Dead Blind

by Rebecca Bradley

  As she hadn’t been a part of the interview she couldn’t claim any success for this development. She couldn’t put this on her CV. Cracking an interviewee of a major organ trading ring. He wasn’t sure she would have got the same result had she been the one to go in a second or third time. Their thought processes were all different, and maybe her train of thought would have led the interview somewhere else. Maybe not. They’d never know.

  ‘I’ll write it all up in my policy log,’ he continued. ‘I’ll also make Detective Superintendent Jain aware of what we have, so that he can move it up the chain of command and anywhere else he feels this needs to go. Probably the National Crime Agency so they can follow up the Russian lead. They’re more equipped for it.’

  ‘So what now?’ asked Will, who had picked his jaw up from the floor.

  ‘Now we carry on debriefing both these interviews. See what matches, what doesn’t. We’re waiting on forensics to see if usable evidence comes back from the cartridge, and once we have the bullet from the morgue we can check to see if the weapon has been used in any other offences – but that will take some time. If we can get them charged with the offences for which they’ve been arrested by the end of their time limit, then we get them remanded and we continue the investigation. If a lead comes back from forensics, then it’s another lead we follow.’

  Nods all round again. Notes were made on hard-backed blue pads.

  ‘We follow every lead we have to get this guy in the UK. We can’t have this organisation removing organs from UK citizens and giving them to the highest bidder because they can’t be arsed to wait on the transplant list.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s as simple as that, guv.’ Tamsin had decided that now was the time she would break her silence against him. She was tough, dedicated and principled.

  ‘I know that, Tamsin.’

  ‘It’s not like they’re out to buy a new car, though, is it?’

  ‘That’s not what I said. I was maybe a bit flippant. But you can’t jump the queue because you have money.’

  ‘I doubt they take the decision lightly. This is a last resort. The transplant list isn’t a lifeline for everyone. It’s a chance, but it’s not a given that you’ll get what you need. People die waiting on that list. I’d imagine people need to be pretty desperate to make the decision to buy themselves a new organ.’

  Ray was starting to lose his patience with Tamsin but he wouldn’t rip her one in front of her colleagues. ‘They might be desperate, Tamsin, but that still doesn’t give them the right to put someone else’s life at risk and potentially kill someone else to save their own life. We know life is fragile.’ He looked at Elaine. The slightly pink scar that ran down the side of her eye and along her cheekbone. He felt the throb in his leg. He looked at the faces he could clearly see but wouldn’t recognise if he walked out of the room and walked back in again. Fragility. ‘Look at Billy’s brother. No one has the right to do that to another human being. To another family. We have to take what life throws at us and we have to deal with it.’ He looked hard at her now. His voice laced with steel, but quiet and smooth. ‘Like it or not.’

  30

  The handle clattered into the wall as it always did as Elaine opened the door into the ladies’ toilets. It was a shabby room, painted, yes, but not in the longest time. It was scuffed and dirty, though not unclean: there was a fresh scent in the air, as the cleaners made sure the air-fresheners on the windowsills were always refilled. The current one was pumping out vanilla and cherry-blossom. The sweet fragrance was a little overpowering and sickly, but Elaine preferred the syrupy scent to how it could potentially smell in here with multiple visitors throughout the day.

  ‘You in here?’ she asked of the apparently empty room.

  ‘No,’ came the reply from one of the stalls.

  Elaine sighed. ‘Tamsin, it’s been a tough couple of days for all of us. Come out, let’s talk about it.’

  The door opened. Tamsin’s eyes were dry where Elaine had expected them to be damp. It must have shown on her face because Tamsin smiled and pulled her up on it. ‘He’s not going to make me cry. I’m tougher than that.’

