At least Cleo understood the long and frequently anti-social hours his work demanded of him, and was supportive, he thought with some relief. That was in marked contrast to his years with Sandy, for whom his weekend working was a big issue.
He glanced at his notes. ‘We are waiting on the pathologist’s toxicology results, which may help us with the cause of death, but they won’t come through until Monday. Meantime, I’m going to start with reports for Unknown Male 1.’
He looked at Bella Moy, who had her habitual box of Maltesers open in front of her. She plucked one out, as if it was her drug, and popped it into her mouth.
‘Bella, anything on dental records?’
Rolling the chocolate around inside her mouth, she said, ‘No match so far, Roy, for Unknown Male 1, but something that may be significant. Two of the dentists I went to see commented that the condition of the young man’s teeth was poor for his age – indicative of bad nutrition and healthcare, and perhaps drug abuse. So it is likely he came from a deprived background.’
‘There was nothing about dental work on his teeth that gave the dentists any clue to his nationality?’ Lizzie Mantle quizzed.
‘No,’ Bella said. ‘There is no indication of any dental work, so it is quite possible he has never been to a dentist. In which case we are not going to find a match.’
‘You’ll have the three sets to take around on Monday,’ Grace said. ‘That should broaden your chances.’
‘I could do with a couple of other officers with me to cover all the dental practices quickly.’
‘OK. I’ll check our manpower resources after the meeting.’ Grace made a quick note, then turned to Norman Potting. ‘You were going to speak to organ transplant coordinators, Norman. Anything?’
‘I’m working my way through all the ones at every hospital within a hundred-mile radius of here, Roy,’ Potting said. ‘So far nothing, but I’ve discovered something of interest!’ He fell tantalizingly silent, with a smug grin.
‘Do you want to share it with us?’ Grace asked.
The DS was wearing the same jacket he always seemed to wear at weekends, whether winter or summer. A crumpled tweed affair with shoulder epaulettes and poacher’s pockets. He dug his hand into one, with slow deliberation, as if about to pull out something of great significance, but instead just left it there, irritatingly jingling some loose coins or keys as he spoke.
‘There’s a world shortage of human organs,’ he announced. Then he pursed his lips and nodded his head sagely. ‘Particularly kidneys and livers. Do you know why?’
‘No, but I’m sure we are about to find out,’ Bella Moy said irritably, and popped another Malteser into her mouth.
‘Car seat belts!’ Potting said triumphantly. ‘The best donors are those who die from head injuries, with the rest of their bodies left intact. Now that more people wear seat belts in cars, they only tend to die if they are totally mangled, or incinerated. How’s that for irony? In the old days, people would hit the windscreen head-first and die from that. It’s mostly motorcyclists today.’
‘Thank you, Norman,’ said Grace.
‘Something else that might be of interest,’ Potting said. ‘Manila in the Philippines is now actually nicknamed One Kidney Island.’
Bella shook her head cynically and said, ‘Oh, come on. That’s an urban myth!’
Grace cautioned her with a raised hand. ‘What’s the significance, Norman?’
‘It’s where wealthy Westerners go to buy kidneys from poor locals. The locals get a grand – a substantial sum of money by their standards. By the time you’ve bought it and had it transplanted, you’re looking at forty to sixty grand.’
‘Forty to sixty thousand pounds?’ Grace repeated, astonished.
‘A liver can fetch five or six times that amount,’ Potting replied. ‘People who’ve been on a waiting list for years get desperate.’
‘The people here aren’t Filipinos,’ Bella said.
‘I spoke to the coastguard again,’ Potting said, ignoring her. ‘Gave him the weight of the breeze blocks holding down our first poor sod. He doesn’t think the weather conditions of the past week would have been strong enough to have moved him. Most of the current is on or near the surface. Maybe if there had been a tsunami, but not otherwise.’
‘Thank you. That’s good information,’ Grace said, noting it down. ‘Nick?’
Glenn Branson, still looking ragged, raised a hand. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Just a quick point, Roy. All three of these persons could have been killed in another country, or even on a ship, and just dumped into the Channel, right? The story that you told the Argus?’
‘Yes. A few more miles further off the coast and they would not have been our problem. But they were found inside UK territorial waters, so they are. I’ve already got two of our researchers compiling a list of every known vessel that has passed through the Channel in the last seven days. But I don’t know yet how we are going to find the resources to follow up that information, or even if it’s worth trying.’
‘Well,’ Branson went on, ‘the bodies were found in about sixty-five feet of water – so if they hadn’t drifted they were dropped there, from a boat or a plane or a chopper. Some of the bigger container ships and supertankers using the English Channel need more draught than that, so we should be able to eliminate quite a bit of shipping. Also, I would have thought that any boat skipper would know from the Admiralty charts that it was a dredge area, and keep clear of it as a dump site if he didn’t want these to be discovered. A chopper or private plane pilot might not have looked at the Admiralty charts – or noticed. So I think we ought to check out the local airports, particularly Shoreham, find out what aircraft have been up during the past week and check them out.’
‘I agree,’ DI Mantle said. ‘Glenn’s making a good point. The problem is we don’t know what might have taken off from a private airfield without filing a flight plan. If it was a light aircraft on a mission to dump bodies, it’s quite possible the pilot wouldn’t have done.’
‘Or it could have been a plane from overseas somewhere,’ Nick Nicholl said.
‘I doubt that, Nick,’ Grace said. ‘Any foreign aircraft, say from France, would just go out a few miles into the Channel. They wouldn’t fly into British airspace.’
Branson shook his head. ‘No, sorry, chief, I disagree. They might have done it deliberately.’
‘How do you mean deliberately?’ DI Mantle asked.
‘Like, a double-bluff kind of thing,’ the DS replied. ‘Knowing we might find them and assume they were from England.’
Grace smiled. ‘Glenn, I think you’ve watched too many films. If someone from overseas was dumping bodies in the sea, they’d be doing it because they didn’t want them to be found – and they wouldn’t fly that close to the English coastline.’ He jotted down a note. ‘But we need to check every local airport and flying club – and air traffic controllers. And that can be done over the weekend, as they’ll be open.’
David Browne raised a hand. The Crime Scene Manager, in his early forties, could easily have passed for the actor Daniel Craig’s freckled, ginger-haired brother. It had long been a standing joke among his colleagues that a few years back, when the film company was casting the new James Bond, it had sent the contract to the wrong man. Dressed in a zippered fleece jacket, over an open-neck shirt, jeans and trainers, with his powerful shoulders and close-cropped hair, he appeared every inch an action man. But Browne’s looks belied his thorough approach to crime scenes, and his tireless attention to detail, which had taken him almost as high up the SOCO ladder as it was possible to rise.