Death Watch

by Unknown

  Through a side door was a small concrete patio with picnic tables, each surrounded by a few hundred cigarette butts. They took a seat, enjoying the cool air.

  ‘Find your waiting list first,’ said Valentine.

  Shaw sipped the coffee, listening now.

  ‘You’re rich, you’re dying, you need a kidney. Local hospital says maybe a year. But you’re rich, you don’t do waiting. You go private, they say six months because there’s a list there too. And even if you’ve got the money, they’re regulated, so you need to meet requirements: weight, diet, lifestyle. Then someone suggests there’s another way. You can jump the queue – all the queues.’

  Shaw crushed his paper cup and laid both his hands, palms down, on the wooden table top. ‘So we’ve got our surgeon – Peploe; we’ve got our operating theatre – here, Theatre Seven. Recovery rooms? On Level One’s my bet – the search didn’t find it but you’re right, soon as Bryan Judd turns up dead they wipe it out – not a trace. Clients – there’s a system, like you say, because we know there’s a demand. Which leaves the supply – the donors. Homeless men, desperate for cash, willing to take the ultimate risk, to leave themselves defenceless for a thousand pounds – fifty pounds down and the rest if they survive. What don’t we know?’

  Valentine sighed; he hated this kind of rationalization, treating a crime like a textbook example. ‘We don’t know whether Peploe killed himself because he knew what we were about to find in the organ bank, or whether his death was an accident, or even murder. We don’t know who the Organ Grinder is – the man on the street, finding and collecting the donors. We don’t know who Peploe’s accomplices were. And we don’t know who killed Bryan Judd or why – which is where we came in. That do you?’

  Shaw licked the chocolate off the lid of his coffee.

  ‘Doesn’t mean we can’t try and think it through.’

  Valentine spat in the dust.

  ‘Bryan Judd fits in to the organ trade,’ said Shaw. ‘He makes sure the waste from the ops gets nicely disposed of. That’s vital. They could burn it domestically, but they’d have to get it off the site, which is dangerous – stupid – if you can do it right here.’

  Above them a thin line of smoke from the incinerator chimney caught the moon.

  ‘Let’s think about Judd’s life,’ said Shaw. ‘He earns pretty much the minimum wage in here. He’s caught up in this scam with Holme for which he gets a supply of Green Dragon. That’s been going on a year, or more, so he’s hooked. Plus, he gets whatever he’s paid for dumping the human waste. My guess is that’s not much, either, otherwise he wouldn’t need Holme. So – summary is, our man is on the bottom of the feeding chain, and he’s just alive. He gets his basic wage and some top-ups for turning a blind eye on the incinerator belt and giving Holme a heads up when drugs are going to be destroyed.

  ‘But then, on the day he dies, things get worse. Holme goes up to the hospital to spell it out for the last time. He’s going down; there won’t be any more Green Dragon.’ Shaw pinged the corner of the paper cup. ‘Holme was going to be out of the picture – pretty much permanently as far as Judd was concerned. So Judd had to face up to the fact he’d have to get his gear somewhere else – and he needed the cash to get it. What are we talking about, George? A hundred pounds a week, one-fifty?’

  Valentine nodded. ‘Depends on how much he got through, but the cases I’ve seen – they’re heavy users. So at least that.’

  ‘So Judd’s facing a crisis. He needs extra cash. What if he asked Peploe or the Organ Grinder for it? Perhaps he even added in a threat – that he’d blow the lid on the organ trade if he didn’t get it. Because this isn’t some little two-bit money earner, is it? We’re talking organized crime, even if it isn’t exactly the Mafia.’

  Valentine, drawn into the analysis, took Shaw’s crunched cup and turned it over, tapping the top. ‘One thing – the candle mark on Blanket’s back. Maybe that’s the sign. But why’d you need to do that if you’re the one who’s collecting him?’

  Shaw smiled. ‘So there’s two of them right there – one selects, one collects.’ A bat, attracted by the insects circling in the light spilling from the glass door, swung round their heads.

