Death Watch

‘Tell her,’ said Neil Judd. ‘Tell her it’s all over — but she can finish.’ The man looked at the carbine, the open hatch door.

‘Rey?’ said a voice within.

He retreated without a word.

Three uniformed officers came through the door to the hatch, all armed. Twine briefed them. They all waited, awkward, like nightclub bouncers.

Shaw squatted down in the dust, trying to see into Neil Judd’s unfocused eyes. ‘So you were the Organ Grinder?’

‘I didn’t know I had a name,’ he said. ‘But I knew they were afraid of me; the story was out there, like a legend. It helped, the fear, because it meant hardly anyone dared to say no. Before I did the work for them they had others. Sometimes they bungled the job — so the news had got out, but only whispered. When the ship came in I could…’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘Feel the fear.’ The excitement made the biceps in his tattooed arm twitch.

‘But this time — the last time?’

‘They didn’t need me every time,’ he said. ‘I didn’t ask why. I saw the captain and we had some food, booze, but they didn’t want a donor. They had other sources — that’s what he always said. Then, that Sunday, the power went.’ He laughed bitterly, and again Shaw was struck that it wasn’t a genuine emotion, but a mimicked version, like a child copying an adult. ‘All because Dad wanted to keep his little vendetta going — because he thought it proved to

‘They had a client on board the Rosa — everything ready to go. They’d got a kidney out, ready. But once the juice went the temperature soared — the fridges too. It was chaos. That’s when Rey called. I had to find a donor. Really quickly. And that’s when I saw my chance. So I said I wouldn’t do it, that it was too dangerous, ’cos normally I had time to watch them, time to see if there was a routine that I could cut into. I said that, if they were really desperate I’d do it, provided they gave Dad the op. For free. We made the deal — right there on the mobile. Then they said they’d found me someone at the hostel, that he was called Blanket, and they’d marked up his coat.’

‘And you didn’t know who Blanket really was, did you?’

Judd ducked his head and threw up, a thin trickle of bile, his body convulsing in rhythmic waves like a cat being sick.

He started telling the truth before the rhythm had ceased, so that what he said came in broken phrases. ‘I threw the money at him… got him…’ He looked up suddenly and Shaw saw tears spilling out of his eyes. ‘Got my brother, by the scruff of the neck.’ He wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘I think he knew it was me, but I didn’t recognize him, or the voice. I was a toddler when he left home, so he’s a stranger — was a stranger. I hardly had a memory of him. I just thought — I have to do this. So I hit him.’

They both looked to the perspex door, as if the lost brother might walk out, large as life.

‘Down the alley, through the yard. Then there was a second problem. They got the engineer back on board but he was pissed-up, so they put the generator back arse about face and when the juice ran it blew the fridges — nearly all of them — so most of the stored stuff — tissue, tendons — it was all useless. They said they knew where Bry worked. That it was ideal, that I had to get him to do this, to put all the waste through the furnace, because they needed to clean out the fridges and it was too dangerous to drop that much at sea. So I said I’d go up and ask him, and I took the waste from the op they’d had to abandon — the kidney, the rest — I took that with me, to show him how easy it was, and because they wanted to clean up the theatre when the lights came back on. It was all in a Tesco bag, wrapped, sealed…’

He looked at Shaw for the first time, as if that one domestic detail had brought back the horror of what he’d done. ‘I went home ’cos I’d got his…’ He stopped, his throat filling with fluid. ‘Sean’s… blood, on my shirt. The lights were out so the street was chaos. One of Dad’s overalls was left hanging on the stairs where Ally leaves them, so I took those. Then I ran — up to the hospital.

‘I knew the layout up there from when I was a kid and I’d go up in the holidays — take Bry’s lunch up. And I knew he went out on the ledge for a smoke. So that’s where we talked. I was waiting for him. I told him how easy it was. Then we went inside ’cos I was going to show him. I picked another bag which was nearly empty, ripped the plastic, and stuffed my bag in.’

‘But he didn’t want to do it, did he?’ said Shaw.

‘What did you stab him with?’

He used both hands to roll up one of the legs of his jeans. A screwdriver was taped to his calf muscle, the head sharpened to a murderous point, like a snapshot from Taxi Driver. ‘The lights went out — a power cut — and he lunged for me in the dark. I threw him back, and I heard him crash into the metal instrument panel.’ He touched the back of his skull. ‘I knew he was dead — that he’d die — right then, because when the emergency lighting came on I could see him pinned to the metal, his arms jerking. He was gonna scream. I couldn’t let that happen. So I walked forward and put the screwdriver in his chest, just once, so he’d be quiet.’

Shaw let him have the euphemism unchallenged.

‘Why’s the skipper dead?’ he said.

‘Ally showed me the note from Sean last night, asked me if I’d seen him. So I knew then what I’d done. I’d brought him here for this…’

‘So I went to de Mesquita when I brought Dad aboard. I wanted to know where they went — the donors — when the ops were done. I could put it right then — bring him back. I wanted to know where I’d find him. But of course part of me knew, knew instantly, when they found that corpse on the sands. And I thought — can that be true? Can that be true? And then I thought I’d been a fucking fool.’

He was sobbing now, pushing his palms into his face as if he could compress the tears. ‘The captain said they always dropped them out at sea. He’d been drinking, which loosened his tongue. And I guess he thought I was one of them now, that there was no way out. It was just the words he chose. His English ain’t good. So perhaps I should have forgiven him. But he said they dumped them when they’d served their purpose. He was standing in the shower, naked, shameless. I don’t think I can live with the truth. I was fucking sure he wasn’t going to live with it.’

He looked up quickly at a noise from the operating room. Jofranka Phillips parted the plastic curtains. She still wore a surgical gown, the chest bloodsoaked. Shaw thought how cool she looked, revealing her fingers as she pulled clear the gloves.

‘Thank you for waiting,’ she said. Just like that, as if she’d just come out of her office at the hospital.

She turned to Neil Judd and even managed a half-smile. ‘He’s going to be fine.’

48

Friday, 10 September

Jofranka Phillips joined Shaw in the mess room once she was satisfied with the condition of her patients. She didn’t know the donor’s name, she never asked such questions. Their only mark of individuality was the white wristband, to set them apart from the recipient. De Mesquita’s job was to set up everything — all she did was the operations, assisted by Rey Abucajo, the nurse who had worked alongside Mesquita throughout his ‘career’ — the very word she used, as if there were a certificate awarded for such a crime. She saw the clients — rich, replete, and white. And sometimes the donors — the pallid, mottled bodies of the homeless, or, more often, just the prepared organ or bone or tendon, taken from storage.

Dawn was still an hour away. The night had taken its toll on Phillips, who covered her face with her long fingers.

‘Tell me about your father,’ said Shaw, knowing it was one question she’d feel compelled to answer.

‘He died before I was born. By the time I arrived his life was over, but its shadow was on all of us. And has