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

by M K Farrar

  “Yeah, sorry. I know it doesn’t give you much.”

  “I’ll be interested to see the photographs in the report.”

  Erica blew out a breath, her mind whirring. “We still don’t know who either of these women were, but at least now we might have a motive. I want to know why they’re not showing up on any of our missing persons reports.”

  “We should contact Interpol,” Shawn said. “The women might not be British.”

  “If they’re not British, that’s going to make finding out who they are a hell of a lot harder.” To broaden the search—to throw the net out that wide—was going to take a lot of resources. They already had thousands of missing women here in the UK. She didn’t even want to think of what sort of number that would be if they took into account Europe and even farther afield. It seemed an impossible task. “Someone is missing these women. They have a family or even friends who are looking for them. I refuse to believe that they died completely alone, with no one else in their lives.”

  But the truth was, some people did die alone. Women with addictions or mental health issues might end up alone on the streets. Or perhaps they had run from a violent home.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Hi, sweetie. How are you feeling?”

  Milly threw her iPad to one side at her mother’s entrance and let out a sigh. “Rubbish. I’m bored out of my mind.”

  “I know. You want me to put some more money on your account so you can get some new games or books?”

  “I don’t want new games or books, Mum. I want a life.”

  Angela slid onto the edge of the bed, perching there, her heart racing. How was Milly going to take this?

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  Milly rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to tell me off about seeing my friends again, are you?”

  Angela lifted a finger to mark her point. “I never told you off about seeing your friends. It was your friends sneaking in food that put you in hospital that I told you off about.”

  “Ugh, whatever. Same thing.”

  “It’s not—” Angela cut herself off and forced herself to take a deep breath. This wasn’t going to help either of them. They were getting off topic. She placed a hand on Milly’s shin. “What I need to talk to you about is important.” Milly opened her mouth, and she cut her off. “And don’t get defensive, it’s not something bad. In fact, it’s something that has the potential to be really exciting, but I need to get your thoughts. If you say no, then we won’t ever mention it again.”

  That had got Milly’s attention. She sat up straighter. “Okay.”

  Angela took another breath. “I may have a way of getting you a new kidney.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought the doctors would say I’m not well enough.”

  “I’ve talked to different doctors. They run a...private...clinic, and they’d be able to get you a new kidney.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Seriously? When?”

  “Could be as soon as the end of this week, depending on what your blood tests come back like.”

  Milly snatched up her iPad again. “What’s the clinic? I’ll Google them?”

  Carefully, Angela took the iPad from her hands. “You can’t Google them. They won’t show up.”

  Confusion crossed the teenager’s face. “Mum, you can Google anything.”

  “Not this, you can’t. In fact, not only can you not Google it, you won’t be able to mention it to anyone.”

  “What? Why?” Understanding dawned. “Oh my God, Mum. Is this something illegal?”

  “Umm...it’s probably better if I don’t answer that question.”

  She scooted to face her mother. “It is, isn’t it? Jesus, Mum, you’re a politician. You work for the government making laws. You can’t go and break them.”

  Angela’s cheeks grew hot. “It’s not as black and white as that, Mils. Of course I don’t want to break the law, but we’re talking about saving your life, and in my mind, nothing is more important than that. Not my job, not the laws the government makes, not this house or the money in the bank. All I care about is giving you the opportunity at a life.”

  Hot tears pricked her eyes as she spoke, and her chest ached as though the weight of the world pressed upon it.

  Milly fell silent for a moment, staring down at her bedsheets. Finally, she lifted her head. “How would it work?”

  Angela felt a little jolt of hope. “We take a cheek swab and a blood sample, and take it to the person who’s organising everything. Then they’ll find a match and organise the surgery for as soon as later this week.”

  “This week?”

  “That’s right. This time next week, you could already be in recovery, Mils. Imagine that? Oh, and we’d have to go on holiday as well.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Holiday? Where to?”

  “Poland. They have some nice beaches apparently, but it’s also so we can tell your doctors you went abroad to have your surgery. There’s a clinic there that’s willing to lay down a cover story.”

  “Lie, you mean?”

  “Well, fudge the truth.”

  “Mum?”

  “Okay, lie, but we have to be able to explain this, somehow. Your doctors are going to know you didn’t just make a miraculous recovery. You’ll need your on-going anti-rejection medications as well. These people will provide the initial meds, but when we get back, you’ll need to get them the normal way, via prescription.”

  “Where do they get the kidney from?”

  This was the question Angela had been hoping Millicent wouldn’t ask. “I don’t know.”

  “How do you not know?”

  “I thought it was better not to ask.” She couldn’t meet her daughter’s eye. She knew Milly would see right through her.

  “Because you knew you wouldn’t like the answer?”

  She took Milly’s hand. “Sometimes, we have to be selfish in life. This is literally a life-or-death situation, Mils. This could be your only chance.”

