Dead Tomorrow

by Peter James

  He did not hear her.

  ‘Hello!’

  He was getting back into the vehicle.

  She grabbed the front passenger door and swayed again, hanging on to it with all her strength. Then she pulled it open. ‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Please – are you free?’

  ‘I’m sorry, love, this is out of my area. I’m not allowed to pick up here.’

  ‘Please – where are you going? Could you just give me a lift?’

  He was a wrinkled man with white hair and a kind face.

  ‘Where do you want to go? I have to get back to Brighton.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, great, thanks.’

  She half stumbled, half fell on to the front seat. The interior smelled strongly of the woman’s perfume.

  ‘Are you all right, love? You’re bleeding.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘Just – just shut my hand in a door.’

  ‘I’ve got a first-aid kit – do you want a sticking plaster?’

  Caitlin shook her head vigorously. ‘No. No thanks. I’m fine.’

  ‘Been having treatment here, have you?’

  She nodded, desperately trying to keep her eyes open.

  ‘Expensive, this place, I’ve heard.’

  ‘My mother pays,’ she whispered.

  He leaned over and pulled her seat belt on for her, then clipped it into place.

  She was almost unconscious by the time they reached the front gates.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked.

  Nodding, she replied, ‘It’s tiring, you know, the treatments.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘Not in my budget.’

  ‘Budget,’ she echoed weakly. Then, as her eyes closed, she felt the vehicle accelerate.

  ‘You really sure you’re all right?’ he asked again insistently.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Five minutes later, three police cars shot past in the opposite direction, roof spinners flashing, sirens wailing. Moments later, they were followed by another.

  ‘Something’s going on,’ the driver said.

  ‘Shit happens,’ she murmured drowsily.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he agreed.

  118

  Alarmed by the abrupt, panicky departure of the organ broker from the room, Lynn went over to the window to see what was causing the incessant, clattering noise. Her gullet tightened as she looked up at the circling helicopter and read the word police.

  It was circling low overhead, as if looking for something – or someone.

  Herself?

  Her stomach felt as if a drum of ice had been emptied into it.

  Please, no. Please, God, no. Not now. Please let the operation go ahead. After that, anything.

  Please just let the operation go ahead.

  She was so tensed up, watching it, at first she didn’t hear the sound of her phone ringing. Then she fumbled inside her handbag and pulled her phone out. On the display it read, Private Number.

  She answered.

  ‘Mrs Beckett?’ said a woman’s voice she recognized but could not place.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Shirley Linsell, from the Royal South London Hospital.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, hello,’ she said, surprised to hear from the woman. What the hell was she calling about?

  ‘I have some good news for you. We have a liver which may be suitable for Caitlin. Can you be ready to leave in an hour’s time?’

  ‘A liver?’ she said blankly.

  ‘It’s actually a split liver from a large person.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ she said, her mind spinning. Split liver. She couldn’t even think what a split liver meant at this moment.

  ‘Would one hour’s time be all right?’

  ‘One hour?’

  ‘For the ambulance to collect yourself and Caitlin?’

  Suddenly, Lynn felt boiling hot, as if her head was about to explode.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Pardon?’

  Shirley Linsell patiently repeated what she had just said.

  Lynn stood in numb silence, holding the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hello? Mrs Beckett?’

  Her brain was paralysed.

  ‘Mrs Beckett? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lynn said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll have an ambulance with you in one hour.’

  ‘Right,’ Lynn said. ‘Umm, the thing is . . .’ She fell silent.

  ‘Hello? Mrs Beckett?’

  ‘I’m here,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a very good match.’

  ‘Right, good, OK.’

  ‘Do you have some concerns you’d like to talk about?’

  Lynn’s brain was scrambling for traction. What the hell should she do? Tell the woman no thanks, that she was now sorted?

  With a police helicopter overhead.

  Where had Marlene Hartmann gone, almost running from the room?

