James Hayman - The Cutting

‘Did you become lovers?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think his heart was in it. I think he may be homosexual. Or maybe not. As a woman who attracts quite a few men, I could tell he was more interested in what I did at the hospital than in me as a woman.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Mostly my job. How much experience I had. What kind of equipment we used.’

‘Did that surprise you?’

‘At first, yes, but when I asked him about it, he said what he did for a living was sell medical equipment. Including heart-lung machines. That’s what he said he was doing at the hospital, a business deal.’

‘Did you believe him?’

‘Yes. I had no reason not to. He knew a lot about the machines.’

‘Did he tell you his name?’

‘He told me his name was Phillipe Spencer.’

‘Philip Spencer?’ McCabe felt a surge of adrenaline. Here it was. Falling right into his lap. The corroborating evidence Burt Lund was pushing for.

Sophie sensed his excitement. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Let’s just say I know the name.’ He was sitting with a witness who could directly link the sonofabitch to an illegal transplant. Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than a pair of Bruno Magli shoes. Why would Spencer use his real name, though? Why not Harry Lime or some other alias? It didn’t make sense. Yes, it did. Simple. The passport. He was traveling in a foreign country. He didn’t have the time, or maybe the means, to get himself a phony. Still, why give her the name? No. It didn’t make sense. Then again, lots of things that don’t make sense turn out to be true.

McCabe watched her light another Gauloises. With her Jeanne Moreau face, her accent, and the strong smell of the cigarettes, McCabe was beginning to feel like he had somehow landed in the middle of a Truffaut film himself. Tirez sur le Detective?

‘What happened next?’ he asked.

‘Phillipe somehow found out, or maybe he already knew, that I had money problems. I’m sure that’s why he approached me. I make a good income as a perfusionist in France — not as much as one would make here in the States, but still quite a lot. But I have expensive tastes, and I indulge them. I was carrying a lot of debt at high interest. So when he said he could offer me an assignment that would pay very well, I was interested in hearing more about it. I asked what it was, and he said there was an opportunity for me to take part in a transplant operation in America. I asked him why he’d want me to travel all the way from France when there were already many perfusionists in America. It quickly became clear that this was to be an illegal operation. He wanted me because of my financial problems and, I suppose, because I have no contacts with the medical or legal authorities in America.’

‘Did he tell you who the patient was?’

‘No, not by name. He just told me that a very rich man in his eighties was dying of end-stage congestive heart failure. He wanted a new heart but couldn’t qualify for an approved program because of his age. Phillipe said he’d located a resource that could obtain hearts outside of normal channels. I told him I had no interest in breaking the law and even less in going to jail. He said there was no danger of that. He said he and his friends had performed a number of these operations in the past and no one was any the wiser.’

‘Is that the word he used, friends? Not colleagues? Or associates?’

‘I think so. Yes. I’m quite sure it is. Is that important?’

‘I don’t know. It might be. What happened next?’

‘This conversation didn’t occur all at once. It took place during the course of two or three meetings.’

‘I understand.’

‘Even though he said there was very little risk, I told him I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to be involved in anything illegal, and given the shortage of healthy hearts for transplant, I didn’t believe it was ethically right to deprive someone younger of the chance for a normal life to help an old man who’d soon die anyway.’

‘Did he accept that?’

‘He seemed to.’

‘What changed your mind?’

‘Money. Avarice overcame both scruples and discretion. In our final discussion he told me that for one operation, one day in the operating room, he would deposit a hundred thousand euros in a numbered account in my name in the Cayman Islands. That’s a hundred thousand euros for one day’s work plus a couple of days’ preparation and travel. That’s more than I make in a year. Even so, I didn’t say yes right away. I went back to my apartment and looked at the pile of unpaid bills on my table.’

‘Sounds familiar.’

‘Then I drank a bottle of wine and went out and had sex with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a year.’

‘Lucky friend.’

She ignored the comment. ‘The next morning I called Phillipe at his hotel and told him I would take part.’

‘And you did?’

‘Yes. That was three operations ago. The third was last week. It never occurred to me until the Dubois girl’s body was discovered that they might actually be killing people to harvest their hearts.’

McCabe’s mind was racing. Two more transplants. Two more harvested hearts. Whose hearts? Two more young blond female athletes? Where were the bodies? Buried under a golf course like Elyse Andersen? What about Lucinda Cassidy? He was jumping too far ahead. He forced himself to slow down.

‘What made you think that’s what they were doing?’ he asked.

‘Timing. We performed a transplant Wednesday afternoon. Katie Dubois’s body was found Friday night. Then over the weekend, news reports said her heart had been cut from her body. I didn’t know for sure if there was a connection, but it seemed likely. When I saw you at the funeral, I decided I would talk to you.’

‘When were the other two operations?’

‘The first was late December last year, a week or so before Christmas. The second this spring, April sometime.’

‘Do you know the name of the hotel Spencer was staying in?’

‘Yes. The Hotel du Midi in Montpellier.’

‘When he was staying there?’

‘November last year. I’m not sure of the exact dates. I left my diary behind in France.’

McCabe took out his cell and hit Tom Tasco’s number.

‘Detective Tasco.’

‘Tom? It’s Mike McCabe. I’m in the car, and I can’t talk long. Do me a favor and check if Philip Spencer stayed at the Hotel du Midi in Montpellier, France, spelled M-O-N-T-P-E-L–L-I-E-R, last November. If so, try to get the exact dates he was there. Maybe the local gendarmes will cooperate and check it out. If not, go through Interpol.’

‘What the hell was he doing in France?’ asked Tasco.

‘Can’t talk about that now. See if you can get any background. Where he flew from and to. Airline and flight number. Anything else that seems pertinent.’

‘Gotcha.’

McCabe hung up and turned back to Sophie. ‘You said you’d performed three of these operations including the one, when? Last Wednesday?’

‘Yes. In the afternoon.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No. The way it works is I arrive in Boston a day before the surgery. I’m picked up at Logan by a driver and taken to a hotel. A different hotel each time. This time it was a Ramada Inn near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I check in — ’

‘Using your real name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who makes the reservation?’

‘I do. Phillipe calls me and tells me to book a flight and gives me the name of a hotel. He also gives me the name of a car service. I book them as well.’

‘Who pays?’

‘I do. With my Visa card.’

‘Okay, so you checked into the Ramada Inn on what day? Tuesday?’