The rest of the team, accompanied by Glenn Branson, who was feeling a little wobbly but a lot better than on his last sea voyage, peered over the deck rail at the increasing mass of bubbles breaking the surface around the yellow, blue and red coils of the air and voice supply line, and the four ropes on which the buoyancy bag had been lowered. Moments later the masked head of WAFI appeared, accompanied seconds later by a body breaking the surface in a maelstrom of bubbles.
‘Oh shit!’ Gonzo exclaimed.
Branson turned away after one quick look, now struggling to hold down his breakfast.
WAFI pushed the body, which, supported by the air bags, was floating high in the water, towards the side of the boat.
Then several members of the team, clumsily aided by Glenn Branson, hauled on the ropes, pulling the heavy, waterlogged body up the side of the Sunseeker, over the deck rail.
The marine architect who had designed this craft had in his mind, most likely, that the rear sundeck would be adorned by wealthy playboys and beautiful, topless floozies. He probably never envisaged the sight that now greeted the SSU team and the hapless Detective Sergeant.
‘Poor sod,’ Arf said.
‘Definitely Jim Towers?’ Tania Whitlock asked him.
Although in charge of the Specialist Search Unit, the sergeant had been with the team for less than a year and did not know all the local harbour faces as well as some of her team.
He nodded grimly.
‘Definitely,’ Gonzo confirmed. ‘I’ve been working with him for about five years. That’s Jim.’
The man’s body was bound, up to his neck, with grey duct tape. His head poked above it, with just a single strip across his mouth. A small crab skittered across the tape, and Arf ducked down, grabbed it and threw it back overboard.
‘Fuckers,’ he said. ‘I hate them.’
Glenn could see why.
The heavily bearded lower part of the dead man’s face was intact. But some of the flesh from his cheeks and forehead, and the muscle and sinews beneath, were gone, leaving patches of bare skull. One eye socket had been picked clean. The other contained the remnants of the white of an eye, reduced to the size of a raisin.
‘Don’t think I’ll be ordering the crab and avocado starter for a while,’ quipped Glenn, trying to put on a brave face.
‘Anyone here fancy being buried at sea?’ Juice enquired.
There were no takers.
90
Vlad Cosmescu was a worried man. He sat at his desk with his computer in front of him, no longer enjoying the view out across the Brighton seafront. Every half-hour or so he checked the latest online news on the local paper, the
He had been smarting ever since that phone call last week.
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
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.’
‘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,
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.
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.’
