A Dark and Twisted Tide

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘DI Tulloch,’ he said. ‘What an interesting turn of events.’

  Dana’s hand shot to the locket. She pulled hard as the three staff members who were still flanking her all pressed in to stop her next move.

  ‘This is a police operation and you are all under arrest,’ she said. ‘My colleagues are surrounding the building.’

  Christakos picked up the phone and held it out. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I suggest you invite them in.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Anderson, a pleasure to meet you,’ said Christakos several minutes later, as Anderson burst, red-faced and puffing, into the room. ‘Actually, I think I’ve heard quite a lot about you from a young friend of mine, but we can get to that. Do have a seat.’

  He sat down behind the desk and gestured to the chair in front of it, exactly as he had in the clinic in town. He was dressed as immaculately, was as smoothly handsome as ever. Anderson ignored him, addressing Dana instead.

  ‘Some sort of clinic, Ma’am. Five people in the building other than ourselves. Mr Christakos here, three members of staff and a young foreign woman who looks like she could be a patient. They’re all in separate rooms waiting for us to talk to them. Are you OK?’

  Dana nodded. ‘I’m fine, but the woman needs medical attention. She was in a lot of pain earlier this morning.’

  As Anderson stepped to the door and spoke briefly to someone outside, Dana gripped the back of the chair. She desperately wanted to sit down and knew she couldn’t do it. She had to look in control.

  Christakos gave a small, polite smile. His hands were perfectly still on the desk in front of him. ‘I’m not aware of any medical issues on the part of our guest, but thank you for drawing it to my attention.’

  ‘What is this place?’ said Dana. ‘What happens here?’

  ‘These are my private consulting rooms.’ Christakos opened his hands as if to say Take a look, I have nothing to hide. ‘This is where I see patients who don’t want to attend a busy London clinic. I’ve only been here for a few months, so we’re not quite up to speed, but I hope in time we’ll be able to carry out simple procedures here.’

  ‘What sort of procedures?’ said Anderson, from the doorway.

  Christakos glanced at Dana, and let the corner of his mouth turn up in a small, knowing smile. ‘A variety. But largely concerned with assisted pregnancies. A number of our sperm donors come here to donate. It’s more convenient than our clinic in town for those who live south of the river.’

  ‘What are the girls for?’ said Dana.

  He blinked again. ‘Girls, Detective Inspector? I don’t employ girls. I have a number of women on my staff. There is Nurse Rachel Stafford, for example. And Kathryn Markova, who is a sort of office manager, although she, too, has some medical training.’

  ‘There is a young woman in a room upstairs who I’d put money on being an illegal immigrant,’ said Dana. ‘From what I could tell this morning, she is seriously ill. I’ll ask you again, what are the girls for?’

  Christakos gave a small, sad smile, as though she were missing something important, before standing and turning to the window. The glass in front of him was clear, and Dana could see the building immediately opposite. Five storeys high, with rectangular windows, a flat roof and cast-iron balconies. Christakos had apparently gathered his thoughts.

  ‘Detective Inspector, many years ago, my sister and I entered this country as immigrants. I won’t say illegally, but things weren’t as strict back then as they are now. We’ve done well here, so occasionally we like to help others who need our assistance.’

  ‘What does that mean exactly?’ said Anderson.

  ‘Very occasionally, if we hear of young people – not necessarily women – who need help settling into a new country, we sponsor them. We give them a place to stay, assisance in learning English, and eventually we help them find employment.’

  ‘And you inform the authorities when you do this?’

  ‘The UK Border Agency has been less than helpful in the past,’ said Christakos. ‘We find we can manage very well without them.’

  There was a knock on the door and the uniformed sergeant poked his head around it. ‘A moment, Ma’am.’ Behind him, Dana could see Mizon’s blonde hair.

  ‘There’s a discrepancy,’ the sergeant said, when she and Anderson joined him in the corridor. ‘The surveillance equipment told us there were eight people in the building, including you. One left by car just before you called us. So we should have been looking for six, apart from yourself. Trouble is, what we were seeing on the equipment got very confused. We lost track of where everyone was. We’ve checked the entire building, top to bottom, and there are just five people. We’ve been in the basement and up on the roof. Only one young foreign woman, in a room on the ground floor. She’s a bit dopey, but she looks fine. Certainly doesn’t seem to be ill or injured.’

