by Peter James
There were four trains an hour to London from there. Romeo Sierra Zero Eight Alpha Mike Lima was still heading towards the M25. All his theories about a clinic in Sussex were suddenly down the khazi. Were they going to a clinic in London?
‘Follow them on foot,’ he said, in sudden total panic. ‘Don’t lose them. Whatever you do, don’t sodding lose them.’
*
With Grigore holding one bag and Lynn holding the other, dragging a stumbling Caitlin between them, they hurried across the concourse of Brighton Station. Every few seconds the man threw a nervous glance over his shoulder.
‘Quick!’ he implored. ‘Quick!’
‘I can’t go any bloody quicker!’ Lynn panted, totally bewildered.
They hurried beneath the clock suspended from the glass roof, past the news stall and the café, then along, past the far platform.
‘Where are we going?’ Lynn asked.
‘Quick!’ he replied.
‘I need to sit down,’ Caitlin said.
‘In minute you sit. OK?’
They stumbled out into the drop-off area beside the car park exit, past several waiting cars and taxis, and reached a dusty brown Mercedes. He popped open the boot, hefted their bags in, then opened a rear door and manoeuvred Caitlin inside. Lynn clambered in on the far side. Grigore jumped into the driver’s seat, started the car and drove like a demon away from the station.
*
The surveillance officer, DC Peter Woolf, stood and watched in horror, sensing his promotion prospects disappearing down that ramp, and frantically radioed his colleague in the Passat to get round to the car park exit.
But the Passat was stuck on the far side of the station in a queue of frustrated drivers, waiting for the imbecile in an articulated lorry that was blocking the entire street to complete his reversing manoeuvre.
112
Marlene Hartmann anxiously paced her office on the ground floor of the west wing of Wiston Grange, one of the six clinics that Transplantation-Zentrale quietly owned around the world. Most of the pampered clientele who came here for its spa, as well as surgical and non-surgical rejuvenation facilities, were wholly unaware of the activities that went on behind the sealed doors, marked PRIVATE NO ACCESS, to this particular wing.
There was a fine view towards the Downs from her window, but whenever she came here she was normally too preoccupied to notice it. As she was today.
She looked at her watch for the tenth time. Where was Sirius? Why were the mother and daughter taking so long?
She needed Lynn Beckett here to fax instructions to her bank to authorize the transfer of the second half of the funds. Normally she would wait for confirmation that the cleared funds were in her account, in Switzerland, before proceeding, but today she was going to have to take a risk, because she wanted to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible.
Sunset was at 3.55 p.m. Shoreham Airport closed then for landings and take-offs. She needed to be there for half past three at the latest. Cosmescu would be coming with her, with the remains of the Romanian girl. The team she left behind would be fine, looking after Caitlin. Even if the police did find out it was this place, by the time they turned up the operation would be completed and they would struggle to recover evidence. They might not be happy, but they could hardly cut Caitlin open to check if she had any new organs.
She left her office and walked through into the changing room, where she gowned up in surgical scrubs, boots and rubber gloves. She then opened the door to the operating theatre and entered, nodding acknowledgement to Razvan Ionescu, the Romanian transplant specialist, the two Romanian anaesthetists and the three Romanian nurses.
Simona lay naked and unconscious on the table, beneath the brilliant glare of the twin octopus overhead lights. A breathing tube had been inserted down her throat, connected to the ventilator and the anaesthetic machine. An intravenous cannula in her wrist, connected to a pump fed from a drip bag hanging from a pole beside the table, kept her under with a continuous infusion of Propofol. Two more pumped in fluids to keep her organs well perfused, for maximum quality.
On the flat state-of-the-art computer screen on the wall was a steady readout of her blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation levels.
‘Alles ist in Ordnung?’ Marlene Hartmann asked.
Razvan stared at her blankly. She forgot he spoke no German.
‘You are ready?’ she said, in Romanian this time.
‘Yes.’
She looked at her watch again. ‘You want to harvest the liver now?’
Despite his experience, Razvan said, ‘I would prefer to wait for Sir Roger.’
