The Body Dealer (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 5)

by M K Farrar

  “Umm, no, I haven’t. He usually sends in someone who works for him, if anything needs to be done in person.”

  “I’ll need contact details for them as well.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t have any. They just show up and say Beckett sent them. But like I said, for the most part I’m left to get on with things. I only ever contact them if it’s something important, like this.”

  Shawn returned to the reception desk.

  “Done?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “Yes, let’s get out of here.”

  They left the boxing gym together.

  “How did you get on?” Erica asked him.

  “Crossed off most of the names, but some others must have left while we were giving chase. It’s narrowed it down to only a handful, though.”

  “Why would he run like that unless he knew we were there for a reason?”

  “Who knows, but we’re going to need to find out.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Angela paced anxiously along the hospital corridor, her fist at her mouth. She’d lost her cool, smooth demeanour of a politician, always smiling at whoever she passed and careful about what she said. Now that façade had been torn off in her fear for her daughter, and she was left raw and terrified. Her hands trembled, and her stomach was weak and churning. Magda had gone and got them both coffee while they’d waited, but Angela hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch a drop.

  She still hadn’t had news on how Milly was doing.

  Magda sat on one of the plastic chairs that were attached in rows to the floor, her handbag in her lap. She twisted the leather strap anxiously between her hands.

  A man in a white coat approached at a brisk walk.

  “Are you Millicent Hargreaves’ mother?”

  She spun to face him. “Yes, yes, I am. How is she?”

  “We’ve managed to stabilise her, and she’s doing as well as can be expected.”

  “What does that mean? Can I see her?”

  “Yes, in a moment. I just need to ask you a couple of questions first.”

  She nodded, fighting her desire to shove him out of the way and run to her child. “Whatever you need.”

  “How’s her diet been lately?”

  Because of the dialysis, Milly had to be careful with what she ate. She needed to avoid anything with phosphate additives, such as cured meats, anything high in phosphorus, like chocolate and nuts, and also food high in salt, which included most snack foods like crisps.

  “It’s been fine. I’m really strict with her. I don’t even allow foods in the house that she’s not allowed to eat.”

  “Is there anywhere else she might have got them from?”

  “No, she doesn’t go out unsuper—” Then she remembered a couple of Milly’s friends from school calling around the previous day. They’d had rucksacks with them, that she’d assumed had just contained their school stuff, but she bet Milly had convinced them to smuggle her in some treats. She bet they’d snuck out the wrappers in those same bags, so Angela hadn’t noticed.

  She experienced a rush of anger at Milly’s friends for being so damned stupid. They knew how important it was for Milly to stick to her diet. Processed food caused fluid retention and could literally kill her. As soon as Milly had first become ill, Angela had taken it upon herself to learn absolutely everything she could about Milly’s illness and things that could help. She’d not only had a strict talk with Milly about what she could and couldn’t do, but she’d also had that same conversation with each of Milly’s friends. Angela had known these girls since they had turned five and started school, and she felt as though she knew them as well as she did her own daughter. Each of the girls had listened to her intently, promising they understood, and Angela had thought they’d taken it seriously.

  She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. Had she been expecting too much from them? They might be teenagers, but they were still just children, after all. Teenagers didn’t think the way adults did—there was something to do with the front parts of their brains that weren’t fully developed yet.

  Even so, it made her want to wrap Milly up from the rest of the world. She barely went out as it was—not including the numerous trips to hospitals and doctors’ appointments. Having visitors was a lifeline for her daughter. Angela didn’t want to have to stop Milly having her friends over or having to do a bag search and a pat-down each time one of them came into the house.

  It hadn’t been worth Milly staying in school. The twice-weekly dialysis, combined with the numerous sick days, had put her so far behind that she had no hope of catching up while she was still ill. Angela reassured her that she would have many years ahead of her where she could catch up on her studies, but Milly never looked as though she believed her. Not going to school might sound like every teenager’s dream, but when everyone else was still going, all it did was make her an outcast. Milly missed out on all the silly things that happened in class, the gossip between the students, the bitching about the substitute teachers. Her friends had been great—for the most part—and had stayed in touch, FaceTiming with her, or popping around to visit. But Angela knew it wasn’t the same. She’d sometimes lurk outside Milly’s room when her friends were around, to find Milly sitting on her bed while the others shrieked with laughter about something Milly hadn’t been a part of.

  “I’ll talk to her,” Angela said to the doctor. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Go easy on her,” the doctor said. “Everyone with a long-term illness will hit a wall every now and then. Adults suffer with this kind of fatigue, too, so it’s understandable for someone so young to feel they need to act out.”

  Angela nodded. “Can I see her now?”

  “This way.”

  He showed her into a room where Milly was lying in a bed. She must have sensed her mother standing there as her eyes flickered open.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  Milly looked pale and drawn. Dark shadows in blues and purples marked beneath her eyes.

  “Hey, sweetheart. How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit.”