  ‘I didn’t think –’

  Tamsin gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Oh yes you did.’ Then her face dropped. ‘But what the hell, Elaine? Does he not realise we’re hurting over Billy? That we’ve known the lad for weeks and for him to then be killed on our op … ? And then for him to do that to me … and it’s not that he did that, no, it’s his … he can do that,’ she stuttered, ‘he’s the boss … but in front of everyone. You just don’t.’

  Elaine was leaning back on the wall. She watched the emotions play out across Tamsin’s face. Her own stomach twisted as Tamsin spoke of Billy, her affection for the lad cutting deep. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. For some reason he seems a little –’ she paused, looked for the word ‘– different, with this job. I spoke to him at the scene yesterday and he looked dreadful, Tamsin.’

  Tamsin looked up. ‘You know he opposed the op?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Yeah. Jain told him he had to do it and he had me back him up. I went into Ray’s office and I told him everything would be okay.’ Her eyes filled with tears now.

  ‘Oh, Tamsin.’ Elaine reached out and put her arms around the other woman. Pulled her into a hug. Felt her curls tickle her face. Her own emotions were so tangled that she couldn’t decipher them, but she could clearly feel the hurt radiating off Tamsin. ‘You couldn’t have known.’

  Tamsin pulled away. Scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of her fingers, then wiped her face with her palms. ‘Look okay?’ she asked.

  ‘You look fine,’ answered Elaine, ‘But – are you?’

  Tamsin pushed her shoulders back. Rubbed at her face again. ‘Yes, I’m fine. We need to get on with this job. For Billy.’

  ‘I’m here if you need to talk.’

  ‘How are you always so in control?’ asked Tamsin.

  ‘The perks of having two tearaways,’ laughed Elaine.

  Tamsin smiled.

  ‘This is going to be a tough job, there’s no doubt about that, but we will get through it. And I’ll keep my eye on the boss. He does seem to be acting a little out of character.’

  31

  After tearing a quiet strip off Tamsin, Ray wanted to understand the transplant system better. He wanted to know the process for being placed on the list: the criteria for being added and particularly for being refused. And he wanted to know what the waiting time was for people on the transplant list, especially for organs that could technically be harvested from living donors. It had emerged from the interviews earlier that this seemed to be the business plan of the organisation they were dealing with. Living donors only. People who were willing to come forward and sell parts of themselves for money. To fund whatever it was they needed the money for, or to get themselves out of debt. He’d heard of a case of a person who had attempted to sell an organ on eBay of all places. As though it wouldn’t be noticed or stopped. People so desperate to break out of the debt cycle that they’d offered themselves up with little or no knowledge of what it entailed.

  Ray wanted this information.

  He spent a couple of hours researching transplants, then made an appointment with a consultant at the Royal Free Hospital on Pond Street to discuss the whole process with her so that he understood it. If he could get his head around it and find out what the organisation they were up against needed, then they would know what other lines of inquiry they needed to follow.

  There was a knock at his door. Ray looked up. Tamsin stood there. Arms locked across her chest, a barrier. She’d had a bad day.

  ‘Come in, Tamsin. Sit down.’ Ray gestured to the seat in front of his desk.

  Tamsin did as he directed. Again she held her upper body in that stiff purposeful way.

  She was silent.

  He waited.

  She locked her ankles around each other and pushed them back under the chair.

  Still he
waited for her to speak. Allowed a peacefulness to settle in the room. Gave her space to breathe and find her voice. He made a quick note of the time he was to meet the consultant in his diary as he waited.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Mmm?’ He kept his head down. He didn’t want to force her hand, to push her over the edge. He valued her on the team but he was aware how her drive to succeed could push her into the middle of problems. He’d avoid it for her.

  He opened his email inbox.

  ‘About today.’

  ‘Yes?’ Ray selected his recipient and entered the subject line.

  ‘If I overstepped the line …’

  He stopped typing and looked at his subordinate. Struggling to find her place when her determination had pushed her over lines she hadn’t realised were there.