  ‘There was someone in the room next to mine overnight,’ said Dana. ‘A girl called Pari. In a lot of pain. Check again.’

  ‘We stopped the car that left here earlier on the approach to London Bridge,’ said Mizon. ‘The driver claims he’s called Kanash and is a doctor working at the Thames Clinic. He had a meeting here with Dr Christakos this morning and is on his way back to work. They’re taking him to Lewisham.’

  ‘I take it they searched the car,’ said Dana.

  Mizon nodded. ‘There were two industrial-sized containers in the boot that he says are cryo-storage vessels. He claims they’re empty but that the clinic are waiting for them.’

  ‘Come again?’ said Anderson. ‘Cryo what?’

  ‘Fertility treatment relies upon preserving gametes and embryos for use in the future,’ Dana told him. ‘Sperm, eggs and fertilized embryos can be frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept until needed.’ She turned to Mizon. ‘Gayle, we should have them delivered, but I want someone to see exactly what’s inside them. In fact, can you try and get hold of Mike Kaytes for me?’

  Mizon stepped away down the hall and pulled out her phone. The sergeant resumed his search of the building.

  ‘Get him brought in, Neil.’ Dana nodded her head to the room where Christakos waited for them. ‘He’s not telling us everything.’

  81

  Lacey

  ‘DON’T HAVE A good feeling about this,’ muttered Lacey ten minutes later, as she steered Ray’s motor boat out of the entrance to Deptford Creek and turned up-river.

  Lewisham Control had been unable to send support. ‘We’re absolutely up to our eyes in it,’ the dispatcher had told Lacey. ‘RTA on Lewisham High Street and an armed hold-up in Barclays Bank. Can you hold on till things clear up a bit?’

  Reluctant to call her own colleagues and divert them from the far more important job of keeping an eye on Dana, Lacey had decided to meet Nadia alone. If what the Afghan woman had to show her was largely irrelevant, it could wait till she reported in later. If it turned out to be important, she could call it in immediately and insist upon back-up. She had a radio, a phone, even a torch, safely tucked inside a waterproof bag in the bottom of the boat. It was broad daylight and she was in a properly equipped boat. What could possibly go wrong?

  ‘Let someone know where I’ve gone if I don’t call you in an hour,’ she’d told Eileen, who had promised to do exactly that.

  She steered wide as she neared the entrance to Sayes Creek, not wanting to give the surveillance team any reason to worry about her presence on the water. She half expected them to hail the boat and pull it over, even if they didn’t recognize her at the helm, but she didn’t even see the dinghy close to the wall, and the RIB must be further downstream.

  Past Sayes Creek, she steered close to the bank again, and after a few minutes saw Nadia waiting for her on St George’s Stairs.

  ‘That way.’ Nadia pointed up-river, once she’d pulled the life-jacket over her head and climbed into the boat in front of Lacey. ‘This is the way we went when I left the house. It was dark, but I remembered last night.’

  Lacey se
t off again, keeping close to the bank, steering up-river towards the city.

  ‘I remember that.’ Nadia pointed to the entrance to South Dock Marina. ‘I thought we might be about to go in there, but at the last minute we moved on past.’

  Lucky for you, thought Lacey, thinking of the corpses lying weighted on the marina floor. She steered the boat around Greenland Pier, keeping a lookout for the fast vessels that used it to moor up, and then past the entrance to Greenland Lock. Nadia was intent on the south bank.

  ‘There.’ She was pointing at a gap in the wall. ‘They took me in there.’

  ‘That’s a sewage outlet.’

  ‘It leads to a room. It looked like a room for machinery. Very old, but beautiful. There were flowers in the ironwork. And huge great columns.’

  Lacey looked at her watch, then down-river again – she could still see no activity outside Sayes Court – and finally at her police radio in its waterproof bag. ‘Nadia, why didn’t you tell me this before?’