  What if the wheels fell off, despite the payment she had made? Maybe it would be more sensible, even at this late stage, to take the offer of the legitimate liver?

  Like the last time, when they had been bumped for some sodding alcoholic?

  Caitlin would not survive if they got bumped again.

  ‘Can we talk through your concerns, Mrs Beckett?’

  ‘Yep, well, after the last time – that was a pretty damn tough call. I don’t think I could put Caitlin through that again.’

  ‘I understand that, Mrs Beckett. I can’t give you any guarantees that our consultant surgeon won’t find a problem with this one either. But, so far, it looks good.’

  Lynn sat back down at one of the chairs in front of Marlene Hartmann’s desk. She desperately needed to think this through.

  ‘I have to call you back,’ Lynn said. ‘How long can you give me?’

  Sounding surprised, the woman said, ‘I can give you ten minutes. Otherwise I will have to pass it to the next person on the list, I’m afraid. I really think you would be making a terrible mistake not to accept this.’

  ‘Ten minutes, thank you,’ Lynn said. ‘I’ll call you. Within ten minutes.’

  She hung up. Then she attempted to weigh the pros and cons in her mind, trying not to be influenced by the money she had paid over.

  A certain liver here at this clinic, versus an uncertain liver in London.

  Caitlin should be part of this decision. Then she looked at her watch. Nine minutes to go.

  She hurried out across the carpeted area and through the door into the tiled corridor. Ahead on her right she saw a door ajar and peered in. It was a small changing room, with lockers and a bench seat. Lying on the seat was Caitlin’s duffel coat.

  She must be somewhere near, she thought. A short distance further along was another open door, to the left. She walked down and looked in, and saw a storeroom with a gurney on wheels and what looked like an operating-theatre door, with a glass porthole, at the far end.

  She hurried across and peered through the glass. An unconscious, naked girl, not Caitlin, lay intubated on the operating table. Several masked people, in green scrubs, were heaving a huge, unconscious nurse, covered in blood, up off the floor. As they staggered around under her weight, Lynn saw, to her shock, it was the nurse, Draguta, who had taken Caitlin off.

  She felt a sudden fear catching her throat. Something was terribly wrong. She pushed the door open and went in.

  ‘Excuse me!’ she called out. ‘Excuse me! Does anyone know where my daughter is? Caitlin?’

  Several of them turned to stare at her.

  ‘Your daughter?’ said a young man, in broken English.

  ‘Caitlin. She’s having an operation. A transplant.’

  The surgeon glanced at the nurse, then back at Lynn. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

  ‘Where is she?’ she said, almost yelling at him, her fear rising. ‘What’s going on? Where is she?’ She jabbed a hand at Draguta. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I think you should speak with
your daughter,’ he said.

  ‘Where is she? Please, where is she?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  She glanced at her watch. Seven minutes left.

  She turned and ran, panic-stricken, from the room, back out into the corridor, shouting loudly, ‘Caitlin! Caitlin! Caitlin!’

  She flung open a door, but it was just a laundry room. Then another, but it contained only an MRI scanner and was otherwise empty.

  ‘CAITLIN!’ she screamed desperately, running further along the corridor, then outside into the deserted yard and the freezing air. She looked around frantically, shouting again, ‘CAITLIN!’

  Choked with tears, she went back in and ran along the corridor into the office suite, throwing open door after door. There were just offices. Startled administration staff looked up from their work stations. She opened another door and saw a small back staircase. She sprinted up it and at the top saw a heavy fire door with the words STERILE AREA. STRICTLY NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE across it.

  It was unlocked and she went through into what felt, and smelled like a hospital corridor. There was another door ahead, with a hand-cleansing unit, on the wall outside. Ignoring that, she opened the door and stepped in.