‘I’m worried about time,’ she replied. ‘You could make a start with the kidneys. I have orders from Germany and Spain for these.’
Suddenly her radio beeped. She answered and listened for a moment. Then she said, ‘OK, super!’
Mrs Beckett and her daughter would be here in twenty minutes.
113
An embarrassed DC Woolf radioed in a somewhat sheepish report that Whiskey Seven Nine Six Lima Delta Yankee was a total loss. The brown Mercedes, containing Lynn and Caitlin Beckett, had given them the slip.
Great, Roy Grace thought, seated at his cramped work station in MIR One. How fucking great is that?
All he could do now was hope to hell it pinged an ANPR camera.
A phone was ringing, unanswered. They were being deluged with calls at the moment, following all the media publicity, and were struggling to keep up. Even so, there were twenty-two people in this room and only a dozen of them were on the phone, the rest were reading, or typing.
‘Can someone answer the sodding phone!’ he called out.
Then Grace glanced down at the post-mortem report on Jim Towers, which had just landed on his desk. The cause of death was asphyxiation caused by water inhalation. Hypoxia and acidosis, resulting in cardiac arrest. Cutting through Nadiuska De Sancha’s pages of technical notes, he now knew that the Scoob-Eee’s skipper had drowned. All the man’s internal organs were intact.
But even so, despite the difference from the three dead teenagers, Grace’s instincts told him these deaths were connected. He would need to make a decision about whether to argue the case for having the wreck of the Scoob-Eee, now officially a crime scene, recovered. But he hadn’t time to start getting his head around that now.
He tapped out a command on his keyboard to bring up a mapping screen. Moments later, from their on-board transponders, he had the positions of the police helicopter and the two cars that were tailing Sirius’s Aston Martin. They were only a few miles south of the M25 now. At least with the number of ANPR cameras there, it would be easy to keep track of him.
Then a call came through from the Control Centre. Whiskey Seven Nine Six Lima Delta Yankee had just been spotted on the A283, west of Brighton.
He jumped up with excitement and dashed over to the map. Then he frowned. The purple circles closest to the vehicle’s position were Southlands Hospital, in Shoreham, a National Health hospital which had already been marked as unlikely, and a health and beauty spa, Wiston Grange, also marked as unlikely. However, more significantly, this road led to the same roundabout at Washington, just north of Worthing, from where Sirius’s car had headed up the A24.
Returning to his work station, he phoned Jason Tingley, the Division Intelligence Unit inspector, and asked if by chance he had a surveillance unit in the Washington area. But Tingley replied apologetically that he hadn’t.
Ten minutes later, there was still nothing from the car.
Which meant, almost certainly, he was wrong about the direction. All he could hope was that an alert patrol officer spotted it.
Another phone was ringing on, unanswered. Answer it, for fuck’s sake, someone! he thought.
To his relief, someone did.
His nerves were becoming increasingly frayed. Alison Vosper wanted an update and Kevin Spinella from the Argus had left four messages, wanting to know when the next press conferenc
e would be held.
He pulled up a police map of Sussex on his screen and stared at it, wondering desperately what he might be missing.
Then, suddenly, the police observer in the helicopter radioed him, updating him. The Aston Martin was pulling into a petrol station.
Grace thanked him. Seconds later, one of the unmarked units radioed him, informing him they had pulled up at adjoining pumps and requesting instructions.
‘Stay with him,’ Grace responded. ‘Do nothing. Just fill up too, or pretend you’re filling up.’
‘Stay with him, yes, yes.’ There was a crackle, then, ‘Sir, Target One emerging from vehicle. Except, sir, it’s not a him, it’s a her.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a woman, sir. Long dark hair. Five-ten, late twenties.’
‘Are you sure?’ Grace retorted.
‘Umm – it’s a woman, sir, yes, yes.’
Grace suddenly felt as if a plug had been pulled inside him. ‘A woman with long brown hair? But – she had grey hair half an hour ago!’
‘Not any more, sir.’
‘You’re kidding me!’ he said.
‘I’m afraid not, sir.’
