She was perspiring. Her scalp felt as if it was shrinking around her skull.
‘Very clear.’
‘I have sufficient information to arrest you now, Mrs Beckett, on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic a human organ.’
Her head was swimming. She could barely even focus on the two of them. She had to hold it together somehow. Caitlin’s life depended on her, on getting through this. She stared down again at the photograph, desperately trying to buy time, to think clearly.
‘Where would that leave you, if I arrest you?’ the police officer asked. ‘Where would that leave your daughter?’
‘Please believe me,’ she said desperately.
‘Perhaps we should talk to your daughter?’
‘No!’ she blurted. ‘No! She’s too – too ill – too ill to see anyone.’
She stared desperately at the young woman detective and saw a fleeting glimpse of compassion in her eyes.
There was a long silence, suddenly broken by the crackle of the Detective Superintendent’s radio phone.
He stepped away from the table, pulled it to his ear and spoke into it.
‘Roy Grace.’
The male voice at the other end said, ‘Target One’s on the move.’
‘Give me thirty seconds.’
Grace jabbed a finger at DC Boutwood, and pointed at the door. He turned back to Lynn.
‘Think very carefully about what I just said.’
Seconds later both detectives had gone, deliberately leaving the photograph behind. The front door slammed behind them.
Lynn sank back down at the table and buried her face in her hands.
Moments later she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders.
‘I heard that,’ Caitlin said. ‘I heard everything. There’s no way I’m going to have that liver.’
107
The wrought-iron gates swung open and a black Aston Martin Vanquish rumbled slowly forward between the stone pillars, nosing cautiously out of the blind entrance. Then, with a blast of thunder from its tail pipes, it turned right and accelerated hard. Immediately, the gates began to close again.
The driver would have noticed nothing different in the wooded country lane this morning from any other day. The two rural surveillance experts were well concealed. One was inside the hedgerow, the other, in camouflage clothing, was halfway up a conifer, and their vehicle was parked down a Forestry Commission track a quarter of a mile away.
DS Paul Tanner, inside the hedge, had a clear line of sight and, despite the tinted glass and the car’s black interior, clocked the driver’s silver hair.
Roy Grace, standing on the pavement outside Lynn Beckett’s house, radioed him back.
‘What information do you have?’
‘Index Romeo Sierra Zero Eight Alpha Mike Lima, sir. Heading east.’
From Guy Batchelor and Emma-Jane Boutwood’s debriefing after their interview with the liver surgeon, Grace knew this was Sir Roger Sirius’s car. He also knew that these two Divisional Intelligence Unit surveillance officers were badly needed for another surveillance job on a major drugs operation that was currently taking place in Brighton today. A shortage of police manpower was a constant problem in the city.
‘Good work,’ he said. ‘Stay in situ for another thirty minutes in case he returns. If he doesn’t, then stand down.’
‘Stand down after thirty minutes, sir, yes, yes.’
Grace ended the contact and called the Incident Room, instructing them to put an immediate ANPR out on the car and to see if the police helicopter was available.
A network of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras covered many major arteries across the UK. Any number plate fed into the system would, in theory, enable a car to be tracked every few miles – so long as it stuck to main roads. Once the car pinged a camera or was spotted by an alert police officer, the helicopter would be sent to the area, and with luck follow the car, unseen, from the air.
Then he turned to DS Boutwood and nodded back towards Lynn Beckett’s house.
‘What did you think?’
‘You’re right, she’s up to something. Are you going to arrest her?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not her I want. She’s a bit-part player. Let’s see what she does now – where she leads us.’
‘You don’t think she might abort?’
‘My guess is she’s going to make a few phone calls.’
He unlocked the doors to their Hyundai. Before climbing in, he raised a discreet finger of acknowledgement to the driver and passenger of the green Volkswagen Passat that was parked a short distance down the road.
108
‘Hello! Don’t you read the fucking newspapers? Have you been living under a stone for the last two weeks, Mother?’
Mother?
