by Lee Weeks
The phone rang. It was Ebony.
‘There’s a woman’s body found on the hard shoulder at Junction twenty-three of the M25. Doctor Harding’s meeting us out there.’
The M25 motorway was closed between junctions. It was causing chaos in the morning traffic.
Carter approached. ‘Ebb?’
‘Woman’s body, sir. Thought you would want to see.’ She turned to point out the van parked nearby. ‘These motorway maintenance engineers found her.’
Carter stood in front of where the gorse had been cut and cleared to give better access. The woman’s naked body was lying on black plastic. He could see the white-grey of her body, and in its centre, shards of white bone protruded from the black gaping hole where her insides should have been.
Carter squatted beside Doctor Harding. ‘What do you think, Doc? She been here long?’
‘Less than twenty-four hours.’
Harding pulled back the plastic and revealed the rest of the woman’s body.
‘This has all the hallmarks of the others.’
Carter stood and looked down the lines of traffic on the other side of the carriageway; their tyres noisy on the wet tarmac. ‘So they left her just hidden, chucked in the bushes. She didn’t die here. Someone tied enough plastic around her to transport her in the boot of a car, not to make a mess, but they must have expected her to stay on the side of the road a bit longer.’
‘Animals could have started on her any time,’ said Harding.
Carter turned to Barry. ‘How often do you come along this strip and clean it?
‘Once every two months. But our schedule’s up the swanny on account of the weather. We were supposed to come along this section last week and we didn’t make it.’
‘So if someone knew your schedule, they’d think she wouldn’t be found for two months?’
Barry nodded. Tom was sitting in the police car with a blanket round his shoulders.
‘Did he move her at all?’
Barry shook his head. ‘You must be joking. . frightened the life out of the boy. . puked everywhere.’ He glanced over at the puddle of bright-coloured vomit on the black tarmac.
Carter went across to wait in the car and get warm for a few minutes. He was in danger of throwing up, too.
He watched Ebony as she knelt beside the body, taking a photo with her phone. He selected a number on his mobile and hit the call button.
‘Cabrina?’
‘I told you, Dan, I just need to think things through.’
‘You’re alright though, aren’t you? You’d tell me if you weren’t.’
‘Of course. Baby is kicking away. Keeps me awake at nights.’
Carter closed his eyes and felt for a moment as if he was about to sob.
‘I want you to come back, Cabrina. I miss you. I want us to plan the baby things. Start painting the nursery, you know, get things — pram. . and stuff. .’
‘Not the pram. It’s bad luck. Anyway Mum and Dad are going to buy that. . as a present.’
‘Of course. . how are they. . okay?’
‘So excited about the baby. . Look, Dan, I know you’re missing me and I know you’re trying your hardest to be pleased about the baby. Maybe you are, in your own way, but I’m not sure if it’s all enough. I need more. I need to feel secure and I don’t. I never know where you are.’
‘At the moment I’m sat looking at the traffic on the motorway. We’ve got a corpse by the side of the road.’
‘I don’t mean it like that. . you know what I mean. . you’re never around.’
‘I’m working. You know that.’
‘Yeah, but what if there was an emergency? What if the baby was sick and I couldn’t get hold of you? And I don’t know whether you’re ready for dirty nappies and breastfeeding and I just don’t want another baby to look after, Dan. One baby will be enough. You always like things to be just us. . I understand: but it will never be just us again. I’m not sure you can adapt to that.’
‘You aren’t giving me a chance. I want you, Cabrina, and if that means the baby comes as part of it then I’m ready.’
‘You see what I mean, Dan. . you’ll have it, if you have to. It’s not the same as wanting it. . really wanting it.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘But that’s the thing, Dan — you did. You did mean it like that. You’re just not ready.’
‘Sarge?’ Ebony walked towards his car. Carter finished the call. He wound down the window. She leant into the car. ‘I know her. . she’s one of Digger’s — I saw her when I went round the back at his club. She was in one of the back rooms. She was the one I asked if she’d seen Sonny and she said yes. She gave her name as Tanya.’
