Dead of Winter Tr (36 page)

‘Thank you I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone what my visit was about. We are in the middle of a murder investigation. If any of the agency staff who were working that
week contact you again, would you please ring me straight away?’

‘Absolutely.’

Justin’s head was swollen and throbbing as he dangled upside down. His feet had long since lost all feeling.

Carmichael watched him from the side of the dance floor.

‘Let’s go through things again.’ Justin groaned. ‘Why did you come back?’

‘Business.’

‘You can harvest bodies, sell organs, anywhere in the world.’ Carmichael picked up his rifle and inserted a new magazine. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘Okay. It wasn’t just business. We came back for someone specifically. We needed a match.’

‘For who? Martingale? You? Digger?’

‘No.’

‘The woman?’

It was the first time Carmichael had mentioned that he knew there was a woman in their team. Justin didn’t answer. Carmichael repeated the question.

‘The woman. Was it for her? Who is she?’

‘She wasn’t there when your wife was killed . . . leave her alone. She just does what she’s told.’

‘Who are the other Bloodrunners? Is Martingale involved?’ Justin didn’t answer. ‘The woman?’

‘I told you; she does what she is told. I won’t tell you about her.’

‘Do you think she would protect you?’

‘No.’

‘What then? Do you think she’ll have time to get away? Has she got the organs she came for?’

‘She will have.’ Carmichael moved around him in the dark. ‘I remember you at the graveside of your wife and daughter. You want to find out who killed your wife and kid . . .
look to yourself, Carmichael . . . you fucking failed them both. They were never meant to be there.’

Carmichael aimed his gun, ready to fire. Justin laughed . . .

‘Yeah . . . do it . . . you useless piece of shit . . . get on with it.’ Justin laughed in the darkness. ‘She begged me to save her daughter. All I could hear was
It’s
alright, Sophie, Mummy’s alright.
She had no idea Digger had already killed your daughter. Digger made Louise suck his cock . . . should have seen it . . . her crying, gagging. Very
funny. You know as well as I do that you had a hand in it all. If it wasn’t for you she’d be alive today – you know I’m right.’

Carmichael steadied himself. He leant his weight against the wall and breathed deeply. He knew what Justin was doing. Justin knew he was going to die and he wanted Carmichael to get on with it .
. . but it wasn’t Justin’s choice. It was Carmichael’s. He picked up a pair of wire snippers.

When the call came from her ex-husband Simon, Harding was busy examining the contents of Sonny’s stomach. Seemed that Sonny liked to drink and snort coke but eating
wasn’t high on his list.

‘Jo . . . how are you?’

Funny how the sound of someone’s voice could evoke such a mix of feelings, thought Harding.

‘I’m great, thanks. Over-worked, underpaid but people will keep dying on my shift.’

‘Ha-ha . . . you were a bad girl in your last life; it’s payback time.’

‘You could be right. I saw James Martingale the other day. He said you were head boob man.’

‘Hey . . . it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. Not many men get to look at women’s breasts all day.’

‘And draw a line over them saying: “cut here”.’

‘Ha-ha . . . So . . . Miss “Acid Tongue”, to what do I owe your recent communication?’

‘Chrissie Newton’s death. We were going through a divorce at the time.’

‘I recall that . . . yes.’

‘At that time you were a surgeon at St Bloom’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did anyone ever ask you to perform an organ transplant in a private hospital and you thought to yourself, there’s something not quite right about this?’

‘Not sure I understand what you’re saying. You know the procedure as well as I do. There’s a lot goes on behind the scenes to free up an organ and match someone from the
transplant lists. That part of it is someone else’s responsibility. What’s this about?’

‘Have you seen the news about Bloodrunners?’

‘I thought it was just the gutter press sensationalizing.’

‘No. There’s a lot more and it gets a lot worse than even they could imagine. People are being harvested to order. Bloodrunners offer a “made to measure” service. They
hunt down a blood type, a body type, a lifestyle match – they offer anything the wealthiest require. Someone, somewhere pays big money for a bespoke service. We think they harvested Chrissie
Newton thirteen years ago.’

‘Does Martingale know?’ Simon’s voice was breaking. He coughed.

‘He knows. The thing is, Simon, I need your help to make a list of all those surgeons who you worked with at the time, who you think have the expertise to carry out complicated
transplants.’

‘I told you, procedures are in place. It just wouldn’t happen.’