When the hell had she last called her Mother? Lynn wondered desperately, panic-stricken as a result of the police officers’ visit. The nightmare she was living was getting darker every second.
‘Like, we’re in the middle of the biggest organ-trafficking scandal of the century and somehow you kind of don’t know about it?’
Lynn stood up, pushing the kitchen chair back behind her, and faced her daughter, astonished and delighted by how much stronger she seemed this morning. But also a little alarmed; Caitlin was almost hyper.
‘Yes, that’s right, I, like, kind of don’t know about it. OK?’
Caitlin shook her head. ‘That’s so totally not OK. OK?’ Then she scratched each of her arms in turn furiously.
‘The police are lying, angel,’ she said. ‘There is no trafficking scandal, it’s just a wild theory.’
‘Yeah, right. Three dead bodies turn up in the Channel, missing their vital organs, and all the newspapers and TV news programmes and radio programmes are lying.’
‘Those bodies have nothing to do with your transplant.’
‘Sure,’ Caitlin said. ‘So why did the cops come round?’
Lynn was floundering, she knew. She could hear the desperation in her own voice, and another voice inside her head screaming at her, as she glanced back down, almost reluctantly, at the photograph on the table: WHAT IF DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT ROY GRACE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH?
The photograph of the girl’s face burned into her brain. Burned into the backs of her eyelids, so that even when she blinked she could still see her.
It wasn’t possible. No one would do that. No one would kill a child for – for money – for another child – for – for…?
For Caitlin?
Would they?
How she wished Malcolm was here at this moment. She needed someone to share this with, to talk this through with. Terror was coming at her from every direction.
Twenty-three years in prison.
You need to be aware quite how seriously the police and the judiciary view this activity.
She had not thought about it. Beating the system, yes, using an organ from an accident victim, that was all. There was nothing wrong with that, surely to God?
Killing a child.
Killing that girl.
The money was gone. Half of it. Would she ever get it back? Shit, she didn’t want it back. She wanted a damn liver.
The policeman had to be lying.
There was one quick way to find out. She picked up her mobile phone, opened the address book, then scrolled to Marlene Hartmann’s name.
She was about to press the dial button when she stopped.
Realizing.
Realizing just how dumb that would be. If the organ broker knew that the police were on to her, she would probably abort the operation and flee. Lynn could not take that risk. Caitlin had perked up since Dr Hunter’s booster, but that was not going to last. She had bought time from him, by promising she would allow Caitlin to be admitted to hospital this afternoon.
Barring a miracle, she was certain that if Caitlin went back into the Royal she would not come out again. There was no way she could let this all fall apart now.
‘Hello? Hello? Hello, Mother? Mum? Anyone home?’
Lynn looked at her daughter with a start. ‘What?’
‘I asked you, why did the cops come round?’
Then, to Lynn’s shock, Caitlin’s body suddenly sagged and she lurched sideways. Lynn grabbed her just in time to stop her falling, gripping her tightly.
For an instant, her daughter looked at her in total confusion.
‘Darling? Angel? Are you OK?’
Caitlin’s eyes seemed unfocused. Looking as if she were surprised by what had happened, she whispered, ‘Yes.’ Her skin seemed even more yellow than last night. Whispering again, so that Lynn had to put her ear to her mouth to hear, she said, ‘Why did they come? The cops?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are they going to bust us?’
Lynn shook her head. ‘No.’
Caitlin’s voice gained a little strength. ‘They seemed pretty desperate, you know? That’s a desperate thing, right? To lay that photo of the child on us. Unless it’s true, of course.’
She stared hard at her mother, her eyes suddenly focusing sharply again.
‘They’re probably under pressure about those bodies. Maybe they are getting desperate for a result. They’ll try anything, resort to anything.’
‘Yeah, well, we’re pretty desperate too.’
Despite all she was feeling, Lynn smiled, then threw her arms around Caitlin and held her, hugging her closer and more tightly than she had ever hugged her before.
‘God, I love you, my darling. So much. So much. You are everything to me. You’re the reason I get up in the morning. You’re the reason I get through work. You’re my life. Do you know that?’
