The Patient Killer (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 4) (20 page)

There was a ‘but’ in his tone that said a condition was coming. ‘OK.’

‘They will only talk to you on the condition that anything they say is off the record, and will not be, ahem, leaked to the media.’

‘I can’t guarantee that, unless you’re telling me that what they have to say has no bearing on their involvement in their mother’s murder.’

‘They didn’t kill her, Morton,’ Shimizu said tersely. ‘You’re going to want to hear this. The prosecutor too.’

‘Then I’ll set up the meet.’

***

T
here was a glimmer of hope on Friday afternoon. The forensics department had been able to recover a DNA sample from the blood found in the victim’s bathtub drain– and it belonged to a man.

There were no guarantees that it was probative, and so Ayala was dispatched to request an exclusionary DNA sample from young Carter Gould (with the reluctant permission of his grandmother).

If that sample excluded Carter, then there was a good chance that the killer had cut himself while disfiguring Olivia Hogge’s corpse – and that would be enough to nail the son of a bitch.

F
riday April 17th 17:00

Tenchi Shimizu was as good as his word. The twins were waiting in his office when Morton and Kieran O’Connor arrived.

They had stopped for a quick bacon sandwich in the nearby Pegasus Bar to discuss the limits of what they were willing to offer the twins. Immunity was off the table, for the murder at least, but if, as Morton suspected, the twins were about to implicate themselves in another scandal, then the pursuit of justice demanded that they ignore the bite of the flea in order to hunt down the tiger.

In no time at all Morton was back in Shimizu’s chambers, sitting at the same conference table as he had first thing that morning, but with Kieran to his left and the twins sitting either side of their lawyer opposite them.

‘This is a non-disclosure agreement. I’d like you both to sign it.’ Shimizu pushed the document towards Morton, who turned to Kieran questioningly.

Morton expected the prosecutor to look disgruntled, but instead he was laughing.

‘Did you even go to law school?’ Kieran chided Shimizu. ‘A non-disclosure agreement in a criminal case?’

‘I...’

‘Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to tell us what the hell we’re doing here, or I’ll have Morton arrest you for attempting to pervert the course of justice,’ Kieran said.

It wouldn’t stick, but with Shimizu’s total lack of authority on criminal law, he wouldn’t know that.

Shimizu surrendered. ‘Fine. As long as you’ll stand by your word that this doesn’t go to the media.’

‘We’ll see. Talk.’

Shimizu waved an arm, and the twin nearest to Morton, Christopher, said, ‘When Mum was diagnosed with COPD, we were devastated. We were told she needed a lung transplant, and that she could wait for a set of lungs from a cadaver, but that at her age she’d be low down on the transplant list.’

‘Which is why you donated,’ Morton said.

‘It’s why we wanted to donate.’

‘You’re saying you didn’t?’

Christopher stood, lifted his shirt, and pointed at the scar on his chest. ‘I did.’

The room’s attention turned to Frederick, who avoided eye contact before mumbling, ‘I didn’t.’

‘He couldn’t donate,’ Chris said. ‘Freddy has hepatitis C. He was too ashamed to tell Mum, and he didn’t want to let her down. The prognosis for recovery with live donors is so much better than with a cadaver, and just one lung lobe wouldn’t cut it.’

‘Who did donate the second lung lobe?’ Kieran asked.

The twins looked over to Shimizu. ‘They don’t know. They didn’t ask,’ the lawyer replied.

‘You didn’t ask?’ Kieran said disbelievingly.

‘No,’ Shimizu said. ‘The twins were offered a third option, and they took it.’

‘Someone sold you the lung lobe,’ Morton said.

‘That’s the funny thing,’ Chris said. ‘They never asked for any money.’

That you’ll admit to,
Morton thought. ‘So, someone just gave you a free lung lobe?’

‘Yep.’

‘And who might this generous benefactor be?’

‘Our mother’s surgeon,’ Freddy said. ‘Dr Isaac Ebstein.’

Kieran couldn’t control his sarcasm. ‘He just offered you a free lung. “Hey, guys, you want a free lung lobe? I’ve got one spare.”‘

‘He said he could sort our problem, and he did. All he asked was that we keep up the charade that we were both donors,’ Freddy said. ‘He never told us where the lobe had come from, and he never asked for a penny.’