  DC Twine had tracked them down to the café. He took a seat, unscrewing the top on a bottle of still water. ‘Bit of luck. Peploe’s secretary at the hospital seems to know her boss pretty well – she’s up to speed on his pills, anyway. She says he was on a course of anticonvulsants, like the wife said. The dragon’s head dispenses lamotrigine. He told the kids they were sweets if he had to take one in public. He always carried a bag of boiled sweets too, so they got one as well.’ He looked at a note he’d taken in a neat pocket book. ‘He also took carbamazepine as a syrup – probably each morning – and gabapentin as an emergency measure. They were in a plastic bottle in his pocket.

  ‘Problem is, Tom says the pills in the dispenser aren’t lamotrigine. We’ll have to wait for the official analysis from the FSS. The colour and shape are very close, but he thinks it’s definitely something else. He showed the pharmacist at the hospital and she spotted them straight away. He thinks they’re sodium nitroprusside. The A&E department holds them for use in emergencies to produce a sharp drop in blood pressure. One pill – never more. Even one, given to a patient with normal blood pressure, could be fatal. Two – and Peploe always took two as a dose – would be fatal.’

  Shaw closed his eyes and pictured again the image of Peploe taking the pills. The quick, habitual double shake, the medicine dispensed onto his hand and then straight into his mouth. He hadn’t looked. Why would he? Anyone who knew him would know that about Gavin Peploe: he never looked.

  ‘It could have been suicide,’ said Twine. ‘He’d know the effect.’

  Shaw shook his head. ‘Think it through. It doesn’t make sense. Why were the pills in the dispenser? You don’t decide to commit suicide and then dream up ways to make it look like an accident. Unless it’s an insurance scam – and I think we can rule that out. If he wanted to top himself he’d have just taken them. No – I think someone swapped them. Then left him to administer his own poison. Someone who didn’t want Gavin Peploe to talk.’

  39

  Lena was asleep in the cottage, so Shaw let himself into the small office behind the Beach Café and switched on the iMac. He wouldn’t sleep yet, so he might as well do something. The likelihood that Gavin Peploe had been murdered meant the inquiry had to be reappraised. The whole squad had been paged and told to attend a briefing at 6.30 the following morning on Level One. Outside he could hear the tide washing in, and a night breeze in the tall grass in the dunes.

  As the iMac screen blossomed he tried to push Peploe’s face from his mind: the saliva in a colourless line across the tanned skin, the crowded eyes. He tapped into Google, then to the local council website, following the links to the Burney Housing Association which now ran the Westmead Estate. Garage rental was outsourced to a private company called OffStreet. It had an online register listing the sixty-three lock-up garages on the Westmead. Eight were empty and available for rental at an annual fee of £40. Management of the service on the ground was provided by a warden – Mr D. Holden. An address in the nearby Shinwell Flats was listed, together with a telephone number.

  Shaw checked his watch: low tide, and 10.36 p.m. It was late, but patience wasn’t his strong suit. He rang and a woman answered, who said Don wouldn’t mind the call, because he was so bored he was watching Newsnight. Shaw assured her it was a routine inquiry.

  Don Holden’s voice was a surprise; high and reedy, happy to help. Shaw had four names and wanted to know if any of them matched the tenants on the current roll. Four names: the three Askit apprentices he suspected were on the CCTV of the crash at Castle Rising, and Robert Mosse. Don said he’d be a minute and came back with the register. It was all on paper, always had been, because he’d been on a course for the computer but his fingers were too big for the keys. Shaw waited.

  No match.

>   Did he have the register for past years? Yes – back to 1995. Before that he’d burnt the lot because it was a small flat and they had a cat to swing. Could he check back? Shaw sat, breathing in the sea air through the open window, as Holden went over the old registers.

  No match.

  Shaw laughed, thanked him, and rang off. He walked out on the sand and watched the distant white line of surf breaking out towards the horizon. He took a small rubber ball from his pocket and began to bounce it up against the wooden side of the café, catching it despite his one-eyed vision by gently moving his head a few inches from side to side – a technique which effectively gave his brain two images of the moving ball from which he could build a 3D image. He caught the ball three times perfectly, but missed the fourth by a good foot. It was a skill he’d have to hone.