‘Stay with her,’ Grace said. ‘I want to know where she’s going.’
Next, he instructed the helicopter to head down to the Washington roundabout and watch for the Mercedes. Then he sipped some stone-cold coffee and closed his eyes for a few moments, tapping his fist against his chin, deep in thought.
Was the woman in the Aston just on an innocent journey somewhere, or was she a decoy? Had DS Tanner, an experienced surveillance officer, made an error? That was a big difference in hair colour to get wrong. The car probably had darkened windows, but the law forbade heavy tints in the front windows.
Moments later his radio beeped and he got his answer.
It was the surveillance officer at the petrol station.
‘Sir, I just got a glance inside the car while she went to pay. There’s a short grey wig lying on the passenger seat.’
Grace thanked him and told him to continue following her. Then he ended the call.
Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit.
Immediately, he radioed Paul Tanner.
The rural surveillance expert was apologetic. He informed Grace that he and his colleague had remained in situ for thirty minutes after the departure of the Aston Martin, as instructed. But they were now heading into central Brighton, urgently required for a drugs surveillance operation.
Grace thanked him, then turned to Guy Batchelor and asked him to call Sirius’s home number, to see if the man was there.
Two minutes later, the Detective Sergeant informed him that Sirius had left home a short while ago.
Grace listened despondently. He just couldn’t believe he’d allowed himself to be so completely and utterly duped – and so simply. It wasn’t what his team expected of him. Nor was it what he expected from himself.
He should have arrested Lynn Beckett earlier today, when he’d had the chance. At least that might have contained the situation. Except, of course, it would have caused panic and he’d almost certainly have blown any chance of catching the people red-handed. God, hindsight was so easy!
Think, he willed himself. Think, man, think, think, think.
An unanswered phone was warbling again. He was finding it hard to concentrate with this damn, incessant ringing. A light was blinking on the panel on the phone in front of him. In frustration he pressed the button and answered it himself.
‘Incident Room,’ he said.
On the other end of the line was a nervous-sounding woman. In her thirties or forties, he guessed. She said, ‘May I please speak to someone involved with the three bodies that were – were – found in the Channel? Is it Operation Neptune? Is that right?’
She sounded as if she was probably a time waster, but you could never be sure. His policy was always to be polite and listen carefully. ‘You’re speaking to Detective Superintendent Grace,’ he said. ‘I’m the Senior Investigating Officer on Operation Neptune.’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Right. Good. Look, I’m sorry to trouble you – but I’m worried. I shouldn’t be making this call, you see – I’ve sneaked out in my break.’
‘OK,’ he said, picking up his pen and opening his notebook on a blank page. ‘Could you let me have your name and your contact number?’
‘I – I saw on a Crimestoppers’ advertisement that – that I could be anonymous.’
‘Yes, certainly, if you’d prefer. So, how do you believe you can help us?’
‘Well,’ she said, sounding even more nervous, ‘this may be nothing, of course. But I’ve read – you know – and seen on the news – the – er – the speculation that these poor young people might have been trafficked for their organs. Well, the thing is, you see . . .’ She fell silent.
Grace waited for her to continue. Finally, he prompted her, a tad impatiently. ‘Yes?’
‘Well, you see, I work in the dispensing department of a pharmaceutical wholesaler. For quite a long time now we’ve been supplying two particular drugs, among others, to a cosmetic surgery clinic in West Sussex. Now the thing is, I don’t understand why this clinic would need these particular drugs.’
Grace started becoming more interested. ‘What kind of drugs?’
‘Well, one is called Tacrolimus.’ She spelled it out and he wrote it down. ‘The other is Ciclosporin.’ He wrote that down, also.
‘These drugs are immunosuppressants,’ she continued.
‘Which means they do what, exactly?’ he asked.
‘Immunosuppressants are used to prevent rejection by the human body of transplanted organs.’
‘Are you saying they don’t have any application in cosmetic surgery?’
