They climbed out of the car and rang the doorbell.
Moments later the huge oak front door was opened by a slight, unassuming-looking man of about seventy. He had a trim figure, a kindly, bird-like face, with a small, crooked nose and alert, wide blue eyes filled with curiosity. His thinning head of hair was grey, going on white, and tidy, and he was dressed in a beige cardigan over a gingham shirt, with a paisley cravat around his neck, rust-coloured corduroy trousers, which looked like they were used for gardening, and black leather slippers. The only hint from his appearance that he was a rich man was the faint, but distinct, glow of a tan.
‘Hello,’ he said in a cheery, cut-glass voice that belonged in a 1950s film.
‘Sir Roger Sirius?’ Batchelor asked.
‘That’s me.’ He held out a slender, hairy hand, with long, immaculately manicured fingers.
The detectives shook hands with him, then Batchelor pulled out his warrant card and held it up. Sirius gave it only the most cursory of glances and stepped aside with a theatrical wave of his hand.
‘So, do come in. I’m intrigued to know how I can be of help. Always fascinated by you chaps. Read a lot of crime novels. I quite like
The Bill
. Ever watch it?’
Both officers shook their heads.
‘
Morse.
Used to like him. Didn’t care too much for that John Hannah in
Rebus
, but thought Stott was a lot better. D’you watch them?’
‘Don’t get a lot of time, sir,’ Batchelor said.
They followed the distinguished transplant surgeon across a grand oak-panelled hall. It was filled with antique furniture, as well as several gleaming suits of armour. On the walls was a mix of antique swords, firearms and oil paintings, some of which were portraits, some landscapes.
Then they entered a magnificent study. The walls in here were panelled in oak, too, and hung with certificates evidencing the surgeon’s qualifications. All around were framed photographs of him with numerous famous faces. One was Sirius with the Queen. In another, at a black-tie function, he was with Princess Diana. Others showed him with Sir Richard Branson, Bill Clinton, François Mitterrand and the footballer George Best. Batchelor peered at that photograph with particular interest – Best, famously, had had a private liver transplant.
The two police detectives sat on a studded red leather sofa, while a raven-haired beauty, whom Sirius introduced as his wife, brought them coffee. Sirius was briefly distracted by his BlackBerry buzzing, and Batchelor and E-J used the opportunity to exchange a brief glance. The surgeon was clearly a complex character. Modest in appearance and manner, but not in ego – nor in his taste in women.
‘So, how can I help you?’ Sirius asked, after his wife had left the room, settling down into an armchair opposite them, across the oak chest that served as a coffee table.
Guy had already rehearsed this with E-J on the way over. Suddenly he was feeling badly in need of a cigarette but knew, from the fresh smell of the room and the total absence of ashtrays, that he had no chance. He would have to sneak one later, something he had become used to these days.
Watching the surgeon’s eyes carefully, he said, ‘This is a very beautiful house, Sir Roger. How long have you lived here?’
The surgeon reflected for a moment. ‘Twenty-seven years. It was a wreck when I bought it. My first wife never liked it. My daughter loved it here.’ His eyes went misty, suddenly. ‘It’s just a shame that Katie was never able to see it finished.’
‘I’m sorry,’ E-J said.
The surgeon shrugged. ‘A long time ago, now.’
‘You’ve been quoted many times in the press over your views on the UK organ donor system,’ Guy Batchelor went on, still watching his face intently.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, nodding vigorously, instantly animated by the subject. ‘Absolutely!’
‘We thought that you might be able to help us.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ He leaned towards them and, looking even more bird-like, smiled eagerly.
‘Well,’ Emma-Jane cut in almost on cue, ‘it’s true, isn’t it, that around 30 per cent of patients in the UK who are waiting for a liver transplant will die before they get one?’
‘Where did you get that figure from?’ he asked with a frown.
‘I’m quoting
you
, Sir Roger. That was what you wrote in an article in the
Lancet
in 1998.’