  “The organs are probably black market, Mum. They could be from someone who’s been kidnapped and drugged and then cut open while they were sleeping.”

  “Those are just stories you read on the internet. I’m sure it’s nothing as dramatic as that. It’s more likely that people who need money are selling a kidney that they think they can live without. It’d be a choice they were making, Mils. Maybe they do need that money more than they’d need a working kidney—most people can live quite happily with just one—and if we turn them down, they might starve to death, or end up homeless, or something like that.”

  Milly raised both eyebrows. “I know you’re a politician, but don’t try to spin this to make it seem as though we’re doing them a favour.”

  “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t think the worst. This is your chance, and we might not get it again. If we say no, what does your future look like?” She gestured to the bed. “Just more of this, and I know how much you hate it.”

  “What if it’s some dodgy surgeon and I die on the table?” Sudden tears shone in Milly’s eyes. It wasn’t often her daughter cried, and Angela immediately threw her arms around her. Milly acted so hard and brittle much of the time, sometimes it was easy to forget there was still a young girl inside her almost-grown body.

  It was one of her biggest fears, too, but if she didn’t have the surgery, she was going to die anyway.

  “It’s a risk, darling, but I think it’s a chance we need to take.”

  Milly sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was evening again by the time they were put in the van and delivered to the over-crowded house. Linh’s entire body ached from the backbreaking work, spent hunched over hotel room toilets and on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors. She’d never been afraid of hard work, though, and had done everything she could to please her new employers.

  But now they were piling back into the van, something seemed
to be wrong.

  The other women were upset, but Linh couldn’t make out why. Everyone was talking all at once in numerous different languages, making it impossible to pick out individual words. They gestured back to the hotel and shouted. A tall woman with fair skin and brown hair was particularly aggressive, trying to climb back out of the van.

  The white man with brown hair who’d driven them there this morning drew back his hand and slapped the brunette across the face, sending her flying into the arms of the other women. The van doors immediately slammed shut, and the brunette burst into tears.

  Chau stared up at Linh. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know, darling. I think it’s better if we don’t get involved.”

  It made her feel wretched that someone was suffering and had been treated that way, but they had to keep their heads down and not get involved. She had to put Chau first, and they needed this job and the roof above their heads.

  “Shh, Chau. It’s okay. Keep quiet.”

  Her daughter had gone through many occasions where she’d been forced to stay quiet over the past few weeks, and immediately fell silent.

  The brunette cried softly the whole way back to the house, while the women who knew her better offered her some comfort. At the house, they all climbed out and went through the rear garden and up to their room. They were brought rice and meat as a meal, and they all ate in silence, each starving from the physical work they’d done during the day.

  When the men had come to take the bowls away, and turned off the lights, indicating it was time to sleep, Linh risked asking a question of one of the women.

  Linh sought the right words in her limited English. “Please. What happened?”

  The other woman rambled off a series of words that went straight over Linh’s head.

  “More slow.”

  She seemed to understand and nodded. “One of the women did not come back today.”

  Linh frowned. “No come here?”

  “No.”

  “Where she go?”

  The woman threw up both hands. “We don’t know. They took her. The men.”

  “Men took where?”

  She just shook her head as an answer, but it was clear she didn’t think whatever the answer was, was good.

  “Is there more?” Linh asked.

  The woman frowned at Linh. “More what? Oh, you mean are there more women? Ones who’ve disappeared like this? Yes, there have been a few now. We don’t know what happens to them. They’re just taken away and we never see them again.”

  Linh only managed to pick up a handful of words, but she understood enough to make her reach for Chau and wrap her arm around the girl’s shoulders.

  Could the missing women have run away? The others might be wrong about what had happened to her and the men had nothing to do with it. Why would they want to rid themselves of their workers? Surely, the men needed them.

  She tugged Chau down onto the thin mattress and wrapped her arms around her daughter and did her best to push away the niggling worry that everything wasn’t going to be all right.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Erica crossed the office to top up her coffee cup. On her way back from the machine, DC Rudd called her over.

  “Have you got a minute, boss?” she asked. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  It was getting late, but with a second body, she knew she wasn’t going to be getting home any time soon.

  “What’s up?”

  “I was comparing the list of names we got from the gym to car sales, and one of the names caught my attention.”

  Erica smiled. “Have they sold a white van recently?”

  Rudd chuckled. “I highly doubt it, but I found it odd that she’d be associated with a boxing gym. Do you know who Angela Hargreaves is?”

  Erica frowned. “I know the name, but I can’t place it.”

  “She’s a politician, a fairly high-up one. She’s Minister for Care, or something like that, I believe.”

  “Why are you mentioning her?” Erica was struggling to see the connection.

  “Her name is in the files from the gym?”

  “Maybe she likes working out.”