‘The only application is for skin grafts, to prevent rejection. But I very much doubt they would be using the quantity we’ve been supplying for the two years that I’ve been here now if it was just for skin grafts. I know quite a lot about that area, you see, I used to work in the burns unit at East Grinstead,’ she said, suddenly sounding proud and less nervous. ‘There’s another drug as well that we supply to this clinic that I think might be relevant.’
‘Which is?’
‘Prednisolone.’ Again she spelled it out. ‘It’s a steroid – it can have a wider application, but it has a particular function in liver transplants.’
‘Liver transplants?’
‘Yes.’
Suddenly, Roy Grace’s adrenalin was surging. ‘What’s the name of this clinic?’
After some hesitation, the woman’s voice dropped and she sounded nervous again. Almost whispering, she said, ‘Wiston Grange.’
114
The driver’s English was limited, which suited Lynn fine, as she wasn’t in any mood for chatting. He’d informed her his name was Grigore, and every time she glanced at his rear-view mirror, she saw him grinning at her with his crooked, glinting teeth. Twice on the journey he made a brief phone call, speaking in a foreign language Lynn did not know.
All her attention was on Caitlin, who, to her intense relief, seemed to rally a little again during the course of the journey – thanks perhaps to the glucose fluid or the antibiotics, or both. It was Lynn who was the hopeless bag of nerves at this moment, barely even noticing where they were heading, as they travelled along the A27 west of Brighton, passing Shoreham Airport, then along the Steyning bypass. The sky was an ominous grey, as if reflecting the darkness inside her, and flecks of sleet were falling. Every few minutes the driver briefly flicked the wipers on.
‘Will Dad come and see me?’ Caitlin asked suddenly, her voice sounding weak. She was scratching her stomach now.
‘Of course. One of us will be with you all the time until you are back home.’
‘Home,’ Caitlin said wistfully. ‘That’s where I’d like to be now. Home.’
Lynn nearly asked her which home, but decided not to go there. She already knew the answer.
Then, looking frightene
d and vulnerable, Caitlin asked, ‘You’ll be there during the operation, won’t you, Mum?’
‘I promise.’ She squeezed her daughter’s weak hand and kissed her on the cheek. ‘And I’ll be there when you wake up.’
Caitlin gave a wry smile. ‘Yeah, well, don’t wear anything embarrassing.’
‘Thanks a lot!’
‘You haven’t brought that horrible orange top?’
‘I haven’t brought that horrible orange top.’
*
A little over half an hour after leaving Brighton Station car park, they turned in through a smart, pillared gateway, past the sign which read WISTON GRANGE SPA RESORT, then they drove on up a metalled driveway, through rolling parkland and over a series of speed humps. After a short distance Lynn saw a golf course to their left and a large lake. Ahead were the Downs, and she could make out the cluster of trees that formed Chanctonbury Ring.
Caitlin was silent, her eyes closed, listening to music on her iPod, or asleep. Lynn, sitting in funereal silence, did not want to wake her until the last moment, hoping sleep might help conserve her strength.
God, please let me have made the right decision, she prayed silently.
It had been OK until the police officers’ visit this morning. She had known until then that she was doing the right thing, but now she didn’t know what the right thing was any more.
Finally, jerked by a speed hump, Caitlin’s eyes opened and she stared around, bewildered.
‘What are you listening to, darling?’ Lynn asked.
Caitlin did not hear her.
Lynn stared at her daughter with such affection she thought her heart would burst. Stared at the bilious yellow colour of her skin and her eyes. She looked so damn frail and vulnerable.
Stay strong, darling. Just for a little while longer. Just a few more hours and then everything is going to be fine.
She looked through the windscreen for some moments at the place looming up ahead, a big, ugly, stately pile of a house. The central part looked, to Lynn, as if it was Victorian Gothic, but there were a number of modern annexes and outbuildings, some sympathetic to the style, others just bland, modern prefabs. She saw a circular driveway ahead, lined with cars, flanked by a car park on either side, but the driver turned off at a sign marked private, drove through an archway along the side of the house and into a large rear courtyard, bounded on one side by what she presumed had once been the mews stables and on another by a row of ugly lock-up garages.