Frowning again, he said defensively, ‘I write a lot of stuff. Can’t remember it all. Particularly not at my age! Last I heard, the official figure is 19 per cent – but, as with everything, that depends on your criteria.’ He leaned forward and picked up a silver milk jug. ‘Either of you take milk?’
‘Can’t remember it all. Particularly not at my age.’ But you still hold a private helicopter licence, so your memory can’t be that crap, Guy Batchelor thought to himself.
When he had sorted their coffees out, the DC asked, ‘Do you remember the article you wrote for
Nature
, criticizing the UK organ donor system, Sir Roger?’
He shrugged. ‘As I said, I’ve written a lot of articles.’
‘You’ve also worked in a lot of places, haven’t you, Sir Roger?’ she pressed. ‘Including Colombia and Romania.’
‘Gosh!’ he said, with what looked like genuine excitement. ‘You chaps have certainly boned up on me!’
Batchelor handed the three e-fit photographs of the dead teenagers across to the surgeon.
‘Could you tell us if you’ve ever seen any of these three people, sir?’
Sirius studied each of them for some moments, while Batchelor watched him, intently. He shook his head and handed them back.
‘No, never,’ he said.
Batchelor replaced them in the envelope.
‘Is it just coincidence that you chose those two countries to work in? The fact is that they are high on the list of known countries involved in human trafficking for organ transplantation.’
Sirius appeared to think carefully before answering. ‘You’ve both clearly done your homework on me, but I wonder – tell me something. Did your research show up that my darling daughter, Katie, died just over ten years ago, at the age of twenty-three, from liver failure?’
Shocked by this revelation, Batchelor turned to E-J. She looked equally taken by surprise.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry – sorry to hear that. No, we didn’t know that.’
Sirius nodded, looking sad and bleak suddenly.
‘No reason why you should. She was one of those 30 per cent, I’m afraid. You see, even I couldn’t get around the donor system we have here in this country. Our laws are extremely rigid.’
‘We are here, Sir Roger,’ Emma-Jane said, ‘because we have reason to believe some members of the medical profession are flouting those laws in order to provide organs for people in need.’
‘And you think I may be able to help you to name them?’
‘That’s what we are hoping,’ she said.
He gave a wan smile. ‘Every few months you read on the Internet about some chap or other who gets drunk in a bar in Moscow and wakes up minus a kidney. These are all urban myths. Every organ supplied for donor surgery in the UK is governed by UK Transplant. No hospital in the UK could obtain an organ and transplant it outside this system. It’s a complete impossibility.’
‘But not in Romania or Colombia?’ Batchelor asked.
‘Indeed. Or China, Taiwan or India. There are plenty of places you can go to get a transplant if you have the cash and are willing to take a risk.’
‘So,’ Batchelor went on, ‘you don’t believe there is anyone in the UK who is doing such things illegally?’
The surgeon bristled. ‘Look, it’s not just a question of removing an organ and popping it into a recipient. You’d need a huge team of people – a minimum of three surgeons, two anaesthetists, three scrub nurses, an intensive care team and all kinds of specialist medical support staff. All of them medically trained, with all the ethics that go with the territory. You’re looking at around fifteen to twenty people. How would you ever stop that many from talking? It’s a nonsense!’
‘We understand there might be a clinic in this county doing just this, Sir Roger,’ Batchelor pressed.
Sirius shook his head. ‘You know what? I wish there was. God knows, we could do with someone bucking the system we have here. But what you are talking about is an impossibility. Besides, why would anyone take the risk of doing this here, when they could go abroad and obtain a transplant legally?’
‘If I can ask a delicate question,’ Batchelor said, ‘with your knowledge, why did you not take your daughter abroad for a transplant?’
‘I did,’ he said, after some moments. Then, venting sudden, surprising fury, he said, ‘It was a fucking filthy hole of a hospital in Bogotá. Our poor darling died of an infection she picked up in there.’ He glared at the two officers. ‘All right?’
*
Half an hour later, in the car heading back towards Brighton, Emma-Jane Boutwood broke the several minutes of silence between them that had persisted since they left Sir Roger Sirius, as both of them gathered their thoughts.
