‘I don’t think you’ll give me one when you hear my result. Two results, in fact. Want me to kick off first?’
Grinning, Roy Grace said, ‘Fill your boots.’
‘Yeah, right, well -’ Branson picked up a sheaf of notes – ‘first thing is that the Specialist Search Unit boys went out this afternoon to scan the area where the Scoob-Eee was last heard from. Despite the crap weather, they’ve found an anomaly on the seabed which is approximately the same dimensions as the Scoob-Eee. It’s the shape of a boat, lying in about a hundred feet of water, approximately twelve miles due south of Black Rock. It could of course be an old wreck, but they’re going to dive on it tomorrow, weather permitting, to take a look.’
‘Are you going with them, Glenn?’ DI Mantle asked.
‘Well…’ He sounded hesitant. ‘Given the choice, I’d rather not.’
‘I think you should,’ she said. ‘In case they find something.’
‘I’ll be a lot of use to them, flat on my back, puking.’
‘Always lie on your side or on your stomach if you’re throwing up,’ Potting said. ‘That way you won’t choke.’
‘Very helpful advice, Norman. Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind,’ Glenn replied.
‘I’m just concerned about resourcing,’ Grace said, cutting in. ‘Beyond the Scoob-Eee being used as the recovery boat for two of the bodies, do we have anything to link its disappearance to our investigation, to justify Glenn’s time in going out again?’
Glumly, like a man aiding his own executioner, Glenn said, ‘Yes. I have a result back from the labs on the DNA from the two cigarette butts I recovered at Shoreham Harbour. Remember, I reported that I saw someone who appeared to be watching the Scoob-Eee with interest last Friday morning?’
Grace nodded.
‘Well, the national database people at Birmingham say it’s a perfect match to someone they have recently put on the database at the request of Europol. He goes under two different names. Here he calls himself Joe Baker, but his real name is Vlad Cosmescu – he’s Romanian.’
Grace thought for a moment. Joe Baker. The man who owned the black Mercedes he had clocked on his early-morning run. A coincidence, or more?
‘That’s interesting,’ Bella Moy said. ‘His name just popped up last night – pimping two girls, recent arrivals from Romania.’
‘Clearly the Man of the Moment,’ Grace said, sliding some papers out of a brown envelope. ‘The wizards in our fingerprint department managed to pull a clear set of dabs off an outboard that had been submerged in the sea using some equipment they’re trialling – and they got a match from Europol this afternoon. Guess who?’
‘Our New Best Friend, Vlad the impaler?’ ventured DS Batchelor.
‘Right on the money!’ Grace said.
‘Are we going to bring him in?’ Norman Potting asked. ‘They’re all villains, these Romanians, aren’t they?’
‘That’s very racist,’ Bella said acidly.
‘No, it’s just a home truth.’
‘What grounds do you want to arrest him on, Norman?’ Grace said. ‘Smoking a cigarette? Dropping an outboard motor in the sea? Or for being a Romanian?’
Potting lowered his eyes and made an indecipherable grumbling sound.
‘Did the Scoob-Eee have an outboard, Glenn?’ E-J asked.
‘I didn’t see one, no.’
‘Do we know where this man, Baker/Cosmescu, lives?’
Bella replied, ‘He’s been a part of the brothel scene for some years, Roy. We should be able to track him down fairly easily.’
‘Do you want someone to interview him?’ DI Mantle asked.
‘No, I think we’ll just log him as a Person of Interest. I don’t think we should talk to him at this stage. If he’s up to anything it will just alert him. We might think about putting surveillance on him.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘OK, so how are we are we doing on the actions?’
‘We’ve had two DCs out going round all suppliers of PVC sheeting in the area. Nothing so far,’ said David Browne.
‘Nick and I covered twelve brothels last night,’ Bella Moy said, reaching for a Malteser.
‘You must be shagged out, Nick!’ Norman Potting said.
Nicholl blushed and gave a half-hearted smile. Grace suppressed a grin. Potting had been quieter than normal in recent days, which he imagined was due to the man’s marriage problems. It was a relief. Potting was a good detective, but on a couple of recent cases when they had worked together Grace had come perilously close to having to fire the DS for his offensive remarks.
Turning to Bella, he asked, ‘And? Anything?’
Glancing at Nick Nicholl for confirmation, she replied, ‘Nothing, beyond Cosmescu. We didn’t find any girls who seemed in distress.’
‘Good to know that our brothels are such happy places,’ Grace commented sarcastically.
‘We’ll carry on today,’ she said.
Glancing at his notes again, Grace turned to Potting. ‘Anything from your man in Romania?’
‘I had an email from Ian Tilling an hour ago. He’s following up a lead tonight. I may have some information by the morning.’
Grace made a note.
‘Good. Thank you. How about people who were on a transplant list but dropped off?’
‘I’ve been working on that all day, Roy,’ Potting said. ‘I suspect we’re on a hiding to nothing there. First thing we’ve got against us is the Hippocratic Oath – good old patient confidentiality. Second thing is the way the system works. These transplant lists aren’t cut and dried. I spoke to a helpful liver consultant at the Royal South London, one of the main liver transplant hospitals. He told me they have a weekly meeting, every Wednesday at midday, when they review the list. Because there is such a shortage of donors they change priorities from week to week, according to urgency. We’re talking about hospitals all over the UK. We’d have to go to court on every individual to get their records. What we need is a medical insider on our team.’
‘What kind of insider?’ Grace asked.
‘A tame transplant surgeon whom medics would trust,’ said Potting. ‘Someone who might have an overview.’
‘I have something that may be of interest,’ Emma-Jane Boutwood said. ‘I’ve been trying to find disaffected transplant consultants or surgeons on the web. Someone who’s openly critical of the system and has gone public.’
‘Openly critical in what way?’ DI Mantle quizzed.
‘Well – for instance, a surgeon who doesn’t think it is unethical to buy human organs,’ the young DC said. ‘And I’ve found someone – his name is Sir Roger Sirius – and he pops up on several different links.’
She looked at Grace, who nodded encouragement for her to continue.
‘A number of things about Sirius are interesting. He trained under one of the pioneers of liver transplant surgery in the UK. Then he was the senior consultant at the Royal South London Hospital for some years. He actively campaigned for a change in the organ donor laws – advocating an opt-out system – meaning that people’s organs would automatically be harvested on death unless they had requested otherwise. It’s the system they have in Spain, for instance. Now, where it gets even more interesting, is that he took early retirement from the Royal after a row about this. Then he went abroad.’
She stopped and looked at her notes.
‘He appears on some websites involving Colombia – which is a country heavily involved in human organ trafficking. It seems he worked out there for a while. Then he pops up in Romania.’
‘Romania?’ Grace said.
E-J nodded, then went on, ‘He’s into a big lifestyle. Flies his own helicopter, flash cars, and a huge mansion in Sussex, near Petworth.’
‘Interesting,’ DI Mantle said. ‘About Sussex.’