  It was a small intensive care ward. There were six beds, three of them occupied, one by a long-haired man in his early forties, who might have been a rock singer, another by a boy of about Caitlin’s age and the third by a woman, in her late fifties Lynn estimated. All were three intubated with endotracheal and nasogastric tubes and plumbed into a forest of drip and monitoring lines from the battery of equipment surrounding each bed.

  Three nurses, in the same white uniform as Draguta had been wearing, stared up at her with suspicion from behind the central station.

  ‘I’m looking for my daughter, Caitlin,’ she said. ‘Have any of you seen her?’

  ‘Please leave,’ one said in broken English. ‘No admission.’

  She backed out quickly, checked for more doors, saw one and pulled it open. It was a canteen and sitting room. She ran across and checked another door, but that opened on to an empty bathroom. Then she looked at her watch again.

  Less than five minutes.

  Surely they could give her a little more time? She had to be here.

  Had to.

  She dialled Caitlin’s mobile phone, but it went straight to voicemail. Then she stumbled back down the stairs, through the office suite and out of another door. She ran along a short passageway, then pushed open another door and suddenly found herself in the vast, marble-floored entrance lobby of the spa.

  There were people all around. Three women in white towelling dressing gowns and throw-away slippers were peering at a display of jewellery in a showcase. A man, similarly attired, was signing a form at one of the reception desks. Near him a woman in an elegant coat with a silk headsquare, her wheeled suitcase beside her, appeared to be checking in.

  She swept the entire room with her eyes in just a few seconds.

  No Caitlin.

  Then the two halves of the electric front door slid open with a sharp hiss. Six solid and determined-looking police officers all wearing body armour entered.

  She turned and ran.

  119

  ‘The far end!’ Marlene Hartmann said to Grigore. ‘Down the end of the golf course, just past the eighth tee, there’s another exit. The police won’t know about it. It takes us out on to a lane. We can keep away from the main road for several miles. I know it works. I’ll direct you.’

  She sat in the back of the brown Mercedes, hands gripping the top of the passenger seat, anxiously looking all around her, breathing heavily, cursing. Cursing the damned Beckett woman and her little bitch daughter. Cursing the police. Cursing the panicky surgeon, Sirius.

  But mostly cursing herself. Her stupidity in thinking she could get away with this. Greed. It was like gambler’s folly. Not knowing when to quit.

  In front of her, Vlad Cosmescu was silent. He was having similar thoughts. Always at the roulette table – well, almost always, anyway – he knew when to quit. To walk away. To go home.

  He should have gone home last night. Then it would have been fine. Back home to Romania. He didn’t owe this woman anything. She just used him, the way everyone used him. The same way he used them. That was how the world worked, to him. Life wasn’t about loyalty, it was about survival.

  So why was he here?

  He knew the answer. Because this woman had a spell on him. He wanted to conquer her, wanted to sleep with her. He thought that by being brave it would attract her.

  He swore silently. For ten years he had made money and kept free of the law.

  Stupid, he thought. Just so stupid.

  The car slewed and bumped over a mound, then, to the fury of two male golfers, drove straight over a green, between the balls they were waiting to putt out. Marlene clung on as the car dipped steeply, its suspension bottoming out, her head striking the ceiling as the car bounced.

  ‘Scheisse!’ she said, but not from pain.

  It was the sight of the white police van that was squarely parked across the rear exit to Wiston Grange, ahead of them, that made her swear.

  ‘Turn!’ she commanded Grigore. ‘We try the front.’

  ‘Maybe we are better on foot?’ Cosmescu said, as Grigore braked sharply, sliding the car around on the grass.

  ‘Oh sure, with the helicopter up there? No chance!’ She peered out of the side window, craning her neck up.

  Then Grigore let out a yell and jabbed his finger over his shoulder. Marlene turned and, to her horror, saw a police Range Rover on their tail, lights flashing and gaining rapidly.

  ‘Want me to try?’ Grigore said. ‘I drive fast?’

  ‘No, stop. Don’t say anything. I’ll speak. I’ll try to bluff. Stop the car! Halten!’