Ebony and Carter arrived in Cain’s and waited whilst the janitor went to wake Digger up. He was stony-faced as he greeted them, a fresh cup of coffee in his hands. Ray the barman was there cleaning the bar.
Digger sat down at one of the tables.
Carter placed the photographs of Tanya’s frozen body out like cards, one by one on the table in front of him. ‘This is one of your dancers.’
Digger looked slowly up at Carter. He placed his coffee cup down and wiped his mouth with a snow-white cloth napkin. He signalled to Ray to come over.
‘Is this one of our girls?’
Ray looked at the photo. ‘No, boss.’
‘You sure?’
Ray nodded. A bead of sweat was beginning to form on the crease in his forehead.
‘That’s that then. Sorry we can’t help. I warn you, Sergeant, I am going to lodge a complaint. I am being harassed.’
‘Her name is Tanya,’ interrupted Ebony. ‘I saw her here.’ Ray turned a puce colour as she spoke. ‘The day we came to visit. Ray here let me look around.’ She smiled. Ray went to protest his innocence. Digger held up his hand for him to be quiet.
‘Okay.’ Digger picked up the photo. ‘Now I can see that it is Tanya. Such a shame. She was a lovely girl. She moved on, wasn’t happy here. It happens. Girls come and go here. Poor Tanya; no one’s safe on these streets any more. I blame the Police Force: you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. I had nothing to do with it. If you think I did. .’ Digger made a sucking noise as he cleaned his teeth with a toothpick. ‘Prove it.’
‘When did you see her last?’ asked Ebony.
‘I saw her the night before last.’
‘What time did she work until?’
‘Until we closed at four-thirty and then she left.’
‘Did you see her leave?’ asked Ebony. Digger shook his head.
Carter glanced around the club and came to rest on the web cam positioned above the bar.
‘We need the CCTV footage from your cameras inside and outside Cain’s for the last forty-eight hours.’
‘I would love to oblige, Sergeant, but I’m afraid our cameras are under repair.’ Digger smirked.
Carter rolled his eyes. ‘Just lucky that we have a surveillance team across the road then, isn’t it? By the way. . have you seen anything of Sonny?’ Digger’s head swivelled on his neck slowly from side to side as he kept his eyes on Carter.
Carter grinned, gave a half laugh as they walked away and turned to Ebony when they got outside.
‘What do you think Ebb? Does he know about Sonny?’
‘Think so, Sarge.’
‘Yes, so do I. But we’ll keep him on his toes. Make him get careless; he has to off-load Sonny’s girls now, Ebb, and he knows we’re watching every move he makes. He’s going to have to take a few risks. If Carmichael is undercover then we’ll give him all the help we can.’
Chapter 35
Ebony watched Mathew finish laying out Tanya’s remains on the steel mortuary table. He rested her head on the stand. Mathew had a bruise just under his eye. Ebony had no intention of asking him how he got it.
Carter walked in and laughed at him. ‘Fuck. . that’s a good one. . how did you get that shiner?’
Mathew’s eyes went towards Harding. He gave a sheepish gri
n. ‘Tripped over the other night. Had too much to drink.’
‘Took an uppercut, or a jab. . bam, bam. .’ said Carter, guard up as he shadow-boxed. ‘Somebody shorter than you. “Fell over”, my arse. You should take up boxing, Mathew. It’s a great way to keep fit.’ Ebony gave Carter a sideways look. He raised an eyebrow back.
Harding pulled down her visa and pulled on gloves. She came over to the table and handed Ebony a mask.
‘Follow me round, Ebony. Take the photos I tell you to,’ said Harding. Mathew stood ready to help turn the body, collect samples: neatly laid trays poised. Harding smiled at Ebony and handed her a camera. ‘Do you know how to use it?’
‘Yes. I used one in college.’ She turned it over in her hands.
