Peter James - Dead Tomorrow

They entered a long, straight avenue of overhanging trees, with the verges covered in fallen leaves, then the van braked sharply again suddenly, slowing to a crawl. They went over a sharp bump, then speeded up again. After three more sharp bumps, Simona could see, ahead of them, a huge grey house, with gleaming cars parked randomly around the driveway in front, and in orderly rows along the side. She felt a beat of excitement. This place looked so beautiful! Was this where she would be working?

She wanted to ask the German woman, but she was talking on her phone again now, and sounding very cross about something.

The van drove under an archway, then halted at the rear of the house. The driver switched off the engine and climbed out, while the woman continued her phone argument, her voice getting louder and more agitated.

Moments later, the driver opened one of the rear doors of the van. He gripped Simona’s hand as she scrambled out and, to her surprise, he continued holding her hand, gripping it hard, despite her effort to free it, as if worried she might run away.

She tugged hard, feeling a flash of resentment at him, but his grip was like iron and his face showed nothing.

The German woman climbed out, ended her call and clicked her phone shut. Simona caught her eye. Normally the woman smiled at her, but there was no smile now, or even a hint of acknowledgement. She just stared through her coldly, as if Simona did not exist.

She must be very angry about her phone call, Simona thought.

A nurse came out of the house, through a door almost beside the van. She was a big, muscular-looking woman, with a broad frame, stubby neck and arms the size of hams. Her greying hair was cropped short, like a man’s, and gelled into spikes. For some moments, she scrutinized the teenager as if she were an object on display in a shop. Then her rosebud lips, far too tiny for the size of her fleshy face, formed into a faint smile.

‘Simona,’ she said stiffly, in Romanian, ‘you come with me.’

She held out her hand and gripped Simona’s. The driver finally let go of her other hand. The nurse pulled Simona so hard she stumbled, and as she did so, the comforter she was clutching fell to the ground, and remained there, as she was dragged inside the house.

‘Gogu!’ Simona cried out, turning her head back desperately. ‘Gogu!’ she called again, trying to break free. ‘Gogu!’

But Marlene Hartmann quickly followed her in, slamming the door shut behind them.

Outside, Vlad Cosmescu saw the strip of mangy fur lying on the ground. He knelt and picked it up. Then, distastefully holding the grimy object by his fingertips, he deposited it in a nearby wheelie bin.

Next, he reversed the van into one of the garages in a row across the yard and pulled down the door, hiding it from view. Just as a precaution.

Struggling desperately hard to maintain her composure at the kitchen table, Lynn stared at the photograph of the pretty, scruffy-looking girl that lay in front of her.

Scare tactics , she thought. Please God, let it be scare tactics.

Marlene Hartmann was a decent woman. It was impossible to believe, for an instant, that what the Detective Superintendent had just told her was true. Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.

Her hands were shaking so much she moved them off the table on to her lap. Gripped them tightly together, out of sight. Impossible!

She had to get through this. Had to get these people out of her house, so she could call the German woman. She felt a lump in her throat choking her voice. Took a deep breath to calm herself, the way she had been taught at work when dealing with a difficult or abusive client.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking up at each of them in turn. ‘I don’t know why you’re here or what you want. My daughter is on the transplant priority list at the Royal South London Hospital. We are very happy with all that they are doing and we are confident that she will be getting her liver very shortly. There is no reason at all why I should be looking elsewhere.’ She swallowed. ‘Besides I – I don’t – I wouldn’t know – know – where to begin – to look.’

‘Mrs Beckett,’ Roy Grace said levelly, staring hard at her, ‘human trafficking is one of the most unpleasant crimes in this country. You need to be aware just how seriously the police and the judiciary view this activity. One gentleman in London recently had a sentence for human trafficking increased by the Court of Appeal to twenty-three years.’

He paused to let this sink in. She felt as if she was going to throw up at any moment.

‘Human trafficking involves a multitude of criminal offences,’ he went on. ‘I’m going to list them for you: unlawful immigration, kidnap and false imprisonment, just for starters. Do you understand? Any person in this country who attempts to buy a human organ here or abroad is open to being charged with conspiracy to traffic, and with being an accessory. These carry the same custodial sentences as actual trafficking itself. Am I making myself clear?’

She was perspiring. Her scalp felt as if it was shrinking around her skull.

‘Very clear.’

‘I have sufficient information to arrest you now, Mrs Beckett, on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic a human organ.’

Her head was swimming. She could barely even focus on the two of them. She had to hold it together somehow. Caitlin’s life depended on her, on getting through this. She stared down again at the photograph, desperately trying to buy time, to think clearly.

‘Where would that leave you, if I arrest you?’ the police officer asked. ‘Where would that leave your daughter?’

‘Please believe me,’ she said desperately.

‘Perhaps we should talk to your daughter?’

‘No!’ she blurted. ‘No! She’s too – too ill – too ill to see anyone.’

She stared desperately at the young woman detective and saw a fleeting glimpse of compassion in her eyes.

There was a long silence, suddenly broken by the crackle of the Detective Superintendent’s radio phone.

He stepped away from the table, pulled it to his ear and spoke into it.

‘Roy Grace.’

The male voice at the other end said, ‘Target One’s on the move.’

‘Give me thirty seconds.’

Grace jabbed a finger at DC Boutwood, and pointed at the door. He turned back to Lynn.

‘Think very carefully about what I just said.’

Seconds later both detectives had gone, deliberately leaving the photograph behind. The front door slammed behind them.

Lynn sank back down at the table and buried her face in her hands.

Moments later she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders.

‘I heard that,’ Caitlin said. ‘I heard everything. There’s no way I’m going to have that liver.’

The wrought-iron gates swung open and a black Aston Martin Vanquish rumbled slowly forward between the stone pillars, nosing cautiously out of the blind entrance. Then, with a blast of thunder from its tail pipes, it turned right and accelerated hard. Immediately, the gates began to close again.

The driver would have noticed nothing different in the wooded country lane this morning from any other day. The two rural surveillance experts were well concealed. One was inside the hedgerow, the other, in camouflage clothing, was halfway up a conifer, and their vehicle was parked down a Forestry Commission track a quarter of a mile away.

DS Paul Tanner, inside the hedge, had a clear line of sight and, despite the tinted glass and the car’s black interior, clocked the driver’s silver hair.

Roy Grace, standing on the pavement outside Lynn Beckett’s house, radioed him back.

‘What information do you have?’