, with real hope that he might find Sandy, finally, after close friends had been sure they had spotted her in a park. But now all those emotions had gone, evaporated. He could honestly say to himself that he no longer had any feelings towards her. He really felt, for the first time, that he was in the final stages of laying all the complexities of his memories of her to rest. The darkness and the light.

  Grace heard the clunk of the landing wheels locking beneath him and felt a sudden prick of apprehension. For the first time in so, so long, he really had something to live for. His darling Cleo. He did not think it would be possible to love a human being more than he loved her. She was with him, in his heart, in his soul, in his skin, his bones, his blood, every waking second.

  The thought of anything bad happening to her was more than he could bear. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt nervous for his own safety. Nervous of something happening that might prevent them from being together. Just when they had found each other.

  Such as this plane crash-landing them all into oblivion.

  He’d never been a nervous flier, but today he watched the ground coming steadily closer, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Overshooting. Undercarriage collapsing. Skidding off. Colliding with another plane. Bird strike. Power failure. He could see the runway now. Distant hangars. Lights. The mysterious markings on the runway and signs at the edge that were like a secret code for pilots. He barely even felt the wheels touching down. In a perfectly judged landing, the plane went seamlessly from flying to taxiing. He heard the roar of the reverse thrust, felt the braking pulling him forwards against his seat belt.

  Then, over the intercom system, a hostess with a soft, friendly, guttural accent welcomed them to Franz Josef Strauss International Airport.