  Angela raised her eyebrows in disapproval of the swearword, and Milly at least had it in her to roll her eyes. Seemed her teenager was still there, despite the illness.

  “The doctor says you’re going to be fine, but you need to be more careful with your diet.”

  “I am careful—” she protested, but Angela held up her hand.

  “Don’t lie to me, Milly. When Phoebe and Sophia came round the other day, they brought you snacks, didn’t they?”

  Milly let out a sigh and slumped back in her bed. “It was just a couple. Hardly anything.”

  “You know you can’t do that, Mils. Look what happens when you cheat on your diet like that.”

  “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

  Angela exhaled a sigh. “I don’t think you should have Phoebe and Sophia around again.”

  Milly sat up in bed. “What? Why?”

  “Because they haven’t been able to follow the few simple rules I put down, and then this happens.” She gestured to Milly’s hospital bed.

  “You can’t stop me from seeing my friends!”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m only doing this because I love you.”

  “This is bullshit. You’re trying to keep me prisoner. What about my life? Or is it over already?”

  A wave of exhaustion swept over Angela. She didn’t want to deal with her daughter’s hysterics. “It’s just for a short time, Milly. Just until you’re well enough for a new kidney.”

  “That’s never going to happen.”

  “Yes, it will. You need to have faith.”

  Milly shook her head and glanced away, gazing out towards the window that offered a view over the grey, London cityscape. “I’m never getting better, Mum. At what point are we going to start talking about the quality of my life, rather than the quantity? If I have a year left, or even less, don’t you think I should be allowed to live it?”
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  “Don’t say that, Milly.” Her eyes pricked with tears, and a painful ball tightened her throat. “We have to keep fighting.”

  “This is my fight, not yours.”

  “You’re wrong. You’re my daughter. You’re a part of me. If anything happens to you, it’ll kill me as well. I know it’s hard, but one day, when you become a mother yourself, you’ll understand.”

  “Stop it, Mum. I won’t have children, you know that. Even if I do survive this, which I probably won’t, my body won’t be strong enough to handle a pregnancy.”

  She took Milly’s hand. Her fingers felt too thin, her skin cold and clammy. “Darling, that’s years away. You don’t know what medical advances will have been made by then.”

  “I won’t be alive to see it.”

  Angela blinked back tears and twisted her face away.

  “You can say whatever you want, Milly, and if you really feel you can’t keep fighting, then that’s okay, because I’ll keep fighting for you. I’ll fight enough for the both of us, understand? I won’t give up. Ever.”

  Tears slipped from Milly’s eyes and slid down her cheeks.

  LATER, ANGELA SAT IN the hospital cafeteria with her head in her hands, feeling as though she’d just run a marathon. Milly’s episodes always knocked her. At least when the transplant had felt as though it was within reach, she’d had something to hold on to, but since they’d missed out on the last match because Milly had been too poorly for the operation, she’d lost that hope.

  Milly’s health hadn’t improved at all since then.

  With her declining health also went any hope they might have previously held on to that she would get better again. How could she, when the doctors refused to give her a healthy kidney?

  They were all out of options.

  She glanced down at her phone again.

  Maybe not completely out of options. There was one route she’d promised herself she wouldn’t go down. But she was desperate, and the hospital would never consider Milly as a viable transplant candidate. There would always be someone who’d tick more boxes than she did.

  She sucked in a shaky breath and opened up her phone with a swipe of the screen. She brought up the message and stared down at it, reading it over, just in case she might have missed something. This was most likely a scam and she was about to lose a whole heap of money, but she didn’t care about the money. It was just numbers. What she cared about was the possibility of saving her daughter’s life.

  Before she could change her mind, she typed out a reply.

  Okay. When do you want to meet?

  Her heart hammered as she stared down at the phone, anxious for a reply. The device trembled in her hand, her knuckles white.

  She normally considered herself to be a level-headed person, who dealt with tricky situations with calm and composure. She’d been forced to handle reporters throwing a barrage of difficult questions at her on live television, and always managed to come out of it looking good. This felt different, however. This was personal.

  Her phone buzzed.

  Tomorrow. Café on the corner of South Street. Two p.m. See you then, Councillor.

  She was going to text back and ask if they should wear the same colour flower or something so they could spot each other, but then she realised she didn’t need to.

  He definitely knew who she was.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back at the office, Erica left Shawn to deal with locating their runner. She didn’t doubt that they’d track the man down eventually, assuming the gym had his correct details, of course.

  The image of Shawn about to run out in front of that train flashed into her head, and her heart tripped. It had been a near miss, and she didn’t want to think about it. She’d almost lost him a few months ago when he’d been stabbed during a terror attack, and that had shaken her as well.

  She was going to look into the gym owner in more detail. It struck her as odd that he owned the gym but didn’t have much to do with it. It wasn’t as though it was a big, corporate gym. Could the place be used as a cover-up for something else? It wouldn’t be the first time a legitimate business was used to cover up criminal goings-on.