‘Start with a view of the whole body from each side.’
Carter didn’t enjoy the autopsy side of the job. He stood back with his notepad ready.
Harding spoke into the dictation machine as she walked the length of the table and got an overview of the body.
‘Detective Sergeant Dan Carter and Detective Constable Ebony Willis are present to assist and record and Mathew Cummings is diener. I am about to perform an autopsy on the body of an adult female discovered earlier today on the side of the M25 ring road around London. We had to wait for the autopsy as her body was still partly frozen. The body is in one piece.’ Harding walked around the table. ‘The woman is well muscled, her body weighs sixty-five kilos. Her height is five foot eight. She has no obvious scars, tattoos or birthmarks. I estimate her age to be late twenties. We have identified her as a dancer named Tanya.’
Harding pulled down the light and a magnifying lens to examine the joints. She called Ebony in to take a picture.
‘Bruising on her shoulders corresponding to finger marks where she appears to have been held down.’
‘We’ll get Bishop in here and see if we can get a print off her,’ Carter said.
‘An incision from pubic bone to sternum has been made already: I’m going to widen it to take it from each shoulder down to join the centre cut in a Y-shape.’ Mathew passed her a scalpel. She made a cut across from the nape of the neck to each shoulder and cut through the muscle and flesh. ‘Someone has sawn through the clavicle; the ribs and the breastplate have been removed. Heart and lungs have been taken out in a block. Takes a good degree of skill to remove these so cleanly.’
She talked as she worked her scalpel beneath the flesh and skin of the neck. ‘I will be removing the tongue and windpipe by working up from the skin in the upper chest.’ She pulled the tongue down from under the jaw and handed it to Mathew.
‘All the major organs have been removed.’ She moved back down and opened up the body further. ‘The stomach is still present.’ Mathew handed her a large syringe and she proceeded to empty the stomach contents.
Harding moved back up the body to Tanya’s skull; she opened up Tanya’s eyelids one after the other.
‘Unable to collect ocular fluid. . not present.’ She glanced up at Carter and Ebony. ‘Corneas are missing.’
‘Is that the same as Silvia?’ Carter asked while Harding picked up each of Tanya’s fingers and cut away the nail and the nail bed. She tapped the contents into a tray Mathew held for her.
‘We don’t know about her corneas; the eyes were too degraded to tell. But if you mean that she was missing her internal organs, then yes. The whole of the torso section was missing, including major organs.’
‘There are incisions on the femur and sections have been sawn through and extracted.’ Mathew handed her a steel ruler which she laid alongside the leg. ‘Fifteen centimetre sections have been removed with a fine-bladed handsaw.’ She gestured for Ebony to get as close to the femur as she could and take a look through the magnifier. ‘These injuries bear a significant resemblance to the type of dissection we saw in Silvia.’
Mathew helped to turn the body over.
‘There are two areas of skin grafting on the backs of her thighs and buttocks, carried out within hours prior to her death. The area is still in trauma.’
‘It wasn’t just organs then?’ asked Carter.
‘The skin is an organ.’
‘I know but. .’
‘No. . not just. . she has had sections of bone removed from her femurs the same as Silvia.’
‘Why sections of bone? What is that about?’ Carter asked.
‘There are stem cells in the marrow,’ answered Ebony as she stared across at Harding for confirmation of her thoughts. ‘Organs, corneas, skin and bone marrow?’
Harding nodded. ‘Yes. She wasn’t just murdered. She was harvested.’
Chapter 36
‘Bloodrunners. They’re gangs who sell human organs. .’
A photo of a good-looking lad with his family came up on the screen. Robbo was in charge of the briefing; all of the murder squad were crowded into the conference room at ten the next morning.
