‘
He raised a cautioning hand. ‘We have to wait a little.’ He peered anxiously out again, then turned to the tired-looking teenage girl, dressed in a smart white overcoat, on the seat behind the woman. ‘Enjoyed the flight?’
The girl didn’t understand English, but she picked up the gist of what he had said from his tone and nodded nervously. He unbuckled himself and reached over to help her out of her safety harness. Then he signalled for her to stay, climbed out and jumped down, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Marlene Hartmann welcomed the blast of cold, fresh air, even though it was laced with the smell of kerosene. Then she yawned and gave Simona a smile. The girl smiled back. A pretty little thing, Marlene thought. In another country, in different circumstances, life could have been good for her. She yawned again, longing for a cup of coffee. It had been a long, long night. By road to Belgrade, then a late flight to Paris, then a taxi at four in the morning to Le Touquet. But they were here. And she was happy with the plans.
Yes, after the visit from the police officer yesterday, it would have been more sensible to abort. But then she would have lost a good customer. She did not think the Detective Superintendent could move this fast. Everything would be done before he even knew it and by tonight she would be back in Germany.
Another plane was coming in to land and the pilot, standing outside, heard the roars of several different aero engines, including the clatter of a helicopter, and saw a convoy of three aircraft taxiing out towards the runways. Plenty to keep the tower occupied. This was always a good time of day, still a little bit of darkness and numerous distractions, including the vehicles of airport workers arriving.
The white van was parked a few hundred yards along, beside the perimeter fence. He stared at it, then pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
Behind the wheel of the van, Vlad Cosmescu was watching. This was the signal.
He started the engine and put the van into gear.
102
Lynn Beckett sat, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night, her heart thudding, hunched over her kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. She had lain in bed for hours, tossing and turning, shaking her pillows to try to get them comfortable, and getting up, obsessively, every twenty minutes or so to check on Caitlin, help her to the loo, ensure she drank glucose water and took the antibiotic tablets. The combination Ross Hunter had prescribed, probably aided by the jab, seemed to be working. Caitlin’s pain had subsided and the itching was a little less bad.
For a long time after the doctor’s visit, she had remained downstairs with Luke. They had downed a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and smoked their way through an entire packet of Silk Cut, sharing the last cigarette between them.
Now her head was pounding, her lungs were raw and she felt terrible. Luke had finally fallen into a deep slumber in the chair beside Caitlin’s bed.
The television was on. She stared at the 9 a.m. news, but she had no interest in it. Nor in the programme on helicopter rescues that followed. She had no interest in anything, at this moment, except for the phone call she was waiting for from Marlene Hartmann.
Please call. Oh, please God, call.
She did not know what she would do if the German woman did not make contact. If she had simply conned them out of the money. She had no Plan B.
Then, suddenly, the landline phone rang.
She answered it before it had completed the first ring. ‘Yeshello?’
To her relief, it was Marlene Hartmann. ‘How are you today, Lynn?’
‘Yesfine,’ she gasped.
‘Everything is good. We are here. You will be ready for collection?’
‘Yes I will.’
‘The payment is in order? You have the balance ready?’
‘Yes.’ She swallowed.
Her bank manager had already queried the first transfer she had made, and she had given him a lame reason that she was buying an investment property in Germany, from a one-off-payment final divorce settlement from her ex-husband, following an inheritance he had received.
‘You will see us later. The car will arrive for you as scheduled.’
She hung up before Lynn could thank her.
The car was scheduled for midday. Less than three hours.
She was so wound up with stress, fear and excitement, she could hardly think straight.
103
Shortly after the 8.30 a.m. briefing Roy Grace was sitting at the work station in MIR One, on the phone to one of the two detectives who were on surveillance outside Sir Roger Sirius’s house. They had been there since shortly before midnight and reported that no one had left the house and the helicopter was still on its pad in the grounds. He was in an irritable mood, and while he talked, one of the phones in the room warbled on, unanswered. He clapped his hand over the mouthpiece and shouted for someone to answer it. Someone did, rapidly.
