Walking over to him, and waiting for him to finish a call, Grace said, ‘I need you to do something. I need you to find out everything you can about the world of trafficking in human organs.’
‘Need a new liver, do you, old-timer? I’m not surprised.’
‘Yeah, yeah, very funny. Get Norman Potting to help you. He’s good at researching obscure stuff.’
‘Dirty Pretty Things!’ Branson said. ‘See that movie?’
Grace shook his head.
‘That was about illegal immigrants selling kidneys in a seedy hotel in London.’
Suddenly he had the Detective Superintendent’s attention. ‘Really? Tell me more.’
‘Roy!’ Nadiuska called out. ‘Look, this is interesting!’
Grace, followed by Glenn Branson, walked over to the corpse and stared down at the tiny tattoo she was pointing to. He frowned.
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
He turned to Glenn Branson. The DS shrugged and then, stating the obvious, said, ‘It’s not English.’
37
Romeo clambered down the steel ladder, holding a huge grocery bag under one arm. Valeria was sitting on her old mattress, leaning against the concrete wall, rocking her sleeping baby. Tracy Chapman was singing ‘Fast Car’ yet again. Again. Again. The fucking song was starting to drive him crazy.
He noticed three strangers, in their mid-teens, on the floor, slouched against the wall opposite Valeria. They were just sitting there, looking strung out on Aurolac. The tell-tale squat plastic bottle with its broken white seal and the yellow and red label bearing the words
‘Food!’ he announced breezily. ‘I got some money and I bought amazing food!’
Only Valeria reacted. Her big, sad eyes rolled towards him, like two marbles that had run out of momentum. ‘Who gave you money?’
‘It was a charity. They give money to street people like us!’
She shrugged her shoulders, uninterested. ‘People who give you money always want something back.’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘No, not this person. She was beautiful, you know? Beautiful inside!’ Then he walked over to her and opened up the bag for her to inspect the contents. ‘Look, I bought you stuff for the baby!’
Valeria dug her hand in and pulled out a tin of condensed milk. ‘I’m worried about Simona,’ she said, turning it around and reading the label. ‘She hasn’t moved all day. She just cries.’
Romeo walked over and squatted down beside Simona, putting an arm around her. ‘I bought you chocolate,’ he said. ‘Your favourite. Dark chocolate!’
She was silent for some moments and then she sniffed. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’
She said nothing.
He pulled out a bar and put it under her nose. ‘Why? Because I want you to have something nice, that’s why.’
‘I want to die. That would be nice.’
‘You said yesterday you wanted to go to England. Wouldn’t that be nicer?’
‘That’s a dream,’ she said, staring bleakly ahead. ‘Dreams don’t come true, not for people like us.’
‘I met someone today. She can take us to England. Would you like to meet her?’
‘Why? Why would she take us to England?’
‘Charity!’ he replied brightly. ‘She has a charity to help street people. I told her about us. She can get us jobs in England!’
‘Yeah, sure, as erotic dancers?’
‘Any kind of jobs we want. Bars. Cleaning rooms in hotels. Anything.’
‘Is she like the man I met at the station?’
‘No, she is a nice lady. She is kind.’
Simona said nothing. More tears trickled down her cheeks.
‘We can’t stay like this. Is that what you want, to stay like this for all our lives?’
‘I don’t want to be hurt any more.’
‘Can’t you trust me, Simona? Can’t you?’
‘What is trust?’
‘We’ve seen England on television. In the papers. It’s a good country. We could have an apartment in England! We could have a new life there!’
She started crying. ‘I don’t want a new life any more. I want to die. Finish. It would be easier.’
‘She’s coming by tomorrow. Will you at least meet her, talk to her?’
‘Why would anybody want to help us, Romeo?’ she asked. ‘We’re nothing.’
‘Because there are some good people in the world.’
‘Is that what you believe?’ she asked bleakly.
‘Yes.’
He unwrapped the chocolate bar and broke off a section, holding it in front of her. ‘Look. She gave me money for food, for treats. She’s a good person.’
‘I thought the man at the railway station was a good person.’
‘Can you imagine being in England? In London? We could live in an apartment in London. Making good money! Away from all this shit! Maybe we’ll see rock stars there. I’ve heard that a lot of them live in London!’
‘The whole world is shit,’ she replied.
‘Please, Simona, at least come and meet her tomorrow.’
She raised a hand and took the chocolate.
‘Do you really want to spend another winter down here?’ he asked.
‘At least we are warm here.’
‘You don’t want to go to London because it is warm here? Right? How great is that? Maybe it’s warm in London too.’
‘Go fuck yourself!’
He grinned. She was perking up. ‘Valeria wants to come too.’
‘With the baby?’
‘Sure, why not?’
‘She’s coming tomorrow, this woman?’
‘Yes.’
Simona bit one square off the chocolate strip. It tasted good. So good she ate the whole bar.
38
Roy Grace stood on the touchline of the football pitch, beneath the glare of the floodlights, and jammed his gloveless hands deep into his raincoat pockets, shivering in the biting wind high up here in Whitehawk. At least the rain had stopped and there was a clear, starry sky. It felt cold enough for a frost.
It was the Friday night football league and tonight the Crew Club’s teenagers were playing against a team from the police. He had just made the last ten minutes of the game, in time to see the police being hammered 3-0.
The city of Brighton and Hove straddled several low hills and Whitehawk sprawled over one of the highest. A council development of terraced and semi-detached houses, and low- and high-rise blocks of flats, built in the 1920s to replace the slums occupying the land before, Whitehawk had long – and somewhat unjustly – held a dark reputation for violence and crime. A few of its warrens of streets, many with fabulous views across the city and the sea, were inhabited and dominated by some of the city’s roughest crime families, and their reputation infected everyone’s on the estate.
But during the past few years a carefully run community initiative supported by Sussex Police had radically changed that. At its heart was the Crew Club, sponsored by local industry to the tune of ?2 million. The club boasted a smart, ultra-modern and funky-looking centre that could have been designed by Le Corbusier, which housed a range of facilities for local youngsters, including a well- equipped computer room, a music recording studio, a video studio, a spacious party room, meeting rooms and, in the grounds surrounding it, numerous sports facilities.
The club was a success because it had been created by passion, not by bureaucrats. It was a place where local kids did actually want to go and hang out. It was cool. And at its heart were a couple of Whitehawk residents, Darren and Lorraine Snow, whose vision it had been and whose energy drove it.
Both wrapped up in coats, scarves and hats so that their faces were almost invisible, they flanked Roy Grace now, along with a handful of parents and a few police colleagues. It was the first time Grace had visited, and, in his capacity as president of the Police Rugby Team, he was mentally sizing up the opportunities for a rugby challenge here. They were tough and plucky, the youngsters on that pitch, and he was quite amused to see them giving the force players a hard time.
A group thundered past, jostling, grunting and cussing, and the ball rolled over the line. Instantly the ref’s whistle blew.
But Grace’s focus was distracted by the post-mortems he had attended today, and yesterday, and the task that lay in front of him. Pulling out his pocket memo pad, he jotted down some thoughts, gripping his pen with almost numb fingers.
Suddenly there was a ragged cheer and he looked up, momentarily confused. A goal had been scored. But by which side?
From the cheers and the comments, he worked out it was the Crew Club team. The score was now 4-0.
Privately he smiled again. The Sussex Police team were being coached by retired Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Gaylor, who was an accredited football referee. As well as being a personal