  ‘Tamsin, I admire a desire to succeed and how much you bring to the table. How many hours you put in. How passionate you are about the jobs we do. I don’t ever want you to lose that thirst for the job. I don’t want you to turn into a jobsworth, clocking in and clocking out, not caring about the people we deal with day in and day out. You’re a part of this team because of the person you are.’

  His young DS had chewed the side of her mouth while he talked, but now she’d stopped, her mouth a little ajar.

  ‘But, I thought –’

  ‘I know what you thought. Yes, I disagreed with you, and yes, I need you to learn when you can and can’t push a topic, that’s all. Learn to read people a little more. Figure out when you can push and when, for instance, I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And, Tamsin.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Taking you off the interview this morning was not a reflection on you. I wanted to get my feet wet with this job. It meant a lot to me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Have a glass of wine tonight. Sleep and come at it tomorrow afresh. We’ve a lot of work to do yet. Plenty of work –’ the phone on his desk started to ring. He looked at Tamsin ‘– to get your teeth into.’

  Tamsin nodded, her curls now moving around her face. Ray picked up the handset on the third ring. Listened to the caller, uh-huh-ing down the phone as he did.

  Tamsin stood to leave. Ray looked up, still listening, and held up a finger for her to wait. He told the caller a couple of them would be right there, asked for the address again, grabbed a pen and scribbled it down on his open notepad.

  ‘We have a burnt-out silver BMW in Plaistow.’

  ‘You think it’s ours?’ Tamsin asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea. It was lit up inside a garage. Could be kids. But we’ll have to check it out. Want to come?’

  The bright clear day was now punctured by the ugly blackened steaming shell of the garage in front of them. Fingers of smoke damage leisurely grasped hold of each side wall to the adjoining garages. Its door, which was completely off the frame, lay on the floor, bent and crumpled, blackened. The brickwork was scorched, licked from the inside, like a dragon had breathed outwards. The corrugated roof sagged as though there were a weight at its centre.

  Inside, the car was a charred shell.

  The fire had been ferocious.

  The air was clogged with the stench of burnt oil and rubber.

  Ray and Tamsin stood back and let the firemen work, hands in pockets to keep the cold at bay. It always seemed that the brighter the day the colder it felt. Even with the residual heat that came from the now extinct garage and car fire, steaming from being recently put out. It hissed and groaned in complaint.

  ‘He really wanted to destroy the evidence.’ Ray looked at the firemen who walked around the outer scene. He couldn’t stop them trampling all over his scene: they had priority if there was a fire.

  ‘We might be able to check the vehicle through the VIN number and then make enquiries as to who owns the lock-up?’ Tamsin ventured.

  ‘Yeah, once fire have said it’s safe, we’ll take it in and get it examined. See if there’s any area left untouched by fire that may hold a print or partial print that we can run and get a match for.’ He looked at Tamsin. ‘Because this is our guy, no doubt about it.’

  ‘What do you think the odds of that are?’ she asked.

  Ray took a step back and looked at the ground. The guy was good. He’d shot Billy, not in the head, not a death shot, but one that would make Ray stop and help so that he could get away, and now he’d fired his vehicle in situ so as to not trigger any cameras. He had brains, and Ray didn’t like criminals who used their brains. It always took so much longer to catch up with them, which often meant more people ended up hurt.

  ‘Slim,’ he answered, as he faced down.

  ‘I feel bad.’ Tamsin kept her eyes on the ground.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘When I walked into your office the other day, when you were in conversation with the guv about it …’

  Ray knew what she was about to say. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘No. I was so focused on the outcome I didn’t think through the risks properly. I said it should go ahead.’

  Hands still in his pockets, Ray looked right and left the length of the garage lock-ups and then back down to his feet. It was reasonably clean.

  ‘We all feel it, Tamsin. The truth is, I don’t think any of us could have stopped Billy. So now we have to finish it for him.’

  He took another step back. Then another. Then another.

  ‘Tamsin?’

