by Peter James
Then he was distracted by a news item that suddenly appeared in front of him.
CHANNEL TRAWL PRODUCES FOURTH BODY, the headline shouted.
He read the first few lines of the story. A police diving team, searching for the missing Shoreham-registered fishing boat, Scoob-Eee, recovered a body from its wreckage.
Futu-i! he thought. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
91
Lynn sat at her work station, her throat tight with anxiety. The tuna sandwich she had brought in for her lunch lay in front of her, with one small bite taken from it, along with her untouched apple.
She had no appetite. Her stomach was full of butterflies and she was a bag of nerves. Tonight, after work, she had a date. But the butterflies were not the kind she used to have, all excited, before going to meet her boyfriend as a teenager. They were more like dark, trapped, dying moths. Her date was with the odious Reg Okuma.
Or more specifically, so far as she was concerned, it was with his promised £15,000 in cash.
But, from all his innuendo over the phone earlier this morning, he was clearly expecting more than just a quick, happy-hour cocktail.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Caitlin was worsening by the day. Sometimes, it seemed, by the hour. Her mother was sitting with her this morning. Christmas was looming. Marlene Hartmann had guaranteed a liver within one week of receipt of the deposit, and she had that now. But regardless of the organ broker’s promises – and all the references which had checked out reassuringly – the reality was that a lot of activities shut down over Christmas, and the wheels of those that did not turned at a slower pace.
Ross Hunter had phoned her earlier today, imploring her to get Caitlin into hospital.
Yeah, to die, right?
One of her colleagues, a lively, friendly young woman called Nicky Mitchell, stopped by and put a sealed envelope on her desk.
‘Your secret Santa!’ she said.
‘OK, right, thanks.’
Lynn stared at the envelope, wondering who it was in the office she would have to buy an anonymous gift for. Normally she would have enjoyed doing that, but now it was just another hassle.
On the big screen on the wall ahead of her the words, CHRISTMAS BONUS! were flashing, surrounded by little Christmas trees and spinning gold coins. The bonus was over £3,000 now. There was a feeling of money everywhere in this office. If she cut half her colleagues open, she was sure cash would pour from their veins instead of blood.
So much damn money. Millions. Tens of millions.
So why the hell was it proving so hard to find that last fifteen thousand for the German broker? Mal, her mother, Sue Shackleton and Luke had all been brilliant. Her bank had been surprisingly sympathetic, but with her overdraft already exceeded, her manager told her he would need to go to head office for approval and he was not confident he would get it. Her only real option was to try for a bigger mortgage, but that was a process which would take many weeks – time she did not have.
Suddenly her mobile phone rang. The number was withheld. She answered surreptitiously, not wanting to get a reprimand for taking a personal call.
It was Marlene Hartmann, her voice terse and a little agitated. ‘Mrs Beckett, we have identified a suitable liver for your daughter. We will perform the transplant tomorrow afternoon. Please be ready with Caitlin, with bags packed, at midday tomorrow. You have the list I sent you of everything you will need to pack for her?’
‘Yes,’ Lynn said. ‘Yes.’ But her mouth was so dry with nerves and excitement, barely any sound came out. ‘Can you – can you tell me – anything about the – the donor?’
‘It is coming from a young woman who was in a motor accident and is now brain dead on life support. I am not able to tell you more.’
‘Thank you,’ Lynn said. ‘Thank you.’
She hung up, feeling dizzy and sick with excitement – and fear.
92
It was too cold to search on foot, so they sat in Ian Tilling’s Opel, peering through the holes they rubbed in the condensation on the windows as the car slithered along the slushy streets close to the café. It was just after half past four and the light, beneath the grim snow clouds, was fading rapidly.
They had already stopped and investigated several holes in the road, but so far none of them appeared to have been occupied. Backtracking, they once more passed the mini-market, the café, the butcher’s, then an Orthodox church covered in scaffolding. Two large dogs, one grey, one black, were busily ripping open a garbage bag.
