Peter James - Dead Tomorrow

‘Stop!’ he yelled again. Then, to the boy, ‘Stop them!’

Hearing his voice, the woman glanced round, hastily pulled open the rear door of the car, pushed the girl in and threw herself in after her. The Mercedes pulled away before the rear door was even closed.

Tilling continued to sprint after it for another hundred yards or so, until he fell flat on his face. Clambering to his feet, puffing, he began running back to his Opel, calling out for Raluca, Ileana and Andreea to get back in. Then he stopped by the boy and saw he had a withered hand

‘Was that Simona?’

He said nothing.

‘Simona? Was that Simona?’

Again the boy said nothing.

‘Are you Romeo?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Listen, Romeo, Simona is in danger. Where is she going?’

‘The lady is taking her to England.’

Tilling swore, ran over to his car, climbed in and accelerated, following the direction the Mercedes had taken.

Within a few minutes he realized they had lost it.

But then he had another thought.

Already she was missing Romeo and Artur. The sad expression on the dog’s face when she had given him that bone. As if he knew, and could sense they were parting forever.

She had promised Artur she would be back one day. Put her arms around his mangy neck and kissed him. But he looked at her as if he did not believe it. As if there were goodbyes and goodbyes , and he understood the difference. The dog carried the bone off into his makeshift kennel without looking back at her.

The dog she could live without, she realized. The dog was a survivor and would be fine. But she could not live without Romeo. Her heart was crying out for him. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she pressed Gogu, the small, mangy strip of fake fur that was the only possession she carried with her, to her cheeks.

In the back of the black limousine, with its darkened windows, and the rich smells of leather and the German woman’s perfume, she had never felt so alone in her life. The woman talked constantly on her mobile phone, and occasionally looked anxiously out of the rear window into the darkness. They were driving slowly, on a slushy, salted road, in stop-start traffic. And every few minutes she stared at the neck of the man who was driving.

The man with his hair cropped to a light fuzz. With the tattoo of a snake, its tongue forked as if striking, rising out of the right side of his white shirt collar, which she had seen a couple of times when the woman had put on the interior lights, to make notes in her diary.

She shivered. Scared of him despite the fact the woman was here with her, looking after her.

He was the driver for the man who had saved her from the police at the Gara de Nord and then raped her, who had tried to have sex with her as he drove her back home. The man she had bitten and hurt.

In the mirror she caught his eyes, repeatedly glaring at her. Giving her a signal that he was not yet finished with her. That he had not forgotten. She tried to stop looking at the mirror, but every time she weakened, his eyes were there, fixed on her.

She wished she had hurt him more. Bitten his damn thing right off.

Finally, the woman ended her call.

‘When will Romeo come?’ she asked forlornly.

‘Soon, meine Liebe !’ The woman patted her cheek with her leather gloved hand. ‘You will be together again very soon. You will like England. You will be happy there. You are excited?’

‘No.’

‘You should be. A new life!’

Quietly, to herself, Marlene Hartmann was thinking, In fact, three new lives .

It was a shame to waste the heart and lungs, but she had no one matching in the UK on her books, and she did not want to take the risk of delaying, in the hope of a suitable recipient turning up. Not with the police poking around, and those organs would not survive long enough out of the body to be transported overseas. As with a liver transplant, it was best, if at all possible, to have the donor and recipient close to each other, for the least possible delay between death and transplantation. The girl was too small for them to be able to do a split liver, but one on its own was quite profitable enough.

Kidneys had a reasonable shelf life, up to twenty-four hours if properly kept. She had buyers for Simona’s kidneys lined up and waiting, one in Germany, one in Spain. In other countries she would have sold the girl’s skin, eyes and bones, but the margin was low on these and it was not worth the trouble to export them from England. She would clear 100,000 euros’ profit on the two kidneys, and 130,000 net after costs on the liver.

She was very happy.

Come on, come on, come on! Damn traffic! Damn fucking traffic!

Ian Tilling drove on his horn, but it made no difference. During the evening rush hour the whole centre of Bucharest and its suburbs turned into one joined-at-the-bumper gridlock. Tonight the snow had made things even worse, extending the rush hour well into the night.

The only consolation was that the car with Simona in it would be stuck in this too.

Damn you, you lazy bastard, Subcomisar Radu Constantinescu, Tilling thought, yet again wiping condensation off the inside of the windscreen, staring at the red blur of tail lights from a stretch Hummer limousine in front of him. For forty minutes he had been repeatedly trying the mobile and direct office lines of the one powerful Bucharest police officer that he knew. Both phones rang on interminably, neither answered nor going to voicemail. Had the man already left the office for the day? Was he in a meeting? Taking the world’s longest shit?

Almost certainly, he reckoned, the German woman would be taking Simona to one of Bucharest’s two international airports. The more likely, which he had tried first, was the larger one, Otopeni. But they were not there. Now he was battling towards the second airport. He desperately needed to get hold of the Subcomisar, and have them picked up, or at least prevented from leaving the country – if the officer would even agree.

The traffic inched forward and halted again, and he braked sharply, almost rear-ending the Hummer. He was running low on petrol and the temperature gauge was rising to a dangerously high level. He dialled Constantinescu’s number again and, to his surprise and relief, this time it answered on the first ring. He heard the police officer’s gravelly voice.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Ian Tilling. How are you?’

‘Mr Ian Tilling, my friend, Member of the British Empire for services to the homeless of Romania! How can I be of help?’

‘I need a very urgent favour.’

Tilling heard a sharp sucking sound and realized the man was probably lighting a new cigarette from the stub of the previous one. He explained the situation as quickly and succinctly as he could.

‘You have the German woman’s name?’

‘The English police told me Marlene Hartmann.’

‘I don’t know this name.’ He suddenly broke into a racking cough. When he had finished, he asked, ‘And the name of the girl?’

‘Simona Irimia. I believe she may be part of the same group as three kids you were going to run checks on for me, do you remember? I was hoping you might be able to identify her for me.’

‘Ah.’

To his dismay, Tilling heard a drawer sliding open. The drawer he had seen the police officer open and shut on his last visit to his office. The drawer into which the Subcomisar had shoved the three e-fits and sets of fingerprints Tilling had asked him to circulate. He had clearly forgotten about them, like most other stuff that was low priority for him.

‘Marlene Hartmann, you spell this for me, Mr Important Man?’

Tilling patiently spelled it. Then, assisted by Raluca, gave him a detailed description of Simona.