  Grigore obliged. The three of them sat in numb silence, for an instant, Marlene thinking hard.

  Another police car was racing towards them. It pulled up nose to nose with the Mercedes, blocking them, its siren dying away. And as she looked at the occupants of the front seat, her heart sank even further.

  The driver was a black officer she had never seen before, but his front seat passenger was someone she had very definitely met before. In her office in Germany.

  Yesterday.

  Now he was out of his car and walking towards her, his unbuttoned overcoat open and flapping in the breeze. Several uniformed officers in stab vests materialized from the Range Rover and stood close behind him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Taylor,’ she greeted him coolly, as he opened her door. ‘Or would you prefer I call you Detective Superintendent Grace?’

  Ignoring her comment, and unsmiling, he said, ‘Marlene Eva Hartmann, I’m arresting you on suspicion of trafficking human beings for organ transplantation purposes.’ He cautioned her and said, ‘Step out of the car, please.’

  He gripped her wrist and held on as she climbed out, then nodded to one of the uniformed police officers, who stepped forward and handcuffed her. ‘Just hold her here for a moment,’ he instructed the PC, then he opened the front door and addressed Cosmescu.

  ‘Joseph Baker, otherwise known as Vlad Roman Cosmescu, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Jim Towers.’ Grace then cautioned him.

  As Cosmescu was being handcuffed, Grace walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. The man was staring at him bug-eyed and shaking. ‘So who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Me, Grigore. I the driver.’

  ‘You have a last name?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Grigore? Grigore what?’

  ‘Ah. Dinica. Grigore Dinica!’

  ‘You’re the driver, right?’

  ‘Yes, just taxi driver, like taxi driver.’

  ‘Taxi driver?’ Grace pushed, brushing a fleck of sleet from his face. His radio crackled but he ignored it.

  ‘Yes, yes, taxi. I only driving taxi for these people.’

  ‘You want me to
nick you for driving an unlicensed taxi, on top of what I’m about to charge you with?’

  Grigore stared at him blankly, perspiration popping on his brow.

  Telling Glenn Branson to arrest the man on suspicion of aiding and abetting human trafficking, Grace turned back to the woman.

  Before he could speak, she said, ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, may I recommend that next time you pretend to be a customer interested in some services, you should be better briefed.’

  ‘If you’re so well briefed yourself, how come you’re nicked?’ he retorted.

  ‘I have done nothing wrong,’ she said adamantly.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then you’re lucky. English prisons are horribly overcrowded at the moment. I wouldn’t recommend a stay in many of them, especially the women’s ones.’ He brushed more flecks of sleet from his face. ‘Now, Frau Hartmann, do you want us to do this the easy way or the hard way?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We have a search warrant signed for these premises, which is on its way – it’ll be here in a few minutes. You can give us the guided tour, if you like, or leave us to find our own way around.’

  He smiled.

  She did not smile back.

  120

  Lynn ran through a seemingly never-ending succession of rooms with a bewildering array of signs and names. Some she checked out, some she ignored. She didn’t bother with the sauna, or the steam room, or the aromatherapy room. But she peered into the yoga classroom, the Ayurvedic Centre, several treatment rooms, then the Rainforest Experience Zone.

  Every few moments she looked over her shoulder for any sign of the police officers. But they were not following her.

  Out of breath and disoriented by the geography of the place, she stumbled on. She was feeling clammy and jittery, a sign, she recognized through her distress, that she was low on sugar.

  Darling. Caitlin, darling. Angel, where are you?

  As she ran, she dialled Caitlin’s mobile for the third time, but it again went straight to voicemail.

  The ten minutes were up. She stopped and, panting, dialled Shirley Linsell and pleaded for a few more minutes, giving a half-truth that she had taken her to a spa and she had wandered off. Reluctantly, the Royal’s transplant coordinator agreed to another ten minutes. But that would be it.