Raluca, on the back seat, calm now after her fix, suddenly stiffened and leaned forward. Then she shouted excitedly, ‘Mr Ian! There, over there, see! Stop the car!’
At first all he could see in the direction she was pointing was a wide strip of wasteland, with several derelict cars, and a cluster of drab, high-rise tenement buildings, with dozens of satellite television dishes littering the outside walls, like an infestation of barnacles.
He pulled over abruptly, bumping through a rut, then sliding to a halt. Behind him an ancient truck gave him a furious blast of its horn and thundered past, missing ripping off the side of the car by a whisker.
Raluca pointed through the windscreen at three figures who had emerged from a jagged hole in a patch of concrete. Because of the light and the covering of snow it was impossible to tell whether it was the edge of the road or the pavement. Close to the hole, Tilling saw a makeshift kennel, fashioned from a section of collapsed fencing. A dog lay inside it, chewing on something, impervious to the weather. A short distance away, its engine running, thick vapour rising from its exhaust pipes, was a large black Mercedes.
One of the trio was a tall, elegant woman, wearing a fur hat, long dark coat and boots. She was gripping the hand of a bewildered-looking brown-haired girl who was dressed in a woollen hat, a blue puffa over a ragged, multicoloured jogging suit and trainers, hopelessly inadequate footwear for this snow. The third person was a boy, in a hooded top and jeans, also wearing trainers, who just stood by the hole, watching them, looking lost.
The woman was guiding the girl towards the car. The girl turned her head forlornly and waved. The boy waved back and called out something. Then the girl turned and waved at the dog, but the dog wasn’t looking.
The wind was whipping the snow into a blizzard.
‘That’s her!’ screamed Raluca. ‘That’s Simona!’
Ian Tilling threw himself out of the car, the snow stinging his face like buckshot. Andreea hurled herself out of the passenger door, followed by the others in the rear.
Another truck thundered past, dangerously fast, and they had to wait. Then, sprinting through the slush, Tilling yelled as hard as he could, ‘Stop! Stop!’
The woman and the girl were more than fifty yards ahead and right by the car.
‘Stop!’ he yelled again. Then, to the boy, ‘Stop them!’
Hearing his voice, the woman glanced round, hastily pulled open the rear door of the car, pushed the girl in and threw herself in after her. The Mercedes pulled away before the rear door was even closed.
Tilling continued to sprint after it for another hundred yards or so, until he fell flat on his face. Clambering to his feet, puffing, he began running back to his Opel, calling out for Raluca, Ileana and Andreea to get back in. Then he stopped by the boy and saw he had a withered hand
‘Was that Simona?’
He said nothing.
‘Simona? Was that Simona?’
Again the boy said nothing.
‘Are you Romeo?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Listen, Romeo, Simona is in danger. Where is she going?’
‘The lady is taking her to England.’
Tilling swore, ran over to his car, climbed in and accelerated, following the direction the Mercedes had taken.
Within a few minutes he realized they had lost it.
But then he had another thought.
93
Already she was missing Romeo and Artur. The sad expression on the dog’s face when she h
ad given him that bone. As if he knew, and could sense they were parting forever.
She had promised Artur she would be back one day. Put her arms around his mangy neck and kissed him. But he looked at her as if he did not believe it. As if there were goodbyes and goodbyes, and he understood the difference. The dog carried the bone off into his makeshift kennel without looking back at her.
The dog she could live without, she realized. The dog was a survivor and would be fine. But she could not live without Romeo. Her heart was crying out for him. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she pressed Gogu, the small, mangy strip of fake fur that was the only possession she carried with her, to her cheeks.
In the back of the black limousine, with its darkened windows, and the rich smells of leather and the German woman’s perfume, she had never felt so alone in her life. The woman talked constantly on her mobile phone, and occasionally looked anxiously out of the rear window into the darkness. They were driving slowly, on a slushy, salted road, in stop–start traffic. And every few minutes she stared at the neck of the man who was driving.