‘You realise you’ve just confessed to a crime,’ Kieran said. ‘Organ trafficking is serious.’

‘We’ll deny it. We didn’t buy or sell anything. Our mother’s doctor offered us a medical procedure he thought appropriate and we authorised it. How were we to know that anything untoward was going on?’

‘Bullshit!’ Kieran spat. ‘You covered it up. You knew exactly what was going on.’

‘I think,’ Shimizu said timidly, ‘that it’s time to end this conversation.’

The meeting concluded, and Morton rose ready to arrest the twins on the spot.

‘Morton, can I have a moment?’ Kieran interrupted, and then beckoned for Morton to follow him before he swept from the conference room in a huff.

When they were out of earshot, they paused beneath a marble pillar leading from Inner Temple to Middle Temple.

‘Kieran, why the hell did you just stop me arresting them?’ Morton demanded.

‘If we pick them up, the real criminals will disappear. The twins are to be left alone until we find out what’s really going on.’

‘Then, what’s our next move? Can we use this information to obtain a warrant for the transplant records?’

‘Fat chance. They’re not on the record, and we don’t have the missing lung that proves a third party was involved. The only way we can use them to get a warrant is to arrest them, prove one has never had a transplant, and leverage that to get the records.’

‘But if we do that, we warn the real donor to run.’

‘Exactly. Morton, you’re going to have to find me something else. Look into this Ebstein. I want to know about every penny he’s ever earned or spent, and I want a forensic accountant to examine every single transaction. Nobody just gives away a lung.’

S
aturday April 18th 12:00

Saturday morning was both bliss and hell. Morton slept in ‘til gone ten in the morning, and then rowed spectacularly with Sarah when he said he would have to work over the weekend.

Ebstein couldn’t wait. The twins could warn him at any moment, and any evidence Ebstein might have would go up in smoke.

The good doctor was an emergency room surgeon for The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, which was conveniently located opposite Whitechapel Station. Normally Morton would prefer to drive, but parking near The Royal London on a weekend during visiting hours would have been nigh on impossible.

It was a quick jump on the District Line to Whitechapel in Zone 2, giving Morton plenty of time to nab a sandwich at the station before heading for the hospital.

It would have been impossible to miss the hospital. The building had
The Royal London Hospital
stamped in gold lettering on the side of it facing the road. Morton joined the crowd thronging towards it. Allegedly temporary fences ran around the front perimeter.
Still going
, Morton thought. It seemed as if the hospital was a perpetual building site.

A temporary sign nailed to the temporary fence advised that the Accident and Emergency department was to Morton’s left, and here the throng split as most carried on around to the main entrance. Morton left them behind and turned off down East Mount Street, past an old pub on the corner, and into a dead end where chevrons blocked off the entrance from the street.

The hospital car park lay to the left, where ambulances and paramedics were parked outside. As Morton approached, he saw a woman being unloaded from the nearest ambulance, raw burns down the left-hand side of her face.

It took Morton a moment to realise that the smoke in his periphery had nothing to do with the woman. Pedestrians lined the concrete benches outside the entrance, many of them smoking right next to the
No Smoking
signs.

Morton quickly strolled past the smokers into the building and made a beeline for the main reception.

‘Good morning. I’m here to see Dr Ebstein. Would it be possible for you to page him, please?’

The receptionist looked at him as if he were daft. ‘This is the Accident and Emergency department, sir. Do you have an emergency?’ She fixed him with a withering stare.

‘I’m here on police business. I urgently need to speak to him.’

The receptionist reluctantly pecked away at her keyboard, and Morton caught sight of a calendar program before she turned back to him with a haughty look. ‘Well, you’ll just have to wait. He’s in surgery.’

Morton headed for the plastic seats in the waiting room, but the receptionist called out.

‘Sir! Not here. You can wait outside his office.’

‘Very well. Where is that?’

‘I’ll show you.’

***

E
bstein’s office was one of several examinations rooms off of a small hallway on the fourth floor of the building. It was quieter up here, away from the A&E department. There was a shared reception where the back room hallway met the main artery near the lifts, and a smiling fifty-something receptionist flirted shamelessly with Morton upon his arrival.