  ‘I told you, I never think about that night. I only let myself remember when I realized how important it was to you.’

  ‘I can’t take you in there.’ Lacey looked again at the tunnel entrance. ‘The tide’s getting quite low, we could get stuck.’

  ‘OK, just steer to the wall,’ said Nadia. ‘There is something you need to see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A ring fixed into the side. I think it’s what they tie the girls to. They tie them to the rings and then, when the water comes up, they drown.’

  The wound around the corpse’s neck. It was a detail that had never been made public. Oh God, that was horrible. To be tied up in a tunnel, watching the water coming closer. ‘How far in is it?’

  ‘There are several of them, but the first is just inside the entrance.’

  Lacey steered the boat the final few yards that took them to the embankment wall and just inside the tunnel entrance. By keeping the engine in gear and the revs low, she was just about able to hold the boat in position.

  ‘Just here.’ Nadia was pointing further into the tunnel. ‘A little more in.’

  Ray’s boat had a deeper keel than the dinghies the Marine Unit used to patrol these tunnels. Already, they’d moved further in than felt wise. ‘Nadia, I really can’t go any further. I need to get you back on shore and then call this in. What? What’s the matter?’

  Nadia had stiffened, was sitting bolt upright in the boat, her eyes going from side to side.

  ‘Lacey,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘I think there’s someone here.’

  Instincts kicking in, Lacey put the engine into reverse and looked back over her shoulder to steer out. A sudden screech. The boat rocked. She looked round in time to see Nadia falling backwards into the water.

  82

  Dana

  ‘I’M SORRY, DANA,’ said Kaytes, ‘but I think the clinic’s clean.’

  They were back at Lewisham police station. Three hours had gone by since Dana and her team had left the house in East Street. Christakos had said nothing beyond what he’d told them already and Kaytes and a team of detectives had just finished as thorough a search of the Thames Clinic as they could without a court order.

  ‘We’ve lost a young woman.’ Dana was finding it impossible to sit down. ‘There were six of them in that clinic when he allowed me to phone my colleagues and by the time you arrived there were five. He knows where she is. He may have even killed her. He is not getting away with it.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Kaytes. ‘But his licence from the HFEA clearly permits him to . . .’

  ‘Sorry, what’s HFEA?’ Anderson interrupted.

  ‘Human Fertility Embryology Authority,’ Kaytes told him. ‘It’s the regulatory body for fertility treatment in the UK. You should check with them, see if there are any complaints or investigations outstanding against Christakos. But to be honest, I’d be surprised.’

  ‘Is it big business, fertility?’ asked Anderson.

  ‘God, yes. People will practically bankrupt themselves to have a baby. Mind you, most kids bankrupt their parents in the end, so I suppose it just saves time.’

  ‘So what would a clinic like that turn over in a year?’

  ‘Millions. Take donor insemination, for a start.’

  Dana made herself sit down.

  ‘A woman might pay up to a thousand pounds a cycle,’ he went on. ‘Let’s say she takes six cycles to get pregnant. Six grand, and what has the sperm cost the clinic? Pin money for some medical student who’s not that squeamish about having a wank in a hospital cubicle.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Mizon, after the moment’s silence that seemed called for. ‘So we can assume Christakos is successful. That he’s making money.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ said Kaytes. ‘The Thames Clinic has an international reputation. It was one of the pioneers of the egg-sharing scheme back in the 1990s, and that’s a real money spinner.’

  ‘Do we need to know what egg sharing is?’ asked Anderson.

  ‘Probably not,’ said Kaytes.

  Egg sharing? Dana started to get up, told herself to wait, to be sure.

  ‘It can’t hurt,’ said Mizon. ‘Don’t we need to know as much as possible about what he’s up to?’

  ‘Well, it’s a clever idea, really.’ Kaytes settled himself on a desktop. ‘It brings together women who’ve gone beyond the age of being able to produce viable eggs, with couples who can’t afford the huge cost of IVF. Basically, the older, richer couple fund IVF treatment for the younger, who in return agree to share the eggs produced.’