  He pocketed the ball and glanced up at the small sign set over the entrance to the café. It had been a big step forward this summer, getting the drinks licence. Next year they might open in the early evenings, see if they could build up a trade. The sign’s white lettering shone in the moonlight: Lena Margaret Hunte; licensed to sell beers, wines and spirits to be consumed on the premises.

  Everything to do with the business was in her name – and she’d never taken his. He went back to his desk and found the file he wanted in the top drawer. The records on a juvenile court case from 1996, a case he’d been drawn to because of its links to the death of Jonathan Tessier. Three young men – Bobby Mosse’s gang – had admitted terrorizing a small boy called Giddy Poynter. The boy’s mother had tried to set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme on the Westmead to try and curb vandalism on her floor of Vancouver House. The gang locked Giddy in a rubbish bin overnight, having tossed in half a dozen rats to keep him company, just to teach his mum a lesson.

  Shaw read through the note on the proceedings until he got to a section in which each of the three gang members had been given the chance to produce an adult to speak on their behalf. They’d admitted the charges, but this was in mitigation. Two had produced fathers but the third – Alex Cosyns – had called his mother, a woman who described herself as the common-law wife of his father. She’d kept her maiden name. And there it was – Roundhay.

  Shaw rang Holden back and asked him to check Roundhay in the list of tenants – but he didn’t have to.

  ‘Yes. Of course – that’s a big family on the Westmead, Inspector. They’ve always owned a lock-up – that’s number 51. They might even have 50 as well, but I’d have to look that up.’

  Shaw told him not to bother; one number was enough.

  The picture in Shaw’s head was like a snapshot from a family album – in 1990s colour, brash and glaring. A hot Sunday afternoon, the lock-up garages baking, a small boy standing at an open roll-up door, a puppy yelping. At the side of the door two numbers screwed into the woodwork: 51. Then the snapshot moved, coming to life, so that the child was free to move. Someone said something and he took a step inside, out of the sunlight, then another, and then he was gone. For ever.

  40

  Valentine walked home along the quayside. The incoming tide brought with it the remnants of the cool mist which had acted as a shroud for Gavin Peploe’s yacht. Out in mid-channel a freighter had slid in along the Cut from the sea, deck lights ablaze. The sound of a radio playing music to a Latin beat bounced over the water. The ship swung in the tide, the stern coming round towards the quayside so that she could enter the Alexandra Dock. The steel starboard side came to within fifty feet of the quay, towering over Valentine.

  He stopped, lit a Silk Cut, and watched the ship glide towards him, skewed, the great mass edging sideways. The engines churned up chocolate-coloured water. On the side was painted a huge flag. Something exotic, thought Valentine; the Philippines, perhaps? Some banana republic? A blue flag, a yellow rhombus, within which was set a blue sphere of the night sky with studded stars, and a curving green band containing letters.

  ‘Tin-pot,’ he said to himself. You could always tell a country that had its arse hanging out by the fact that it had a flag cluttered with rubbish: coats of arms, emblems, flowers, you name it – they’d stuff it on the flag in the hope that no one would notice that the country was on its uppers.

  The flag flying from the mast was different, something corporate – black with white letters that he couldn’t read because despite the drifting mist there was hardly any wind.

  Smoking, he read out the words on the coloured flag. ‘Ordem e Progresso.’ He thought it didn’t take his education to work that one out. Order and progress. Trite, he thought, flicking his cigarette end in the water, then turning away.

  Fifty yards down the quay he stopped, in no hurry to get home. The house, despite the summer’s day, would be cold – especially the bathroom, which always offered up the worst moment of his life, the last look in the mirror each night. He lit another Silk Cut, and thought about Alex Cosyns – about the cheque from Robert Mosse, and who he knew on the regional fraud squad who could wriggle him access to Cosyns’s bank account. There’d been no complaint from Cosyns. Which was good news, but also unsettling. He shivered slightly, rolling his shoulders.