Every Secretary of State had either been abroad or out at dinner somewhere last night. It had been after midnight before one – the Home Secretary himself – had signed the phone-tapping consent, and it was after two in the morning before it was up and running on Lynn Beckett’s home and mobile phone lines.
Grace had grabbed three hours’ sleep at Cleo’s house and been back here since six. He was running on Red Bull, a handful of guarana tablets Cleo had given him, and coffee. He was very concerned that the only real lead they had at this moment was the transplant surgeon, Sir Roger Sirius – and no certainty that he was involved, or would give them anything.
He was also concerned about the news from Glenn Branson of Vlad Cosmescu’s disappearance. Was that connected with his visit to the German organ broker yesterday? Had he been rumbled by Marlene Hartmann? Had he panicked her team into aborting their plans and making a fast retreat? The all-ports alert, not only to watch for the German woman accompanied by a young girl arriving, but to watch for a man answering Vlad Cosmescu’s description leaving, had so far yielded nothing.
Ports of entry and departure would forever be a policing problem on an island like Great Britain, with miles of open coastline and numerous private airports and landing strips. Sometimes you would get lucky, but the resources to monitor everyone arriving on and departing from these shores were beyond any budget the police force had. It didn’t help that the Home Office, in its enthusiasm to comply with government budget cuts, had scrapped passport controls for people leaving the UK. In a nutshell, unless someone positively identified them, the UK law enforcement agencies hadn’t a clue who was here and who wasn’t.
The post-mortem on Jim Towers would now be under way and Grace was anxious to get down to the mortuary to see whether there were any early findings from the pathologist to link his death to Operation Neptune – and of course to see Cleo, who had been asleep when he had arrived at her house and when he had left.
As he stood up and pulled his jacket on, telling the other members of his team where he was going, yet another phone was warbling on, unanswered. Was everyone deaf in here today? Or just too plain exhausted after the long night to pick up the receiver?
He got as far as the door before it stopped. As he turned the handle, Lizzie Mantle called out to him, holding up the receiver.
‘Roy! For you.’
He went back over to the work station. It was David Hicks, one of the phone surveillance operatives.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘we’ve just picked up a call on Mrs Beckett’s landline.’
104
‘I’m like… I’ve got to be at this workshop thing at ten,’ Luke mumbled, staggering into the kitchen as if he was sleepwalking. ‘Do you think it would be OK if I went?’
‘Of course,’ she said to his left eye, the only visible one. ‘Go. I’ll call you if anything develops.’
‘Cool.’
He went.
Lynn hurried upstairs, a million things that she had to do between now and midday swirling in her head, and with Luke gone – God bless him – she could think more clearly.
She had to go through the checklist from Marlene Hartmann of Transplantation-Zentrale.
Had to get Caitlin up, washed, packed.
Had to get herself packed.
It took her a while to rouse Caitlin, who was in a deep sleep from the medication Dr Hunter had given her. She ran a bath for her and then started packing overnight bags for each of them.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
She looked at her watch, panic gripping her. Surely not now? The German woman had said
She hurried downstairs and pulled open the front door.
A man and a woman stood there. The man was about forty, with close-cropped fair hair, a small, slightly flattened nose and piercing blue eyes. He was dressed in an overcoat, navy suit, white shirt and a plain blue tie, and was holding up a small, black leather wallet with something printed inside it, and his photograph. The woman was a good decade younger, blonde hair pulled up in a bun, wearing a dark trouser suit with a cream blouse, and held up a similar black wallet.
‘Mrs Lynn Beckett?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Detective Superintendent Grace and DC Boutwood of Sussex CID. Would it be possible to have a word with you?’
Lynn stared at them in shock. She felt as if she had been dropped into the plunge pool of a sauna. The floor beneath her feet felt unstable. The police officers were in her face, right up close to her, so close she could almost feel the warmth of the Detective Superintendent’s breath. She stepped back, in a red mist of panic. ‘It’s – er – it’s not really a very convenient time,’ she gasped.
Her words sounded disembodied, as if someone else was saying them.
‘I’m sorry, but we do need to speak to you right away,’ the Detective Superintendent said, stepping forward, his face coming closer, intimidatingly closer, again.