‘You should get out more.’
Lynn grinned, then kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’re so horrible to me.’
‘Yeah.’ Caitlin was grinning too. ‘And you’re so fucking
possessive
!’
Lynn pushed her gently away and held her at arm’s length.
‘You know why I’m so possessive?’
‘Because I’m beautiful, smart, intelligent and would have the world at my feet if it wasn’t for one small problem, right? God gave me a liver from the wrong box.’
Lynn broke down in tears. Tears of joy. Tears of sadness. Tears of terror. Hugging Caitlin tight again, she whispered, ‘They lied.
He
lied. Don’t believe him. The detective lied. Just believe
me
. Angel, darling, just believe me. I’m your mum.
Just believe me.
’
Caitlin hugged her back, with all her feeble strength. ‘Yeah, OK, I believe you.’
Then suddenly Caitlin turned away, making a retching sound. Breaking free of her mother’s arms, she stumbled over to the sink. Lynn caught up with her, gripping her arm to prevent her from falling.
Then Caitlin threw up violently.
To her utter horror, Lynn saw it was not vomit that was spattering the sink and the tiled splash-back and the draining board. It was bile specked with bright red blood.
As she cradled her heaving, choking daughter, she knew then, in that moment, that she did not care about anything else. Did not care if Detective Superintendent Grace was telling the truth. Did not care if that girl he had brought the photograph of had to die. Did not care who had to die. If she needed to, she would kill them herself, with her own bare hands, to save the life of her child.
109
Simona sat on a chair in a small, windowless room, crying and drinking a glass of Coca-Cola. The room reminded her of the prison cell she had spent a night in when she and Romeo had been arrested a couple of years ago for stealing from a shop. The same smell of disinfectant. There was nothing in here except cupboards full of medical supplies. She was so hungry her stomach was aching.
‘I want Gogu,’ she sniffled.
The big Romanian nurse, who had gripped Simona’s arm so hard it was now bruised and hurting, stood with her arms folded in front of the door, watching her drink.
‘I dropped him outside.’
‘I’ll fetch it later,’ the nurse replied.
Simona felt a little better about that and nodded appreciatively. She stared at her glass, then back at the woman.
‘Please may I have something to eat?’ she asked for the third time in the quarter of an hour or so that she had been here. ‘Anything?’
‘Drink,’ the woman commanded.
Obediently, Simona drank some more. Maybe when she had finished this second glass, then she would get something to eat, and the woman would get Gogu for her.
‘What kind of work will I be doing here?’ she asked.
The nurse frowned. ‘Work? What kind of work?’
Simona smiled dreamily. ‘I would like to do bar work!’ she said. ‘I would like to learn to make drinks. You know, fancy drinks. What do they call them?
Cocktails!
I think that would be nice work, to make drinks and talk with people. I would think they have a nice bar here in this hotel, don’t they?’ Seeing the continued frown, she added hastily, ‘But of course I don’t mind what work. Anything. I could clean. I’m happy to clean. I’m just happy to be here. I will be even happier when Romeo comes! Do you think that might be soon?’
‘Drink,’ the woman replied.
Simona drained the glass. Then she sat in silence, while the woman continued to stand, with her arms folded, like a sentry.
After a few more minutes, Simona began to feel sleepy. She had a sudden wave of giddiness, then lost focus on the woman. Lost focus on the walls, on the cupboards. They were sliding past in front of her eyes, faster, then faster.
The nurse stood impassively, watching as Simona’s eyes closed and she fell sideways on to the floor and lay still, breathing hard.
She then hoisted the girl over her shoulder, carried her out a short distance along the corridor into the small pre-op room and laid her on the steel trolley. Then she removed all her clothes, checking greedily that Simona had no valuables on her. Sometimes, street vermin like this girl secreted stolen valuables in their bodies, hoping to get cash for them in England.
Hastily pulling on a rubber glove before anyone else came in, she checked inside the girl’s mouth, then carefully probed her vagina and anus. Nothing! Useless little bitch.