  He looked back along the quay when he heard the odd, taut complaint of the buffers on the ship meeting the wooden piling which protected the concrete wharf; just a glance, a random moment which, he would later have to admit, probably saved his career, maybe even his life.

  The name on the stern of the ship was written in blue letters ten feet high:

  MV ROSA.

  41

  Shaw woke a millisecond before the phone rang. Or was it the second ring? He could never quite catch the echo, but sensed it was there, bouncing round the dark room. He could smell Lena; her skin was so close, a subtle mix of sweat and salt. He fumbled with the receiver trying not to think it must be bad news. It was George Valentine.

  ‘Peter. I need to show you something – outside the Crane, on Erebus Street.’ For once Valentine’s voice was free of the corrosive edge of antagonism.

  Lena turned away in her sleep.

  Shaw propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the harsh red numbers on the alarm clock: 12.55 a.m.

  Then he made a mistake. ‘Is this really necessary, George?’

  He heard Valentine draw on an unseen cigarette. Shaw knew he shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have questioned his DS’s judgement. George Valentine was his partner, and he’d got the best part of thirty years’ service under his belt. If he rang his DI in the middle of the night he had a reason – a compelling one. Shaw knew what Lena would say, and the word ‘trust’ would be at its heart. So he made himself cut in. ‘Sorry. Course it is. I’ll be there in twenty. Don’t move.’

  There was no sign of the moon when he pulled the Land Rover into Erebus Street – just the orange splodges of the street lights, and the green, throbbing neon sign announcing 24-HOUR WASH, although the launderette was closed.

  Valentine sat in the gutter, a pewter flask in his hand, his lips wet, so that they caught the light. In the sudden flood of headlamps he stood arthritically, like a deckchair unfolding. When Shaw got out of the Land Rover his DS didn’t say anything, just led the way to the dock gates, following the sunken iron rails in the tarmac. The gate to the wired compound for the electricity sub-station stood open.

  ‘The lock here was broken – that’s how Andy Judd got in with his bottle of paraffin,’ said Valentine.

  From the small yard within they could see up into Jan Orzsak’s house, where a single light shone through the frosted glass of a bathroom window. A shadow moved inside, and Shaw imagined Orzsak standing at a mirror, trying to forget whatever nightmare had woken him up, shifting his weight off the crushed slipper.

  ‘We missed this,’ said Valentine. He brushed his way through the hawthorn bushes to the far wire, the perimeter of the dockyard, and there they found another metal gate.

  ‘This is neat,’ said Valentine, holding out a padlock on his hand. The heavy-duty shackle had been filed throug
h. The hinge screamed as the gate swung in. They walked out onto the barren acre of concrete, on which had been painted the giant number 4. A rat dashed left and right, left and right, seemingly following a path only it could see, as if it were negotiating an invisible maze.

  Valentine pointed down the quayside towards the moored ship.

  Shaw read the letters painted on the stern, and felt his blood run deliciously cool.

  ‘MV Rosa,’ he said. ‘MVR.’

  His second thought, after he’d stopped the elation flooding his brain, was that it could be a coincidence. ‘Was she here on Sunday night?’

  Valentine nodded, looking at his black slip-ons. ‘I rang the shipping agent – she sailed Monday morning at dawn. But she was here, Berth 4.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Shaw, thinking fast, putting together pieces of a jigsaw which suddenly seemed to fit – like Pete Hendre’s description of the room he’d woken up in, with the steady mechanical hum, and the iron door. Like the bodies on Warham’s Hole and on the storm-drain grid. Like the torch and the wristband: MVR.

  ‘You haven’t been aboard?’ He bit his lip, recognizing that he’d done it again, shown his lack of trust, because only an idiot rookie would be stupid enough to blunder aboard.

  The cold edge returned to Valentine’s voice. ‘Agent’s meeting us at the dock office – I’ve told him if he contacts anyone on the Rosa he’ll be a shipping agent in Murmansk by the weekend. He’s OK. Old school.’