‘And you have to remember that it did and it still does. There are surgeons out there who are operating on living donors without knowing that they are perfectly healthy. They are taking
life from one to give to another without ever realizing what they’re part of.’

‘Alright . . . okay . . . I get the point. I will help, of course.’

‘I don’t want Martingale informed.’

‘No . . . I agree. Of course. Anyway, I value my job here. I’ll email the names and what details I have over to you. But keep my name out of it.’

Ebony looked at the postmark on the small padded envelope that had arrived at Fletcher house with no MIT number. It was simply addressed to DC Ebony Willis, Murder Squad and
had been posted from a post box on the street outside. It had been franked at the main sorting office in London.

Ebony picked up the envelope and was about to tear the top open when Carter walked into the meeting room.

He was carrying a box-shaped exhibits bag in his arms, resting on a tray of files.

She tore off the top and slid out the plastic bag inside. Then she stood and walked down the corridor to Robbo’s office.

‘I’ve had a present in the post.’

He looked at her face first – she was pale; then he looked at what she had in her hands. The flesh was still soft and wet. The packet smeared with the blood: ten fingertips, severed at the
knuckle joint.

‘There’s a note attached. It says:
Check for a match .
. .’

‘Take it to Bishop.’

Bishop had just finished filling the bag around Tanya’s shoulders with smoking Superglue. It had evaporated now and he took away the polythene and dusted her upper body
with ink. The Superglue had stuck to the latent prints. He photographed the prints where someone had held her down. He was just feeding them into the PC when Ebony arrived.

‘What have you got for me?’ He waited until she pulled out the packet from a brown crime-scene envelope. ‘Christ, is this how they teach you to take someone’s
fingerprints these days?’ He grinned.

Harding emerged from the cold storage and came to look over his shoulder. ‘Where did you get those?’

‘They arrived in the post.’ Ebony answered as Bishop went over to wash his hands and change his gloves and then he took the package from Ebony. He took them over to his lab table and
filled a palette with saline. Then he took out the fingers from the paper they were wrapped in and dabbed each finger-tip into the water until it was clean of the dried blood. ‘Cut using wire
clippers I would guess,’ he said, examining the knuckle end of each digit as he dried them gently by dabbing the flesh. He rolled the washed and dried fingertips in ink and then onto the
Cellophane. Then he fed the images into the computer.

Firstly he checked them with the crime scene at Blackdown Barn and with the print next to Sophie. Then he looked at the results both from Tanya and from the fingertips.

Harding and Ebony stood by and waited. He turned to them after several minutes.

‘We have the person who murdered Sophie Carmichael and the person who murdered Tanya. Or rather, we have his fingers.’

‘Not sure if we’re going to get any more of him,’ said Ebony.

‘You better check the next post,’ said Harding.

Carmichael was doing the rounds of clubs who offered partially or fully nude tabletop dancers. Club Persuasion was his fifth club of the night and he was waiting for the owner,
Buster Mills, to come and talk business. He knew he had to do it as part of his cover, build his profile, but his head was in a dark place; he wasn’t sure he could pull it off this
evening.

Carmichael sat in the red leather booth and tried not to think about the news from Micky. He stared into space as the woman dressed as a cheeky schoolgirl swirled her gymslip round the pole in
front of him.

She finished her dance and came up to sit next to him. ‘Fuck off.’ Carmichael was beginning to grow tired of the outfits, the smiles, the accents. He had enjoyed the first few dances
but by this time he’d seen enough to make a living as a gynaecologist. The girl called him a pig and skulked off. Carmichael looked across at Buster making his way over. He was from Greece
originally. His massive frame was a ball shape. Even his bald head had extra rolls of skin. He was an old player in gentlemen’s clubs and had been bankrupt more than once. He was hedging his
bets with Club Persuasion. It had something for everyone: DJ sets in the week, football on a massive screen in the day, and strippers by night. Carmichael stood and shook his hand. Buster looked
him over. He had a smile he could switch on and off.

‘Mr Hart. Nice of you to drop in. I hear you want to talk business?’

‘Buster . . . nice to meet you.’ He stood and shook Buster’s hand. ‘It’s a great place you have here. I’ve come to see if I can interest you in getting the
best dancers for your club.’

‘Thank you. Come with me. Let’s talk.’