‘I liked him,’ she said. ‘I felt sorry for him.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes. He’s clearly very bitter about the system. Poor guy. What an irony to be one of the top liver transplant surgeons in the country and then to lose his daughter to liver disease.’
‘Tough call,’ Batchelor responded.
‘Very.’
‘But it also gives him a motive.’
‘To change the system?’
‘Or to buck it.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I was watching him,’ Batchelor said. ‘When he was looking at the e-fit photos, he said he didn’t recognize any of them. Right?’
‘Yes.’
‘He was lying.’
86
To the casual – and occasionally not-so-casual – observer, some men could instantly be pigeonholed. From their combination of a brutal haircut, muscular physique, badly fitting suit and strutting walk, they were unmistakably either coppers or soldiers in civvies. But, despite his close-cropped hair and his very busted nose, Roy Grace cut a suave figure that gave few clues about his occupation.
Dressed in his Crombie coat, navy suit, white shirt and quiet tie, and carrying his bulging briefcase, he could have been a company executive or an IT man on a business trip, or perhaps a Eurocrat, or a doctor or an engineer, heading to a conference. Anyone glancing at him might also have noticed his authoritative expression, the few small frown lines of worry and the slightly blank gaze, as if he was deep in thought, as he strode along the moving walkway.
Roy felt strangely nervous. The trip was straightforward. His old friend Kriminalhauptkommissar Marcel Kullen was collecting him from the airport, and taking him straight to the offices of the organ broker, whom he would see alone. So long as he was careful and didn’t screw up, it would be fine. One quick, cunning meeting and then back to England.
Yet his stomach was unaccountably full of butterflies. That same nervous excitement he used to feel when going on a date, and he was at a loss to understand why. Perhaps it was his brain reminding him of his expectations last time he had come to Munich. Or was it just tiredness? He had slept badly for several nights running now. He never really got a decent night’s rest during any murder inquiry he was running, and this one, in particular, seemed to have so many moving parts. And, on top of that, he badly wanted to impress the new Chief Constable.
Checking his watch, he quickened his pace, overtaking several people, then found his path blocked by a harassed-looking mother with a pushchair and four small children. The end of this walkway section was coming up, so he waited for a minute or so to reach it, then stepped around the family and hurried on to the next section.
He passed, on a stand to his right, a crimson Audi TT – a later model than Cleo’s – with big signs around it in German. He could not read them, but assumed the car was being advertised as a prize. He could do with winning a car, he thought, to replace his wrecked Alfa. For sure, the insurance company bastards were going to come up with a derisory offer that might just about enable him to replace it with a second-hand moped.
Next, he passed a bar, followed by a Relay news stand and bookstore, then an empty departure gate. Faces on the opposite side of the walkway glided past, all ages, half of them talking on mobile phones.
He glanced at a beautiful young redhead, in a fur-trimmed leather coat, looking like a million dollars, who was heading towards him. Saw her big, classy handbag and wheeled suitcase, and wondered if she was a model, or a supermodel, or whatever they were called these days. He’d always had a thing for redheads, but had never actually dated one.
Strange, he thought. Before his relationship with Cleo had begun, he would have looked longingly at that girl, but now he didn’t lust after anyone, except for Cleo herself. This redhead was one of the few women he had even glanced at twice in recent months. As the walkway continued moving him forward, he again reflected how lucky he was, just how incredibly lucky, to love this amazing woman.
Four Japanese businessmen, talking intently, swept past in the opposite direction. His nerves were jangling even more. Screaming at him. He could almost feel a crackle of static in the air. Had the flight affected him?
Then two camp men in their twenties, wearing almost matching leather jackets, were heading towards him, holding hands. One had a shaven head, the other, blond spikes. He strode on and they shot past. Then the walkway track ahead of him was blocked by a large gaggle of teenagers, all with rucksacks, who were clearly off on some adventure.
Suddenly, gliding towards him, on the parallel walkway some distance ahead of him, her face blocked by an elderly couple who stood as motionless as statues, he saw a flash of light brown hair that reminded him of Sandy.
It was like a punch in the stomach.