Rebuffing her advances, Morton took a seat in the waiting room and began to flick through the case files on his mobile. He was in for a long wait. Ebstein didn’t appear until nearly three hours later. Morton almost missed his arrival; thankfully the flirty receptionist nodded in the doctor’s direction to alert Morton of his presence.

‘Doctor Isaac Ebstein?’

‘That’s me.’

Ebstein had the look of a man who had had far too many coffees and far too few hours of sleep. His attire was creased, and bags were clearly visible under his eyes. He had a cup of coffee in his left hand.

‘DCI Morton, Metropolitan Police.’ Morton offered a handshake.

‘I don’t shake hands.’

Rude.
‘Can we talk in private?’

‘My office, then.’

Ebstein led the way through, and as soon as he had taken his seat, he produced a chicken salad from a mini-fridge underneath his desk. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I’ve got twenty-two minutes until I need to scrub up again.’

‘Not at all. I’d like to talk about one of your patients, Primrose Kennard.’

‘I can’t talk about my patients.’ Ebstein sipped at his coffee.

‘Then, let me do the talking,’ Morton said. ‘Primrose Kennard suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. She needed a lung transplant. Luckily for her, she had two twin sons who were both a match. They agreed to each donate one lobe.’

‘I’m not hearing a question.’

‘You agreed to operate on the three of them. Primrose Kennard received two new lung lobes, and went on to live in reasonable health for several months before being murdered.’

Ebstein spluttered, spewing droplets of coffee across his desk. ‘Murdered? You don’t think I...’

‘I don’t know what to think. Mrs Kennard did receive a transplant. But I’ve been led to believe that only one of her sons donated. Where did the other lung lobe come from, Dr Ebstein?’

‘Beats me. I have no clue what you’re talking about. I just take parts out and put them in. Some days I’m in the emergency room; some I do transplants. I see thousands of patients every year, Detective. I don’t remember them.’

‘The twins specifically remember you being their mother’s surgeon.’

‘Maybe I was. Maybe the paperwork is in error. I don’t know anything.’

‘That’s convenient.’

‘Detective Morton, I don’t know what you’re insinuating. Either tell me what you want or get the hell out of my office. I have a busy afternoon ahead.’

‘I want a copy of all your records relating to this surgery.’

‘Consider it done. I’ll ask Caitlyn to get you everything you need. Now, can I go prep for my next surgery?’

‘Absolutely.’

Caitlyn turned out to be the flirty fifty-something from the hallway. She led Morton to a room full of records and helped him to find the Kennard file. After much assurance that he was, in fact, happily married, she agreed to leave him alone to read the files.

‘The code for the copier is 1967, and there are some empty plastic folders on the top shelf.’ Caitlyn pointed to a corner shelf. ‘Let me know when you’re done, hun, and I’ll come lock up.’

‘Thanks very much.’

Morton quickly scanned through the paperwork. The paper trail for Primrose’s treatment matched the twins’ claims. She had received two live lung lobe donations in one fourteen-hour surgery. Morton turned on the photocopier, punched in 1967 (which, he noted wryly, was the year of the first human organ transplant), and made a copy of each page of Ebstein’s file on Primrose Kennard.

He went to replace the file, and then it struck him. The file cabinet that Caitlyn had unlocked held hundreds of ‘K’ surname records.
Surely there couldn’t be...

The twins were in the cabinet too. Morton grabbed their files and laid them side-by-side with Primrose’s. Just like Primrose, they had Dr Isaac Ebstein listed as the surgeon of record. He had lied about knowing nothing.

Even more curiously, the name of the anaesthetist, Dr Byron Carruthers, was the same for all three surgeries. The paperwork would need to be checked for potential forgeries... and that would require the original documents.

Morton quickly copied the remaining files, tucked the originals into one of the plastic folders that Caitlyn had indicated, and put the copies back in place of the originals.

S
unday April 19th 11:30

‘Gerroff me.’ Morton rolled over away from his wife’s voice and pulled the duvet tighter about his person before allowing his eyelids to sag back down.

‘David, wake up. It’s half past eleven. The kids will be here at midday.’