  She finally looked at him.

  ‘Step back here with me, will you.’ She moved back as he’d asked.

  ‘What do you see on the floor?’

  She looked down. ‘Not a lot.’ She looked back at him, confused. ‘Why, what should I see?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but let’s get the CSIs to do the area around the length of the garages and see if he’s dropped anything. I’m certain this is our guy.’

  32

  With the sat nav on it took him half an hour to navigate to the hospital.

  In that time, Ray ran through the questions in his head that he needed answers to. It was a complete unknown, so the old phrase ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ sprang to mind as he manoeuvred through the late-afternoon London traffic. Out of Stoke Newington, through Islington, and into Camden to Hampstead. He had an appointment at the Royal Free. One he hoped would shed some light on the matter.

  He was flustered by the time he arrived. Getting accustomed to driving places he used to know by heart, with the help of an electronic device, wasn’t easy. It irritated him. Made the journey twitchy as he continued to follow the hollow-voiced instructions. He’d been informed by the doctor who had talked to him about his condition that losing his sense of direction might be one of the side-effects of the disorder but wasn’t one that all prosopagnosics struggled with. Ray was annoyed that he was one of those affected this way.

  Finding a parking space had proved close to impossible, and then navigating the large hospital had nearly sent him into his own private meltdown as time and again he found himself back in a room or corridor he’d already visited. He felt like a child lost in a maze. The corridors looked identical, a linoleum floor and scuffed painted walls; the signs were no help at all, as the arrows seemed to point in random directions or nowhere in particular. It took a kindly cleaner who he had passed at least three times to take him by the hand – very nearly literally, and he could have done with it – and show him where he needed to be. Ray couldn’t thank him enough and pleaded a late night at work for his incompetence with directions today. He dreaded the thought that he’d have to find his own way out, and cursed, yet again, the injury to his head.

  Ray took a minute to compose himself.

  Mrs Moira Sandford sat behind her desk, glasses down at the end of her nose as she bent toward the computer monitor reading whatever it was that held her interest on the screen. Ray rapped on the open door. Sandford pushed the spectacles up her nose and looked up at her visitor. Ray struggled to place the look on her face. Eventual
ly she asked, ‘Can I help you?’ a slight tone of exasperation in her voice.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He straightened himself, aware that he may have been slouching on the door frame a little. ‘I’m DI Ray Patrick, we spoke on the phone.’

  Sandford now pushed the square-framed glasses to the top of her head, which pushed her loose brown hair up with it, the spectacles acting like a child’s Alice band. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Come in. Have a seat.’ She waved to the two chairs in front of her desk. ‘Can I get you a drink? Tea, coffee? It’s from the doctor’s lounge, but I can’t promise it’ll be much better than what comes out of the vending machines. I’m informed I’m not the best at making it.’

  ‘A coffee would be great, thank you. Black, no sugar.’ He was in need of it after the trials of the drive over.

  ‘Give me a minute. I’ll be right with you.’

  Sandford rose; she carried a little extra weight but she was attractive and well presented, wearing a dark, slim-cut pencil skirt and a floral pale-cream blouse. Her hands, he noticed, were well manicured, though not polished, the nails short. Her eyes when she looked at him were the palest blue. All details he could take in on the spot.

  Once she’d left he looked around her work space. It was equally tidy and clean as she presented. There was little on her desk. The computer she had been working on, a framed photograph that faced away from him, and a file of papers.

  There were a couple of metal drawers against the walls which looked like they’d hold patient files, and some posters on the walls which explained what specific organs did for the body. She didn’t, he noticed, have her credentials tacked up on her walls as some doctors he knew did. She was obviously comfortable with who she was and what she had achieved. She didn’t need to convince others of her skill.

  Ray heard her heels tap on the floor before he saw her, and turned as she entered; he recognised the blouse and skirt as she handed him a mug with a pharmaceutical company name on the side.