Buster opened a door onto a private lounge with a couple of sofas, a long dining table, a pole and a picture of the Queen. An elaborate drinks trolley was next to the dining table.

‘So come . . . sit down . . . I’ll get you a drink.’ Carmichael went round to sit at the far side of the table and Buster poured Carmichael a Scotch and handed it to him. He
sat down opposite. ‘You are new here in London? We normally deal with Sonny . . . I saw the news today about his drowning. It’s a shame. Sonny’s mother is a good friend of
mine.’ Buster kept his eye on Carmichael.

‘It’s very sad.’ Carmichael gave nothing away with his expression. He sat back, kept eye contact. ‘I’ll do the best I can to fill his shoes. In fact, I can
confidently say I can do better. I have already expanded the network of contacts and have new girls just arrived; being acclimatized as we speak.’ Carmichael grinned. Buster smiled, tried to
laugh; it came out high-pitched, strained. ‘You interested?’

Buster nodded.

‘Excuse me.’ Buster took his phone out of his pocket and read a text message. He put his phone back and looked at Carmichael, trying to hide it, but Carmichael could see he’d
read something that made him nervous.

‘The thing is, Buster, I think Sonny made too many enemies. People felt ripped off by him. Take yourself, for instance. I understand that you felt loyalty but can you afford to waste
hundreds of thousands a year? Sonny knew he’d captured the market with his father Dexter’s old friends. He knew his mother was well-respected. He’s been ripping off people like
you for many years.’

Buster took a drink. He kept one eye on the door. Carmichael eased the revolver he’d stolen from Sonny out of his holster and held his hand steady, the silencer levelled against the
underside of the table. He moved back slightly in his seat. Buster seemed not to be listening, to be thinking over what Carmichael had said, when the door opened and Deano walked in.

Carmichael concealed his gun as he turned to look over his shoulder at the man in the doorway. ‘Hart?’ Deano’s voice hit a bass note that boomed through the room.

‘Not here.’

Buster had started protesting but Deano was preprogrammed. Carmichael didn’t wait to find out what Deano wanted. As Deano took a step into the room Carmichael turned towards him and fired
from beneath the cover of the table straight into Deano’s chest, three shots pop-pop-pop. He fell like a giant, just as Buster stood and reached for the gun he had concealed in his trouser
belt. But it was like trying to get a monkey’s hand out of a jar. Carmichael swung back around and steadied his hand towards Buster’s chest and fired. He stepped over Deano and walked
out.

He called Digger on his way back to the Velvet Lagoon:

‘Buster’s burst. Your mess . . . you clean it up. Don’t fuck with me. No more games. Deal with me or deal with no one. I’m coming over.’

Carmichael walked through Soho and into Cain’s. Ray had been replaced by another barman he didn’t recognize. ‘Digger around?’

‘Who shall I say is asking, sir?’

‘Hart.’

The barman went away and returned a few moments later.

‘Digger says to go up to his apartment. Jock will take you up there.’

Carmichael turned to see a big black guy walking his way. He smiled. ‘Jock?’

‘Follow me, sir.’

Through the club, past the podiums and behind the velvet curtain, Jock opened a door and led the way up a steep flight of stairs: the back entrance to the floor upstairs and Digger’s
apartment. Jock opened the apartment door for him and Carmichael heard the sound of laughter. He followed Jock around to the left and found Digger in a lounge that could have been used in a
low-budget porn movie from the Seventies.

Digger greeted Carmichael from his armchair. He held up his glass as a salute. His eyes were watching Carmichael closely.

‘Welcome, Mr Hart. We were just talking about you. You came just in time. These are the club owners I told you about. Meet Sim, Amir. We were discussing our futures.’

‘Perfect timing then.’

Carmichael looked at the other men in the room: two young Turks and Tyrone with one of the girls. He recognized the young girl, Anna. She looked like she was barely conscious. Her head lolled
back, her eyes half closed as she sat between the club owners. Tyrone was watching him nervously. He sat chopping up thick lines of coke on the tabletop, his nose dripping as he wiped it with his
sleeve. Digger was watching Carmichael in between laughing at one of the Turks’ jokes. He was stroking the dog on his lap. The jokes were all at Digger’s expense. He knew they disliked
him as much as he did them. They loved calling him
paramý,
which Carmichael knew was Turkish for cocksucker. The Turks followed Digger’s gaze towards Carmichael.