The man with his hair cropped to a light fuzz. With the tattoo of a snake, its tongue forked as if striking, rising out of the right side of his white shirt collar, which she had seen a couple of times when the woman had put on the interior lights, to make notes in her diary.
She shivered. Scared of him despite the fact the woman was here with her, looking after her.
He was the driver for the man who had saved her from the police at the Gara de Nord and then raped her, who had tried to have sex with her as he drove her back home. The man she had bitten and hurt.
In the mirror she caught his eyes, repeatedly glaring at her. Giving her a signal that he was not yet finished with her. That he had not forgotten. She tried to stop looking at the mirror, but every time she weakened, his eyes were there, fixed on her.
She wished she had hurt him more. Bitten his damn thing right off.
Finally, the woman ended her call.
‘When will Romeo come?’ she asked forlornly.
‘Soon, meine Liebe!’ The woman patted her cheek with her leather gloved hand. ‘You will be together again very soon. You will like England. You will be happy there. You are excited?’
‘No.’
‘You should be. A new life!’
Quietly, to herself, Marlene Hartmann was thinking, In fact, three new lives.
It was a shame to waste the heart and lungs, but she had no one matching in the UK on her books, and she did not want to take the risk of delaying, in the hope of a suitable recipient turning up. Not with the police poking around, and those organs would not survive long enough out of the body to be transported overseas. As with a liver transplant, it was best, if at all possible, to have the donor and recipient close to each other, for the least possible delay between death and transplantation. The girl was too small for them to be able to do a split liver, but one on its own was quite profitable enough.
Kidneys had a reasonable shelf life, up to twenty-four hours if properly kept. She had buyers for Simona’s kidneys lined up and waiting, one in Germany, one in Spain. In other countries she would have sold the girl’s skin, eyes and bones, but the margin was low on these and it was not worth the trouble to export them from England. She would clear 100,000 euros’ profit on the two kidneys, and 130,000 net after costs on the liver.
She was very happy.
94
Come on, come on, come on! Damn traffic! Damn fucking traffic!
Ian Tilling drove on his horn, but it made no difference. During the evening rush hour the whole centre of Bucharest and its suburbs turned into one joined-at-the-bumper gridlock. Tonight the snow had made things even worse, extending the rush hour well into the night.
The only consolation was that the car with Simona in it would be stuck in this too.
Damn you, you lazy bastard, Subcomisar Radu Constantinescu, Tilling thought, yet again wiping condensation off the inside of the windscreen, staring at the red blur of tail lights from a stretch Hummer limousine in front of him. For forty minutes he had been repeatedly trying the mobile and direct office lines of the one powerful Bucharest police officer that he knew. Both phones rang on interminably, neither answered nor going to voicemail. Had the man already left the office for the day? Was he in a meeting? Taking the world’s longest shit?
Almost certainly, he reckoned, the German woman would be taking Simona to one of Bucharest’s two international airports. The more likely, which he had tried first, was the larger one, Otopeni. But they were not there. Now he was battling towards the second airport. He desperately needed to get hold of the Subcomisar, and have them picked up, or at least prevented from leaving the country – if the officer would even agree.
The traffic inched forward and halted again, and he braked sharply, almost rear-ending the Hummer. He was running low on petrol and the temperature gauge was rising to a dangerously high level. He dialled Constantinescu’s number again and, to his surprise and relief, this time it answered on the first ring. He heard the police officer’s gravelly voice.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Ian Tilling. How are you?’
‘Mr Ian Tilling, my friend, Member of the British Empire for services to the homeless of Romania! How can I be of help?’
‘I need a very urgent favour.’
Tilling heard a sharp sucking sound and realized the man was probably lighting a new cigarette from the stub of the previous one. He explained the situation as quickly and succinctly as he could.