  And that’s what it was all about. ‘Thank God we sent for you, Mike.’ Dana was on her feet again.

  ‘Glad to be of service.’ Kaytes looked flattered but surprised.

  ‘There’s an acute shortage of donor eggs, isn’t there?’

  Kaytes nodded. ‘Very much so. Women who are donating eggs have to undergo almost full IVF treatment. They have daily injections, drugs to shove up their noses. Then there’s the surgical procedure itself, under general anaesthetic. It’s a lot to ask a woman to go through. And usually for the benefit of a perfect stranger.’

  Something lit up behind Kaytes’s eyes. He’d got it. The rest, on the other hand, were getting twitchy.

  ‘Give me a second, guys, I am going somewhere with this,’ said Dana. ‘Mike, in other countries, the USA most typically, egg donors are compensated financially, right?’

  ‘They are here,’ said Kaytes. ‘But only a few hundred pounds. In the US, couples pay thousands of dollars for eggs from a good donor.’

  ‘And what makes a good donor?’

  ‘Young, healthy, intelligent and good looking. And a physical resemblance to the receiving parent is a decided advantage.’

  ‘What are you two getting at?’ said Anderson.

  Dana crossed to a spare computer and typed into the search bar. ‘OK, this is more than I would normally share, but it’ll become blindingly obvious soon anyway. The fact is, Helen and I are hoping to start a family.’

  Of the faces around her, only Kaytes didn’t look surprised.

  ‘But given our particular circumstances, we’re going to need a bit more help than the average couple,’ she went on. ‘Come and look at this.’

  The others gathered round.

  ‘Sperm bank,’ said Stenning, with what sounded like distaste in his voice.

  Dana stiffened. ‘You know what, Pete? When the time comes for you and some unfortunate young woman to breed, I really hope you can manage it in the time-honoured way. But if you need a bit of medical help, you’re going to have to lose some of that squeamishness about bodily functions.’

  Stenning shook his head. ‘No, you’ve just reminded me that I did it myself a few years ago. When I was at Hendon. A lot of us did. For the money.’

  ‘You were a sperm donor?’ Mizon had taken a step away from him.

  ‘Me too,’ said Barrett. ‘Kept me in beer and ciggies for two years.’

  Dana shook her head. ‘That
is information I really could have done without just now. But getting back to the point. This is how we choose. Look.’ She found the screen where the listings of available donors appeared and the little blue, yellow, green and pink icons popped up.

  ‘So, there are umpteen little Stennings and Barretts running round the place,’ said Mizon.

  ‘Gayle, would you focus for a second?’ said Dana. ‘This is a sort of online catalogue of available sperm. With some very basic information about the donors.’

  ‘I wonder if I’m still on it.’ Barrett leaned closer.

  ‘Not umpteen.’ Stenning turned to Mizon. ‘There are regulations governing how many families an individual donor can supply. And how old are you, twelve?’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Dana. ‘This isn’t about sperm, it’s about eggs. Mike, am I right in thinking there isn’t an equivalent site that couples who need donated eggs can go to?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Kaytes. ‘We have an acute shortage of egg donors in the UK.’

  ‘For all the reasons you just told us about. So if a couple have plenty of money but no viable eggs of their own, what do they do?’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Mizon had got it too, now.

  ‘Quite a lot go abroad for their eggs, to countries where the authorities aren’t quite so squeamish about paying donors,’ said Kaytes. ‘There are international egg banks. Frozen eggs can be shipped over, but the best results come from fresh eggs. Typically, that means the recipients will arrange for the donor to travel to them, so cycles can be coordinated. You can imagine how bloody expensive that gets.’

  ‘Unless the women are smuggled in through cheaper, less orthodox channels,’ said Mizon. ‘And especially if they don’t even know their eggs are being taken from them.’

  It took a second for the men to catch up.

  ‘These women are egg donors?’ said Anderson.

  ‘I think they could be,’ said Dana. ‘They’ve been smuggled in for something and we’ve more or less ruled out the sex trade. So what else do young, attractive women have to offer?’