Dead of Winter

Chapter 41

Carmichael came round from his doze on the bed to hear his Skype alert buzzing. Micky was trying to get hold of him. He reached beneath the bed and pulled out his laptop. Micky’s face filled a small square on the screen. Carmichael enlarged it. Micky had a newspaper in his hands.

‘You seen this?’ Micky turned the paper round so that Carmichael could see the headline.

Bloodrunners

ORGAN HARVESTERS

Monsters on UK streets.

It was seven p.m., Carmichael waited outside the Whittington pathology department and watched Harding emerge. He kicked his bike onto its stand. Harding looked up as she walked towards her car and saw Carmichael. She fished into her bag for her keys, then held them in her hand. Carmichael walked towards her. ‘You telling me you had no idea thirteen years ago that they were Bloodrunners?’ She flicked the button on her fob, the car chirruped into life. She felt a flutter of panic but did her best not to show it.

‘We didn’t know that then. It wasn’t a world we knew about.’ She looked at him. ‘You stay inside the law, otherwise you risk being part of the problem instead of the answer. We are doing everything, I promise you. I give you my word. Go back to your farm and wait.’ She looked quickly to her side; there was no one else around.

‘I waited last time and nothing happened. I’m not sitting this one out. You made mistakes then and you could make them now.’

‘There are lots of regrets. I promise you I’m going to do my very best to get justice for Louise and Sophie this time round.’

‘How do I know you won’t just protect your pals? You know people high up in the medical world. It takes that type of people to perform transplants.’ He stepped between her and the car. ‘Someone is performing these operations.’ She stopped, stared up at him, shoulders back. ‘A surgeon leaves his mark the way a killer does, the way he cuts — the butcher with his knife. You could take a guess at who you would get to do a heart and lung transplant, who you would choose to graft part of a healthy liver onto your pickled one, who you would choose to give you new kidneys.’

‘Nobody with ethics would condone such a practice.’ She tried to get past him. He stood in her way, hand on her car door.

‘But they might not know where the organs were coming from.’

She shook her head, flustered. She opened the car door. He stopped it from opening more than a few inches.

‘What about my wife? What did they take from her? What didn’t you tell me all those years ago?’

She bowed her head. ‘They took her heart. We had no idea why.’

‘From Chrissie?’

‘The same.’

‘Is there any way of finding out who had them? Can you find out who was waiting that matched my wife’s blood group?’

‘No. . It has to be a match with blood, tissue, age.’ She looked up at him. His face was full of anguish. She shook her head but her hands were trembling. Her eyes full of sympathy for Carmichael who stood a lonely figure. Deeply violent, dark. ‘We had no leads then. Whoever they were they came and went just as fast. Look, Carmichael. . I’m sorry to say it but Louise had a common blood group. She would have been useful for transplanting organs into a wide sector of waiting recipients.’

Carmichael bowed his head, turned and walked away.

Harding got into her car and sat for a few minutes, leaning her head back on the seat as she watched him go. She had to wait for her eyes to clear.