‘You have the German woman’s name?’
‘The English police told me Marlene Hartmann.’
‘I don’t know this name.’ He suddenly broke into a racking cough. When he had finished, he asked, ‘And the name of the girl?’
‘Simona Irimia. I believe she may be part of the same group as three kids you were going to run checks on for me, do you remember? I was hoping you might be able to identify her for me.’
‘Ah.’
To his dismay, Tilling heard a drawer sliding open. The drawer he had seen the police officer open and shut on his last visit to his office. The drawer into which the Subcomisar had shoved the three e-fits and sets of fingerprints Tilling had asked him to circulate. He had clearly forgotten about them, like most other stuff that was low priority for him.
‘Marlene Hartmann, you spell this for me, Mr Important Man?’
Tilling patiently spelled it. Then, assisted by Raluca, gave him a detailed description of Simona.
‘I phone the airport right away,’ Constantinescu assured him. ‘These two, together, should not be hard to find, either at the ticket desk or passport control. I will ask the airport police to arrest the woman on suspicion of human trafficking, yes? You are on your way there?’
‘I am.’
‘I phone you back with the name of the police officer to contact when you get there, OK?’
‘Thank you, Radu. I really appreciate this.’
‘We have drink soon, to celebrate your gong – yes?’
‘We’ll have several!’ Tilling replied.
*
As the Mercedes headed further away from the city, the traffic thinned out. Marlene Hartmann turned once again to look out of the rear window. To her relief, the headlights of a vehicle that had been behind them for the past forty minutes were fading into the snowy distance.
Simona rested her face against the cold glass of the window, hugging Gogu to her cheek, watching through the snow as the buildings slowly gave way to a vast, dark, empty, translucent landscape.
Marlene Hartmann settled back in her seat, opened her laptop and began to check through her emails. They had a long drive through the night ahead of them.
95
Roy Grace made it back from Munich just in time for the 6.30 p.m. briefing.
He entered the room hurriedly, reading the agenda as he walked, and trying not to spill his mug of coffee.
‘Successful trip, Roy?’ Norman Potting said. ‘Sort
ed the Krauts out? Got them to understand who won the war?’
‘Thank you, Norman,’ he said, taking his seat. ‘I think they know that these days.’
Potting raised a finger in the air. ‘They’re devious buggers. Like the Nips. Look at our car industry! Every other car is German!’
‘NORMAN, thank you!’ Grace raised his voice, feeling tired and tetchy after his long day, which was far from over, and trying to finish reading the agenda before everyone had settled down.
Potting shrugged.
Grace read on in silence as more people shuffled in, then he started.
‘Right, this is our sixteenth briefing of Operation Neptune. We have another body, which may or may not be linked to this operation.’ He looked at Glenn. ‘Would our reluctant fisherman like to talk us through it?’
Branson smiled grimly. ‘Seems like we found poor old Jim Towers. Because he’s bound up head to foot, it’s impossible to see if he has had surgery, so we’ll have to wait for the PM. There’s no one available tonight, it’s being done in the morning.’
‘Has he been formally identified?’ Lizzie Mantle said.
‘From a gold bracelet and his watch,’ Branson replied. ‘We decided not to let his wife have a look at him. He’s not a pretty sight. Remember that face, underwater, in Jaws? The one that popped through the hole in the hull, with its eyeball hanging out, and scared the shit out of Richard Dreyfuss? He looks like that.’
‘Too much information, Glenn!’ Bella Moy said in disgust, changing her mind about popping a Malteser into her mouth.
‘What do we know, so far?’ Grace asked.
‘The boat was scuttled – it wasn’t in a collision.’
‘Any possibility it could have been suicide?’
‘Difficult to scuttle your own boat when you’re trussed up like a mummy in gaffer tape, chief. Unless he had a secret life as an escapologist.’
There was a titter of laugher.