Death Watch

‘I’m an ill man, Inspector. Yes, I have a new kidney. There is a perfectly legal record of the operation, I assure you. A private hospital near my home in Tel Aviv. That is why I am here. To relax, to recover. I have telephone numbers if you wish to check…’ He took the mobile out of his shorts, began scrolling.

Valentine had it off him before Shaw had even thought what he might be doing.

Lotnar held his hands up, showing them clean palms.

‘DS Valentine will stay with you while you change, Mr Lotnar,’ said Shaw. But Lotnar didn’t move. ‘You’ll need an overnight bag.’

‘A better way,’ said Lotnar, licking fat lips. ‘You said, there might be a better way.’

Shaw took a seat. The girls were out on towels now, rubbing suntan lotion onto slim backs.

‘You have an Israeli passport?’ asked Shaw.

Lotnar nodded, eager now, seeing that there was a way out.

‘We’d need a statement. I can’t promise you won’t be called to give your evidence in person — but it’s unlikely. You are one, I suspect, of hundreds. Perhaps you are a victim too…’ Shaw watched the girls mixing drinks from a trolley the T-shirted muscle had just wheeled out. ‘Just tell the truth.’

‘You can have a lawyer before you make a formal statement. But I don’t have much time. The Rosa is back in port. Tell us the truth.’

Lotnar’s throat was dry so he asked for a drink. Shaw said he could have one but he had to talk to Charlie first — in front of them. There was a deal, and Charlie was in the deal too. Lotnar took Charlie’s mobile and gave it to Valentine. He told him to fetch drinks, to ring nobody, to cut the landline.

Lotnar’s account was chillingly businesslike. His health had deteriorated badly eight months earlier. One kidney had failed, the other was just 20 per cent efficient. He’d been confined to his home in Tel Aviv, undergoing twice-daily dialysis. He had expensive medical insurance and was on a private clinic’s waiting list for a kidney transplant. But donor organs were rare in Israel, and while his money could buy him a place on the scheme, it couldn’t get him to the front of the queue and it couldn’t buy him a kidney. There were other problems. Even his own doctor told him he needed to lose five stones before the operation and radically alter his diet and reduce his alcohol consumption. A medical agency in Haifa made inquiries on his behalf at European and US clinics. All had waiting lists and insisted on a pre-op examination. The US offered the best opportunities, but he’d have to fly out and effectively live in a clinic on dialysis while the queue shortened. And the US surgeons would also demand that he met strict criteria before the procedure was undertaken — including a complete ban on alcohol. It might take months to get on the operating table.

was dying. One of the senior consultants at the Tel Aviv clinic told him there was another way. That phrase again, and Lotnar rolled it round with his fat lips: ‘another way’. Lotnar paid the consultant $10,000 to find out what that other way was. He was given a number in Cyprus to call. A man answered the phone, took his details, and told him to wait. Nothing happened for a week. Then, suddenly, at his bedside a young man appeared. His name was Rudi and he said a new kidney would cost Lotnar

$150,000. This, Lotnar could afford, although he resented every cent. Rudi was given a duplicate set of his medical records and in return Lotnar received his instructions. He needed to rent a house within an hour’s drive of the Norfolk port of King’s Lynn. On the morning of Sunday, 5 September he should arrive by car at the docks and ask for the MV Rosa and its captain, Juan de Mesquita. He should have had no alcohol for a week beforehand, no food for twenty-four hours, no water for six.

He did as he was told. He was taken to the captain’s room. He lay down for four hours. Somewhere, the captain said, his new kidney was being removed from its healthy — and willing — donor. He didn’t ask any more questions. It was hot, he remembered, and the first sign that something was wrong was when the fan stopped revolving over his head. He heard footsteps on the metal stairways, people running. Voices: angry, impatient, in many languages.

