It was a small intensive care ward. There were six beds, three of them occupied, one by a long-haired man in his early forties, who might have been a rock singer, another by a boy of about Caitlin’s age and the third by a woman, in her late fifties Lynn estimated. All were three intubated with endotracheal and nasogastric tubes and plumbed into a forest of drip and monitoring lines from the battery of equipment surrounding each bed.
Three nurses, in the same white uniform as Draguta had been wearing, stared up at her with suspicion from behind the central station.
‘I’m looking for my daughter, Caitlin,’ she said. ‘Have any of you seen her?’
‘Please leave,’ one said in broken English. ‘No admission.’
She backed out quickly, checked for more doors, saw one and pulled it open. It was a canteen and sitting room. She ran across and checked another door, but that opened on to an empty bathroom. Then she looked at her watch again.
Less than five minutes.
Surely they could give her a little more time? She had to be here.
Had to.
She dialled Caitlin’s mobile phone, but it went straight to voicemail. Then she stumbled back down the stairs, through the office suite and out of another door. She ran along a short passageway, then pushed open another door and suddenly found herself in the vast, marble-floored entrance lobby of the spa.
There were people all around. Three women in white towelling dressing gowns and throw-away slippers were peering at a display of jewellery in a showcase. A man, similarly attired, was signing a form at one of the reception desks. Near him a woman in an elegant coat with a silk headsquare, her wheeled suitcase beside her, appeared to be checking in.
She swept the entire room with her eyes in just a few seconds.
No Caitlin.
Then the two halves of the electric front door slid open with a sharp hiss. Six solid and determined-looking police officers all wearing body armour entered.
She turned and ran.
119
‘The far end!’ Marlene Hartmann said to Grigore. ‘Down the end of the golf course, just past the eighth tee, there’s another exit. The police won’t know about it. It takes us out on to a lane. We can keep away from the main road for several miles. I know it works. I’ll direct you.’
She sat in the back of the brown Mercedes, hands gripping the top of the passenger seat, anxiously looking all around her, breathing heavily, cursing. Cursing the damned Beckett woman and her little bitch daughter. Cursing the police. Cursing the panicky surgeon, Sirius.
But mostly cursing herself. Her stupidity in thinking she could get away with this. Greed. It was like gambler’s folly. Not knowing when to quit.
In front of her, Vlad Cosmescu was silent. He was having similar thoughts. Always at the roulette table – well, almost always, anyway – he knew when to quit. To walk away. To go home.
He should have gone home last night. Then it would have been fine. Back home to Romania. He didn’t owe this woman anything. She just used him, the way everyone used him. The same way he used them. That was how the world worked, to him. Life wasn’t about loyalty, it was about survival.
So why was he here?
He knew the answer. Because this woman had a spell on him. He wanted to conquer her, wanted to sleep with her. He thought that by being brave it would attract her.
He swore silently. For ten years he had made money and kept free of the law.
Stupid, he thought. Just so stupid.
The car slewed and bumped over a mound, then, to the fury of two male golfers, drove straight over a green, between the balls they were waiting to putt out. Marlene clung on as the car dipped steeply, its suspension bottoming out, her head striking the ceiling as the car bounced.
‘Scheisse!’ she said, but not from pain.
It was the sight of the white police van that was squarely parked across the rear exit to Wiston Grange, ahead of them, that made her swear.
‘Turn!’ she commanded Grigore. ‘We try the front.’
‘Maybe we are better on foot?’ Cosmescu said, as Grigore braked sharply, sliding the car around on the grass.
‘Oh sure, with the helicopter up there? No chance!’ She peered out of the side window, craning her neck up.
Then Grigore let out a yell and jabbed his finger over his shoulder. Marlene turned and, to her horror, saw a police Range Rover on their tail, lights flashing and gaining rapidly.
‘Want me to try?’ Grigore said. ‘I drive fast?’
‘No, stop. Don’t say anything. I’ll speak. I’ll try to bluff. Stop the car! Halten!’
Grigore obliged. The three of them sat in numb silence, for an instant, Marlene thinking hard.
Another police car was racing towards them. It pulled up nose to nose with the Mercedes, blocking them, its siren dying away. And as she looked at the occupants of the front seat, her heart sank even further.
The driver was a black officer she had never seen before, but his front seat passenger was someone she had very definitely met before. In her office in Germany.
Yesterday.
Now he was out of his car and walking towards her, his unbuttoned overcoat open and flapping in the breeze. Several uniformed officers in stab vests materialized from the Range Rover and stood close behind him.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Taylor,’ she greeted him coolly, as he opened her door. ‘Or would you prefer I call you Detective Superintendent Grace?’
Ignoring her comment, and unsmiling, he said, ‘Marlene Eva Hartmann, I’m arresting you on suspicion of trafficking human beings for organ transplantation purposes.’ He cautioned her and said, ‘Step out of the car, please.’
He gripped her wrist and held on as she climbed out, then nodded to one of the uniformed police officers, who stepped forward and handcuffed her. ‘Just hold her here for a moment,’ he instructed the PC, then he opened the front door and addressed Cosmescu.
‘Joseph Baker, otherwise known as Vlad Roman Cosmescu, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Jim Towers.’ Grace then cautioned him.
As Cosmescu was being handcuffed, Grace walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. The man was staring at him bug-eyed and shaking. ‘So who are you?’ he asked.
‘Me, Grigore. I the driver.’
‘You have a last name?’
‘A what?’
‘Grigore? Grigore what?’
‘Ah. Dinica. Grigore Dinica!’
‘You’re the driver, right?’
‘Yes, just taxi driver, like taxi driver.’
‘Taxi driver?’ Grace pushed, brushing a fleck of sleet from his face. His radio crackled but he ignored it.
‘Yes, yes, taxi. I only driving taxi for these people.’
‘You want me to nick you for driving an unlicensed taxi, on top of what I’m about to charge you with?’
Grigore stared at him blankly, perspiration popping on his brow.
Telling Glenn Branson to arrest the man on suspicion of aiding and abetting human trafficking, Grace turned back to the woman.
Before he could speak, she said, ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, may I recommend that next time you pretend to be a customer interested in some services, you should be better briefed.’
‘If you’re so well briefed yourself, how come you’re nicked?’ he retorted.
‘I have done nothing wrong,’ she said adamantly.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then you’re lucky. English prisons are horribly overcrowded at the moment. I wouldn’t recommend a stay in many of them, especially the women’s ones.’ He brushed more flecks of sleet from his face. ‘Now, Frau Hartmann, do you want us to do this the easy way or the hard way?’