  Armed with a cup of vending machine coffee, she ran the name Kenneth Beckett through the computer.

  An address came up for him, though at first glance it was a business address. It was a unit on an estate outside Reading, forty miles away. She ran other checks—driver’s licence, electoral register, bank accounts. It wasn’t a common name, luckily, or she could have been scrolling through them for days. Nothing came up under a driver’s license or electoral register, though she found several business accounts under the name of Beckett Enterprise, including the gym they’d visited, a beauty salon, and even a hotel.

  A knock came at her office door.

  “Come in.”

  She glanced up as DC Howard stepped through.

  “Howard, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve pulled up some possible matches for our Jane Doe. None of them fit perfectly, but I thought they’d be worth checking.”

  She gestured for him to take a seat on the opposite side of the desk. He did so and then slid the first printout in front of her.

  “This is twenty-three-year-old Tao Khem who went missing in twenty-sixteen. She’s from Leicester where she went out one night and never came home. She’s five foot four, so is a little taller than the pathologist’s estimation, but that doesn’t rule her out.”

  Erica stared down at the round, smiling face of a pretty young woman, trying to place it onto the charred corpse they’d found. It was impossible to even imagine they were the same person.

  “Contact the family, see if we can get dental records. I doubt they’ll have DNA on file, but if they do, we can use that, too.”

  Howard wasn’t done. He pushed another printout in front of her. “This is nineteen-year-old Genji Thorn. She went missing back in twenty-fifteen after leaving her university lectures and not making it home. She’s from Birmingham.”

  “Any recent disappearances?”

  Howard nodded. “This is the most recent one, and closest to the crime scene, too, but she’s still been missing for almost six months. Her name is Jade Wang and she’s twenty-one. It was thought she ran off with a boyfriend who the family didn’t approve of, but he was found and cleared of her disappearance.”

  Erica nodded thoughtfully, the memory of the case coming back to her. It was one MisPer had dealt with at the time, but she remembered hearing about it.

  “She’s also five foot four, so again taller than the estimate of the body, but everything else fits.”

  Erica gazed down at the third and final picture and exhaled through her nose. Could she be the body they had at the morgue?

  “Good work,” she told Howard. “Get in touch with each of the families and request access to dental records. Don’t get their hopes up, be cautious and make sure they’re aware we’re dealing with a body and not a living victim, and the chances of it being their loved one is low.”

  He reached for the print-offs, but she put out her hand to stop him. “Mind if I hang on to these?”

  “Of course not. They’re all attached to the case file as well.”

  She wanted the pictures to remind her how the blackened shell of the body she’d seen had once been a living, breathing, young woman with her life ahead of her, just like each of these girls. She hoped they could find out who she was, not only to make their job easier when it came to finding who was responsible, but also so the family could finally get some closure. As terrible as it had been to lose Chris, at least she’d known exactly what had happened to him, and had even been there when he’d died. If he’d disappeared and she and Poppy had been tortured with the not knowing and not being able to move on for year after year, she imagined it would destroy them.

  Howard left, and Erica refocused on her paperwork. She had a meeting with the solicitor who was working the court case she’d inherited from Gibbs in half an
hour. She received an email from Shawn telling her that the name of their runner was Bradley Webster, but that he’d moved out of the address the gym had registered for him almost six months earlier and he currently had no fixed abode. That was going to make tracking him down harder, but she knew Shawn wouldn’t give up until he’d found him. One thing Erica liked about Shawn was that he was as tenacious as she was. Once he got his teeth into something, he didn’t let it go.

  By the time she got back from the meeting with the solicitor and they’d run through everything that was needed for the court case, it was already getting late. She called a final briefing for the day, ensuring everyone knew exactly what they were doing and were on the right track, and then Erica packed up her belongings and headed home to her daughter.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite being exhausted from the massive journey, Linh struggled to sleep. The mattress on the floor, even though it was thin and dirty, had still been far more comfortable than sitting upright in the container in the back of the lorry, or even than many of the places they’d been forced to sleep over the past few weeks, but she still couldn’t drop off. The uncomfortable environment, filled with so many strangers sleeping nearby, and the sounds of yet more people coming and going through the house kept her awake. Every time she began to drift, another noise startled her awake. She kept her arm wrapped around Chau’s waist, wanting to be alerted if the girl got up, or if someone tried to move her. She was always more frightened for her daughter’s safety than her own.

  Had she been wrong to bring her here? Should she have left her at home with her sister’s family? The thought of them living in different countries, having totally separate lives, broke her heart. But had she done this purely for selfish reasons, that she didn’t want to live without her child? No, that hadn’t been her only reason. She wanted Chau to grow up in Western society. She would grow up to be an English lady and would marry a good English man. They would have a big house and never have to worry about money, and their children would never have to go to bed with their stomachs growling in hunger.