‘. . several countries have had scandals where people have had organs stolen. Profit is always behind it. This lad went on his gap year. . to find long-lost relatives in Poland.’ The next shot was of his body wrapped in a sheet. ‘His body came back to the UK minus his organs and with a full denial of wrongdoing. . just no one knew how he died or where the organs had gone. Bloodrunners harvest organs and tissue and body parts such as hands, limbs, hearts, livers, kidneys, faces even. People wake up minus a kidney.’ Photos of a hotel room and a woman’s dissected body. ‘In the current economic climate organ-harvesting has become a very profitable business.’ Robbo talked over the images. ‘Although it is not usually associated with the UK.’
‘I’ve heard of Bloodrunners but I’ve never seen gangs in action,’ said Carter.
Robbo continued the slideshow: the bodies of three children were being displayed; each one with a neat incision that cut the torso in half. ‘Because we have a system set up which means we trust the medical experts in this country to do the best job they can with the resources available. If they say your child is too weak for an organ transplant or we don’t have one suitable. . then the child dies and that’s it. In other countries where you can buy human life much more easily, doctors are more likely to say: we can do it at a price.’
‘Can we find out what happened to Tanya’s organs? Is there any way we can access lists of people waiting that would match her?’
‘We can try,’ answered Harding. ‘But I doubt if these were sent to people waiting on the national register. More than likely her organs were sold on the black market. But it would all have to happen very quickly. Somewhere there will be patients recovering now.’
‘How long does the heart last from donor to receiver?’ Davidson asked Harding.
‘They must be a slick operation,’ said Harding. ‘It takes time to harvest someone on this scale. It must have taken more than one person to get it all done at the same time and end up with usable organs. With the heart, you have a small window of use conventionally, but there are other methods available now. There are a few ways of doing it. You can inject the heart with potassium chloride: that stops the heart beating before they take it out and then they pack it in ice. It can last four to six hours depending on starting condition. Or there is also a new machine which keeps the heart beating like it would in the body and it could last a relatively long time in that state, twelve hours even. Or they can perform a “beating” heart transplant, where the donor is still alive, technically, and their organs are transplanted directly into another. All of these operations would have to be done in a hospital.’
‘What about Blackdown Barn? Could they have operated in the house?’ asked Ebony.
‘In the master bedroom with the plastic on the floors and walls?’ Carter said.
Harding thought for a few seconds.
‘In theory, yes. But, the smaller the team of people around the surgeon the more equipment he will need to help him. It would have taken a lot of equipment and would have been a big task getting it all up to that floor. You’d be creating an intensive ca
re unit in there. . very tricky. The patient would need twenty-four-hour specialized care. Better to have made it on the ground floor, converting one of the rooms there to an operating theatre.’
‘Maybe the operation was done in a hospital and the recovery period took place in the house,’ said Carter. ‘What about the van, Robbo?’
‘If that’s the kind of van we’re looking at then it’s tall enough to stand up in,’ said Robbo. ‘Yes, it’s the right size and type to be an ambulance.’
‘You might be able to do emergency surgery in it,’ said Harding. ‘You could use it to transport a patient and keep them alive. You would need it to move a recovering patient. But not a heart and lung transplant.’
‘So if the operation was done in a hospital,’ said Davidson, ‘they could move the patient in the ambulance and put them into the sterile room in Blackdown Barn to recover.’
‘To recover or to wait,’ said Carter. ‘And not just the patient. Patient and donor. Blackdown Barn had it all — recovery room and holding pens. That’s why they picked that house. They really thought it through. Location-wise it’s close to London, close to the M25 to get to airports small and big. It’s a place where people don’t bother to talk to neighbours and it had an owner who never came near it.’
‘What was it the letting agent said Chichester wanted, Ebb?’ asked Jeanie.
‘He wanted semi-remote but near a major road. The manager remembered that Chichester said he’d pay a lot to be left alone. It didn’t matter about the house being in poor cosmetic shape.’
‘So basically he paid a lot of money for a house that wasn’t worth it. He must have been a dream client.’ Jeanie answered.
‘So before Chichester the house had been empty for a few months?’ Robbo asked.
