“Then Carmen Petri let slip to Roy’s girlfriend that these girls were not willing participants. Jennifer told Roy and that changed things for him. I’d guess at that point he wanted nothing to do with it. I imagine he gave you a chance, though, for old time’s sake. I think on the Tuesday, the day after Carmen told Jennifer, Roy had lunch with you and Max Broda and you both tried to convince him everything was aboveboard. But he wasn’t convinced. That’s when he took the photograph of the two of you. He left the café first, didn’t he?”
Lambert said nothing.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have turned you in to the police,” Banks went on, “no matter how much what you were doing sickened him. I doubt that my brother had a very healthy regard for the boys in blue, given his track record. But there was his girlfriend to consider, too, wasn’t there? And she was even more outraged, being a woman. Roy must have told you at lunch on Tuesday that he’d persuaded her to keep quiet for the time being, not to contact the police, and that you needn’t harm her. But Mazuryk set Artyom and Boris to watch her just in case, to see where she went and who came to see her. If she had rung the police, they wouldn’t be content with just some anonymous voice over the phone; they’d want to visit her, or have her visit their station. That’s what Artyom and Boris were looking out for. Then, when things came to a head that Friday night in the Albion Club and Roy told Jennifer to drive up to see me, they followed her and killed her on a quiet country road.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Lambert, a condescending smirk on his face. “If only you could hear yourself. You can’t prove any of this. When I get out of here I’m going to-”
Banks kicked him hard in the stomach. Lambert groaned and rolled over, clutching his midsection and retching. “Bastard,” he hissed.
Banks swung the iron bar and hit him on the shoulder. Lambert screamed. “But it wasn’t even about the girls, was it?” Banks went on. “That was just the start of it. Oh, I’m sure you tried to convince Roy how they had a better life here, away from their war-torn countries, away from the poverty and disease and death. Maybe he even wanted to believe it. Then, in a final bid to enlist his sympathy, you told him that you were adopting Carmen Petri’s baby yourself. You probably gave him some sob story about how your wife couldn’t bear children and desperately wanted a family. You told him you’d give the child a much better life than it could have hoped for in Romania, or as the child of a prostitute in London. That was supposed to be the clincher. How benevolent of you. He’d hardly stand in the way of his old mate adopting a child privately, would he? It might not be strictly legal, but people do it all the time, don’t they? How can it be that much of a crime, to give a child hope? And even Roy had to see that any child you adopted had far more advantages than most. Financial advantages, that is.”
“So what?” Lambert argued. “So what if I was adopting her child? It’s true. The kid would have a much better life with us. Any fool can see that.”
“Maybe so,” said Banks. “But that wasn’t the real intention, was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know why Roy had to die,” said Banks.
“What are you talking about?” Lambert’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
“Because of where he went earlier that day, before you came to call on him. He found out the truth.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s where I’ve just been. Quainton.”
Lambert said nothing. He seemed to shrink into himself.
“Roy went to see your wife to ask her about the adoption,” Banks went on. “They’d never met before. If it was true, he would probably have agreed to keep quiet about it all and keep Jennifer quiet, too. But Roy found out what I found out. That you and your wife have a baby girl called Nina and she needs a new heart. And the only heart that can help a baby in need of a transplant is the heart of another baby. You know what the chances are of getting your hands on one by normal routes, so when you found out one of Mazuryk’s girls was pregnant – not just any girl, mind you, but Carmen, intelligent, healthy and clean – you struck a deal. You’d pay Mazuryk for the privilege of adopting Carmen’s baby. That way he wouldn’t be out of pocket when she couldn’t work during her pregnancy. But you weren’t adopting the baby, were you? You were buying the baby’s heart. I don’t know if Mazuryk was in on it with you, but one way or another, as soon as that baby was born, it was going to be on its way to Switzerland. Were you going to kill it yourself, or have you paid a crooked doctor to do that for you?”
“Don’t be absurd. This is pure fantasy.”
“Is it? My guess is that you had someone lined up, a crooked doctor from your Balkan days, probably. You wouldn’t have the stomach to do it yourself. And then there’s the Swiss clinic, all ready to go at a moment’s notice, no questions asked. Got it all organized, haven’t you?”
Lambert squirmed like a toad on his bed of broken wood and twisted metal. At some point, he had cut his lip and the blood welled up as he spoke. “Look, you’re obviously off your rocker, Banks. Let me go and we’ll say no more about this.”
He made to get up again but Banks kicked him down and swung the bar dangerously close to his head.
“Stay where you are. Don’t you realize it’s over? Do you think that even your wife will want to know you after what you had planned?”
“She doesn’t know,” said Lambert. “If you’ve-”
“I haven’t. Not yet. Tell me the truth, Gareth. How could you be sure you had a match? Who did the tests?”
“What tests?” Lambert paused and rubbed his shoulder.
“Come on, Gareth. Humor me. Tell me all about it.”
Lambert was quiet for several moments, then he spoke. “The blood groups matched,” he said. “That’s the best you can hope for with babies, and even the blood group doesn’t matter if they’re newborn. Do you think I haven’t researched it? The heart only survives six hours outside the body, so you do the transplant first and ask questions later. A chance. It was all I asked for.”
Though Banks had pieced it all together after seeing Mercedes and Nina, he could still hardly believe it now that he was actually hearing it, that this man had cold-bloodedly bought a baby and planned to use its heart to save his daughter’s life. “Do you have even the slightest idea what you’re saying?” he said.
“Look,” said Lambert. “What chance did it have with a mother like that? Huh? Tell me. Look at her. A common prostitute. A slut. This way at least the baby could serve some purpose in being born. These people give birth in fields and think nothing of it. You haven’t seen them, Banks. You haven’t been there. I have. I know them. I’ve lived with them. They’re animals. Their filthy children wander the streets and beg and steal and grow up to be criminals and prostitutes, just like their parents. The orphanages are full of abandoned children and none of them has a chance. My child will have a chance. She can make a difference in life. Achieve something. Contribute something.”
Banks shook his head in disgust. “I wondered where Roy drew the line,” he said, “and now I know. He’d turn a blind eye to most things for the sake of money and an old friendship. To the girls. To the illegal adoption. But not to this, not to the murder of an innocent baby for its heart. What did you do on Friday at the Albion Club? Offer him money to keep quiet or try to convince him you were morally right?”