  Shawn had overheard the conversation, and he raised an eyebrow. “At an East End boxing gym? You saw that place. Does it really look like the sort of place a conservative woman in her forties would frequent? She’s much more of a country club kind of person, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I mean, I don’t know her personally. Does she have an involvement in any other way? You said she’s a politician. Perhaps it’s work-related and she’s involved with them that way. Or she has a son, and he’s interested in boxing.”

  Rudd did a quick search on her computer. “No son. She has a daughter, though. A teenager.”

  “Equal opportunities,” Shawn said. “No reason her teenage daughter wouldn’t be interested in boxing.”

  Erica leaned over Rudd’s shoulder to see what she’d brought up. Most of the online articles about the politician revolved around her work. There were articles about how she’d voted on various policies, some small private care homes she’d been invited to ribbon cut during the grand opening, newspaper articles she’d written or had given interviews for. But then her gaze landed on a piece of a different nature, and she pointed at the screen.

  “Look at that.”

  “What is it?” Shawn had got up to join them, and he came to a halt beside her, so they were both standing behind Rudd’s chair.

  “Her daughter is sick,” Rudd said, picking up on what Erica had seen.

  Shawn frowned. “So?”

  Erica couldn’t help the excitement in her tone. “She’s had total kidney failure for the past six months and is on a transplant list. She was matched to a kidney, but then the doctors refused to do the operation. They said she wasn’t stable enough and was worried she wouldn’t survive the operation, and if she didn’t survive, neither would the kidney.”

  “So they didn’t give it to her?” Shawn checked.

  “No, they didn’t. They sent her home again.”

  Rudd blew out a breath. “Jesus, poor kid.”

  “How must that feel,” Erica said, “to get the call that there’s been a match, and get your hopes up, thinking that was going to be it, only to be turned away again at the last moment, and know that someone else was going to get their second chance at life instead?”

  Erica couldn’t even imagine how heartbreaking that would be, both for the girl and her mother. As was her habit, whenever she was dealing with mothers and children—especially mothers of girls—she couldn’t help but put herself in the mother’s place. It must have been devastating to have their hopes raised like that, only to be dashed again. It wasn’t as though the doctors would have made that decision to be cruel, they’d have most likely struggled with the choice themselves, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear.

  Of course, the family’s pain wasn’t the thing that had sent alarm bells ringing in her head. “The daughter is on a transplant list. She’s waiting on an organ.”

  She didn’t need to explain her thought process.

  “A kidney, though,” Shawn said. “Our victim was missing her liver.”

  She scrubbed her hand across her mouth. “I know, but there are too many arrows pointed in her direction. I think we need to go and have a chat with the councillor.”

  Erica patted Rudd’s shoulder. “Good spot, Detective.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  Erica checked her watch. It was getting late now. Angela Hargreaves was a respected woman and wasn’t going to be going anywhere. It could wait until morning.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Erica and Shawn waited outside the home address of the Minister for Care. Shortly after eight, the front door of the house opened, and Angela Hargreaves stepped out.

  She was a beautiful woman, dressed in an expensive suit, her blonde hair perfected with highlights, and her nails shone with acrylics. But through all the high-b
rand clothing and handbags, and the time clearly spent on her appearance, she hadn’t been able to fully hide the dark shadows under her eyes, or the additional lines of worry across her forehead and running from the side of her nose down to the outside of her lips.

  “Ms Hargreaves,” Erica said, heading towards her. “Do you have a moment?”

  She lifted her hand in a stop motion. “I don’t have time to speak to reporters.”

  Erica showed her ID. “We’re not reporters, Minister. I’m DI”—she corrected herself—“DCI Swift, and this is my colleague, DS Turner. We’d like to have a quick word with you, if that’s all right.”

  She seemed harried and distracted. The look she shot Erica was more one of irritation than worry. “I’m actually really late for a meeting. Can you make an appointment through my assistant?”

  “Sorry, but this can’t wait. We’re investigating the murders of two women. I’m afraid you’ll need to cancel your meeting.”

  That drew her up short. “A murder?”

  “Two, actually, and we’re concerned there may be more if we don’t find whoever is responsible.”

  “I don’t know anything about a murder.”

  “I’m afraid that’s for us to decide. Have you got somewhere private we could have a chat, or else you can come down to the office and we can talk there?”

  “Umm...” Her gaze darted between the two detectives and the building behind her.

  Erica got the feeling she was trying to balance up what would be better—having them come into her office, with all her colleagues around, and most likely trying to eavesdrop, or being spotted going into a police station.

  She obviously decided on the latter. “I’ll come to your office with you. Probably better that way. Mine is very busy.”

  “Of course. Whatever works is fine. We’ll drive you down.”

  She shook her head. “No need. I have a driver.”

  “You can get him to pick you up when we’re done,” Erica said, not wanting to give her any choice.

  “Oh, right. Yes, I suppose I could do that.”