‘Do you know what is the blood grouping of your nephew?’
‘AB negative,’ he said.
Her eyes flickered and the faintest frown appeared on her face. ‘Not so common.’
‘I know.’
‘Our price for a liver is three hundred thousand euros. We need 50 per cent in advance, before we start to look, and 50 per cent on delivery, before the transplant takes place. We guarantee to find a matching liver within one week of receipt of the deposit.’
‘Even a rare blood group?’
‘Of course,’ she said, confidently.
‘So, with my nephew living in Brighton, in Sussex, in England, where would the transplant operation take place?’
‘Brighton is a nice city,’ she said.
‘You’ve been there?’
‘Brighton? Ja, sure. With my husband, we made a tour of England.’
‘So, you have a facility near to Brighton?’
‘We have many facilities around the world, Mr Taylor. That you have to trust us on. In some we have the facility for liver and kidney transplants, in some heart and lung, and in some all four. I can give you references who are very satisfied with our service. People who would not be alive today without what we do. But there is no pressure. In your country, a thousand people die each year because they are unable to obtain an organ for the operation which could have saved them. Yet one million, two hundred and fifty thousand people a year die in road accidents around the world. At Transplantation-Zentrale we are merely the facilitator. We are giving comfort to the families of loved ones who have died suddenly and tragically, by creating a use for their organs – in saving the lives of others. In doing this, you see, it gives some kind of purpose to each loved one’s death. You understand?’
‘Yes. Which do you do in Sussex?’
‘Liver and kidneys.’ She looked at him quizzically. ‘You carry an organ donor card yourself?’
He blushed. ‘No.’
‘You and most of the world. Yet, if you wake up tomorrow with kidney failure, Mr Taylor, you will be grateful that someone else did.’
‘Good point. Tell me something, is there anyone in the Brighton area who has used your services, who I could talk to?’
‘You will understand our client confidentiality.’
‘Naturally.’
‘I will check our records and, if there is someone in your area, I will contact them and see if they would be willing to talk to you.’
‘Thank you. Can you tell me which clinic you would use?’
She looked evasive. ‘I’m sorry, but that will depend on theatre availability. We won’t make a decision until closer to the time.’
‘A private facility or a National Health one?’
‘I don’t think your National Health would be very cooperative, Mr Taylor.’
‘Because this is illegal?’
‘If you want to call saving your nephew’s life illegal, then yes. Correct.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have a plane to catch, so I am sorry – because you arrived late, we have to make this meeting short. Perhaps you want to think about what I have said? Take our literature home with you? We never do a hard sell here. Why? Because, simply this. Always there are desperate people – and always there are organs. It is nice to meet you, Mr Taylor. You have my email and my phone number. I am available 24/7.’
Marlene Hartmann’s limousine was waiting outside and she was anxious to get off to the airport – her schedule was tight. But she sat at her desk until she saw, on the CCTV camera, that Roy Grace had left the building, then she downloaded two of his photographs from the camera to her mobile phone and texted them to Vlad Cosmescu in Brighton, asking him if he could identify this man, urgently.
Mr Roger Taylor, you are a liar, she thought to herself.
After ten years as an international organ broker she knew her market pretty well. She knew the way the system worked in the UK. If you were a patient suffering from acute liver failure, you would instantly be put on the liver transplant list and you would be hospitalized. You would not be well enough to be at home.
Roger Taylor, if that was his real name – and she thought not – had fallen at the first hurdle. Who was he? And why had he come to see her? She suspected from the man’s demeanour and the kinds of questions he was asking, that she already knew the answer.
Then, as she stood up to leave, her phone rang and her day suddenly got worse.
89
With the calm weather and the wide, empty expanse of the English Channel all around them, diving conditions – regardless of the near-freezing water temperature – were about as good as it got. Compared to a weed-infested lake or a murky canal booby-trapped with discarded shopping trolleys, barbed wire and chunks of jagged metal, today was, in the slang of the Specialist Search Unit, a Gucci dive.
But on the two monitors relaying video images from the diver’s camera, there was just a grey blur.
Jon Lelliott – better known as WAFI – assisted by Chris Dicks, nicknamed Clyde, had positively identified the wreck as being the Scoob-Eee. And he had found a body in the prow cabin that he was bringing to the surface now.
The rest of the team, accompanied by Glenn Branson, who was feeling a little wobbly but a lot better than on his last sea voyage, peered over the deck rail at the increasing mass of bubbles breaking the surface around the yellow, blue and red coils of the air and voice supply line, and the four ropes on which the buoyancy bag had been lowered. Moments later the masked head of WAFI appeared, accompanied seconds later by a body breaking the surface in a maelstrom of bubbles.
‘Oh shit!’ Gonzo exclaimed.
Branson turned away after one quick look, now struggling to hold down his breakfast.
WAFI pushed the body, which, supported by the air bags, was floating high in the water, towards the side of the boat.
Then several members of the team, clumsily aided by Glenn Branson, hauled on the ropes, pulling the heavy, waterlogged body up the side of the Sunseeker, over the deck rail.
The marine architect who had designed this craft had in his mind, most likely, that the rear sundeck would be adorned by wealthy playboys and beautiful, topless floozies. He probably never envisaged the sight that now greeted the SSU team and the hapless Detective Sergeant.
‘Poor sod,’ Arf said.
‘Definitely Jim Towers?’ Tania Whitlock asked him.
Although in charge of the Specialist Search Unit, the sergeant had been with the team for less than a year and did not know all the local harbour faces as well as some of her team.
He nodded grimly.
‘Definitely,’ Gonzo confirmed. ‘I’ve been working with him for about five years. That’s Jim.’
The man’s body was bound, up to his neck, with grey duct tape. His head poked above it, with just a single strip across his mouth. A small crab skittered across the tape, and Arf ducked down, grabbed it and threw it back overboard.
‘Fuckers,’ he said. ‘I hate them.’
Glenn could see why.
The heavily bearded lower part of the dead man’s face was intact. But some of the flesh from his cheeks and forehead, and the muscle and sinews beneath, were gone, leaving patches of bare skull. One eye socket had been picked clean. The other contained the remnants of the white of an eye, reduced to the size of a raisin.
‘Don’t think I’ll be ordering the crab and avocado starter for a while,’ quipped Glenn, trying to put on a brave face.
‘Anyone here fancy being buried at sea?’ Juice enquired.
There were no takers.
90
Vlad Cosmescu was a worried man. He sat at his desk with his computer in front of him, no longer enjoying the view out across the Brighton seafront. Every half-hour or so he checked the latest online news on the local paper, the Argus.