Then de Mesquita had come with a bottle and two glasses. There would be a delay. The main power supply had failed and the engineer — a drunken Pole called

Lotnar slept. When he woke, the cabin was dark. A few minutes later the lights flickered on and the fan’s blades began once more to turn lazily overhead. De Mesquita gave him the anaesthetic. He’d held his hand as they watched the fan turn. It was the first time he’d regretted his decision, lying there, with this man who’d just pumped liquid sleep into his vein.

And that was all he recalled until he woke the next morning. He was in the captain’s cabin. They had a wheel-chair at the foot of the gangplank. Charlie had returned in the BMW. The pain had been distant, his body soaked in barbiturates. He’d passed out on the journey. But that night, in the bath, he’d examined the small scars: neat and bloodless. And that was the word Lotnar used. ‘Bloodless,’ as if there were no victims.

‘Did you pay in cash?’ asked Valentine.

Lotnar seemed to shake himself out of the memory. ‘No, by cheque — an offshore trust. I’ve got a note…’

‘We need the name,’ said Shaw. He stood. ‘And no after-care? Nothing?’

‘No, that was part of the deal. I had to set that up. I’m fine. Thriving,’ he added, patting his thigh. The girls were at the far end of the pool, lying together, their heads touching.

‘The Rosa is trapped,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s not sailing anywhere. You make any contact at all, or allow anyone else

As the gates closed on Staithe House the dogs rushed from around the garage block, baying, throwing themselves against the railings.

Shaw let Valentine drive. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to spell it out, tell someone outside his own head what had really happened that night on the dockside beyond the gates at the bottom of Erebus Street. The car was steamy, the windscreen smeared with dead wildlife. So Shaw wound the window down and spoke out of it, letting the wind cool his skin.

‘So the Rosa comes into port. They’ve already got Tyler somewhere — on board? Maybe. There’s something there we don’t understand — not yet. Then Lotnar arrives. By mid-morning on the Sunday the donor’s on the operating table and the recipient’s eager to get under the knife next. Then the power goes. So — here’s a hypothesis. Tyler’s healthy kidney has been removed, but there’s no power. He’s still opened up, on the table, and they can’t keep the kidney, because the temperature’s rocketing. What do they do? My guess is the theatre’s below the waterline so there’s no natural light. Candlelight, torchlight? Whatever, it’s panic. They botch sewing him up, and the wound gets infected. Within twenty-four hours he’s dead. Just in time to get dropped off at sea as the MV Rosa heads for Rotterdam.’

Valentine swung the car round the roundabout at

‘Don’t know. What we do know is that back on the ship that night they’ve got a paying customer who’s still a decent kidney short of a full set. So they wait — for two things. The power, yes. But they also need a new donor.’

Valentine let his own window down. Out at sea a flotilla of sailboats was off the sandbanks, catching a brisk wind.

‘We know the deal on the street. The Organ Grinder picks up the donor, who’s already been selected by someone with access to the medical records at the hospital. But this time the timescale is a few hours, not days. So they can’t follow routine. But there’s one thing on their side: because the power’s down on Erebus Street thanks to Andy Judd’s toxic hatred for Jan Orzsak, the power company tells everyone the line’s down till, what, midnight or later. So at least with the lights out, getting the donor is easier.

‘They know Blanket’s a match and he’s in town, so whoever does the selection finds him and marks his coat. The Organ Grinder calls. But Blanket turns him down. So the Organ Grinder does what he’s good at — he drags his donor out into the street, in the dark. Maybe a car’s waiting, or maybe he bundles him down the back alley to the dock gates. By midnight Blanket’s on an operating table. Is Peploe the surgeon? Maybe. The playboy lifestyle doesn’t come cheap. The lion’s share of that hundred and fifty thousand is all his. The rest get the crumbs.’

‘Who killed Bryan Judd, and why?’ he asked.

‘If we’re right, someone had to get rid of the waste from both ops — including Tyler’s kidney. So they go to the hospital. Either it’s the first time, or it’s what they do every time. Maybe that’s Peploe.’ Shaw clicked his fingers. ‘Tell Mark to keep an eye out on the CCTV for a cyclist. But Judd won’t play ball — or catches him slipping the stuff