He had been smarting ever since that phone call last week.
You’ve screwed up.
For years this city had been a great gig for him. Awash with money and girls. Providing him with the cash to keep his handicapped sister in a nice home. And the income to keep him in a lifestyle he could once only have dreamed of.
He did not like to be told he had screwed up.
He had always been obsessively careful. Gaining the trust of his employees. Steadily building up his business empire here. The massage parlours. Escort agencies. The lucrative drug deals. And, more recently, the German connection. The organ trade was the best business of all. Every successful transplant put tens of thousands of pounds in his pocket. And from there, straight into his Swiss bank account.
If he had learned one thing about his adopted country, it was that the police were focused on the trafficking of drugs. Everything else took a back seat. Which was OK by him.
Everything had worked just fine. Until Jim Towers.
Maybe the boatman had made a genuine mistake in putting those bodies in a dredge area. But he did not think so. Towers had tried to screw him – whatever his motive. Morality? Blackmail?
Suddenly his phone pinged with an incoming text.
It was from his biggest source of money, Marlene Hartmann, in Munich.
Like himself, to make it harder for the police to monitor her, she acquired a new pay-as-you-go mobile phone each week.
The text said: Do you know this man?
Two photographs were attached. He opened them. Moments later, he was reaching for a cigarette.
When he had first set up shop here, he had made it his business to learn the face of every police officer who might be interested in him. He had followed the career path of this particular detective, thanks to the Argus newspaper, for several years, watching his rise up the ranks.
He dialled her number. ‘Detective Superintendent Roy Grace from Sussex CID,’ he informed her.
‘He has just been in my office.’
‘Maybe he needs an organ?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said humourlessly. ‘But I think you should know I just received a phone call from Sir Roger Sirius. The police went to interview him at his home just now, this morning.’
‘What about?’
‘I think it was just a fishing trip. But we should put Alternative One into operation right away. Yes?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Fishing trip. The words make him squirm.
‘I’m bringing everything forward. Please be on standby,’ she ordered.
‘I am ready.’
She terminated the call with her usual abruptness.
Cosmescu lit his cigarette and smoked it nervously, thinking hard, going over the list for Alternative One in his mind. He did not like it that the police had been to see the surgeon and the organ broker – and on the same day. Not good at all.
Then he was distracted by a news item that suddenly appeared in front of him.
CHANNEL TRAWL PRODUCES FOURTH BODY, the headline shouted.
He read the first few lines of the story. A police diving team, searching for the missing Shoreham-registered fishing boat, Scoob-Eee, recovered a body from its wreckage.
Futu-i! he thought. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
91
Lynn sat at her work station, her throat tight with anxiety. The tuna sandwich she had brought in for her lunch lay in front of her, with one small bite taken from it, along with her untouched apple.
She had no appetite. Her stomach was full of butterflies and she was a bag of nerves. Tonight, after work, she had a date. But the butterflies were not the kind she used to have, all excited, before going to meet her boyfriend as a teenager. They were more like dark, trapped, dying moths. Her date was with the odious Reg Okuma.
Or more specifically, so far as she was concerned, it was with his promised £15,000 in cash.
But, from all his innuendo over the phone earlier this morning, he was clearly expecting more than just a quick, happy-hour cocktail.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Caitlin was worsening by the day. Sometimes, it seemed, by the hour. Her mother was sitting with her this morning. Christmas was looming. Marlene Hartmann had guaranteed a liver within one week of receipt of the deposit, and she had that now. But regardless of the organ broker’s promises – and all the references which had checked out reassuringly – the reality was that a lot of activities shut down over Christmas, and the wheels of those that did not turned at a slower pace.
Ross Hunter had phoned her earlier today, imploring her to get Caitlin into hospital.
Yeah, to die, right?
One of her colleagues, a lively, friendly young woman called Nicky Mitchell, stopped by and put a sealed envelope on her desk.
‘Your secret Santa!’ she said.
‘OK, right, thanks.’
Lynn stared at the envelope, wondering who it was in the office she would have to buy an anonymous gift for. Normally she would have enjoyed doing that, but now it was just another hassle.
On the big screen on the wall ahead of her the words, CHRISTMAS BONUS! were flashing, surrounded by little Christmas trees and spinning gold coins. The bonus was over £3,000 now. There was a feeling of money everywhere in this office. If she cut half her colleagues open, she was sure cash would pour from their veins instead of blood.
So much damn money. Millions. Tens of millions.
So why the hell was it proving so hard to find that last fifteen thousand for the German broker? Mal, her mother, Sue Shackleton and Luke had all been brilliant. Her bank had been surprisingly sympathetic, but with her overdraft already exceeded, her manager told her he would need to go to head office for approval and he was not confident he would get it. Her only real option was to try for a bigger mortgage, but that was a process which would take many weeks – time she did not have.
Suddenly her mobile phone rang. The number was withheld. She answered surreptitiously, not wanting to get a reprimand for taking a personal call.
It was Marlene Hartmann, her voice terse and a little agitated. ‘Mrs Beckett, we have identified a suitable liver for your daughter. We will perform the transplant tomorrow afternoon. Please be ready with Caitlin, with bags packed, at midday tomorrow. You have the list I sent you of everything you will need to pack for her?’
‘Yes,’ Lynn said. ‘Yes.’ But her mouth was so dry with nerves and excitement, barely any sound came out. ‘Can you – can you tell me – anything about the – the donor?’
‘It is coming from a young woman who was in a motor accident and is now brain dead on life support. I am not able to tell you more.’
‘Thank you,’ Lynn said. ‘Thank you.’
She hung up, feeling dizzy and sick with excitement – and fear.
92
It was too cold to search on foot, so they sat in Ian Tilling’s Opel, peering through the holes they rubbed in the condensation on the windows as the car slithered along the slushy streets close to the café. It was just after half past four and the light, beneath the grim snow clouds, was fading rapidly.
They had already stopped and investigated several holes in the road, but so far none of them appeared to have been occupied. Backtracking, they once more passed the mini-market, the café, the butcher’s, then an Orthodox church covered in scaffolding. Two large dogs, one grey, one black, were busily ripping open a garbage bag.
Raluca, on the back seat, calm now after her fix, suddenly stiffened and leaned forward. Then she shouted excitedly, ‘Mr Ian! There, over there, see! Stop the car!’
At first all he could see in the direction she was pointing was a wide strip of wasteland, with several derelict cars, and a cluster of drab, high-rise tenement buildings, with dozens of satellite television dishes littering the outside walls, like an infestation of barnacles.