Dead Tomorrow

40

Including Roy Grace, there were twenty-two detectives and support staff assembled around two of the three communal work stations in Major Incident Room One, on the top floor of Sussex House.

The Major Incident Suite, reached through a warren of cream-painted corridors, occupied about a third of this floor. It comprised two Major Incident Rooms, of which MIR One was the larger, two witness interview rooms, a conference room for police and press briefings, the Crime Scene labs, and several offices for SIOs based elsewhere to move into during major investigations here.

MIR One was bright and modern-looking. It had small windows set high up with vertical blinds, as well as one frosted-glass ceiling panel, on which rain was pattering. There were no decorations to distract from the purpose of this place, which was absolute focus on the solving of serious violent crimes.

On the walls were whiteboards, to which had been pinned photographs of the three victims of Operation Neptune. The first young man was shown in plastic sheeting in the slipper of the drag head of the Arco Dee dredger, then during various stages of his postmortem. There were photographs of the second and third victims in their body bags on the deck of the Scoob-Eee deep-sea fishing boat, then also during their post-mortems. One, blown up larger than the others, was a close-up of the upper arm of the female, showing the tattoo with a ruler across it to give a sense of scale.

Also pinned to the whiteboard, providing light relief, was a picture of the Yellow Submarine from the Beatles album, beneath the words Operation Neptune. It had become traditional to illustrate the names of all operations with an image. This one had been devised by some wag on the inquiry team – probably Guy Batchelor, Grace guessed.

The morning’s copy of the Argus lay beside Grace’s open policy book and his notes, typed up by his MSA, which were in front of him on the imitation light-oak surface. The headline read: TWO MORE BODIES FOUND IN CHANNEL.

It could have been a lot worse. Kevin Spinella had done an uncharacteristically restrained job, writing up the story pretty much as Grace had spun it to him, saying that the police suspected the bodies had been dumped from a vessel passing through the Channel. It was enough to give the local community the information they were entitled to, enough to get them thinking about any teenagers they knew who had recently had surgery and had subsequently disappeared, but not enough to cause panic.

For Grace, this had become a potentially very important case. A triple homicide on the home turf of the new Chief Constable, within weeks of his commencing in the post. No doubt the poisonous ACC Vosper had already told Tom Martinson exactly what she thought of Grace, whose clumsy attempt to strike up conversation with him at Jim Wilkinson’s retirement party would have added credibility to her opinion. He intended to get a few minutes with Martinson at the dinner dance tonight, and an opportunity to assure him that this case was in good hands.

Dressed casually, in a black leather jacket over a navy sweatshirt and a white T-shirt, jeans and trainers, Roy Grace opened proceedings. ‘The time is 8.30 a.m., Saturday 29 November. This is the fourth briefing of Operation Neptune, the investigation into the deaths of three unknown persons, identified as Unknown Male 1, Unknown Male 2, and Unknown Female. This operation is commanded by myself, and by DI Mantle in my absence.’

He gestured to the Detective Inspector opposite him for the benefit of those who did not know her. Unlike many of the team in here, who were also dressed in casual weekend gear, Lizzie Mantle still wore one of her trademark masculine suits, today’s a brown and white chalk-stripe, her only concession to the weekend being to wear a brown roll-neck sweater instead of a more formal blouse.

‘I know several of you are going to the CID dinner dance tonight,’ Grace continued, ‘and because it is the weekend, a lot of people we need to speak to won’t be around, so I’m going to give some of you Sunday off. For those working over the weekend, we’ll have just one briefing tomorrow, at midday, by which time some of those at the ball will have slept off their hangovers.’ He grinned. ‘Then we return to our routine at 8.30 a.m. on Monday.’

At least Cleo understood the long and frequently anti-social hours his work demanded of him, and was supportive, he thought with some relief. That was in marked contrast to his years with Sandy, for whom his weekend working was a big issue.

He glanced at his notes. ‘We are waiting on the pathologist’s toxicology results, which may help us with the cause of death, but they won’t come through until Monday. Meantime, I’m going to start with reports for Unknown Male 1.’

He looked at Bella Moy, who had her habitual box of Maltesers open in front of her. She plucked one out, as if it was her drug, and popped it into her mouth.

‘Bella, anything on dental records?’

Rolling the chocolate around inside her mouth, she said, ‘No match so far, Roy, for Unknown Male 1, but something that may be significant. Two of the dentists I went to see commented that the condition of the young man’s teeth was poor for his age – indicative of bad nutrition and healthcare, and perhaps drug abuse. So it is likely he came from a deprived background.’

‘There was nothing about dental work on his teeth that gave the dentists any clue to his nationality?’ Lizzie Mantle quizzed.

‘No,’ Bella said. ‘There is no indication of any dental work, so it is quite possible he has never been to a dentist. In which case we are not going to find a match.’

‘You’ll have the three sets to take around on Monday,’ Grace said. ‘That should broaden your chances.’

‘I could do with a couple of other officers with me to cover all the dental practices quickly.’

‘OK. I’ll check our manpower resources after the meeting.’ Grace made a quick note, then turned to Norman Potting. ‘You were going to speak to organ transplant coordinators, Norman. Anything?’

‘I’m working my way through all the ones at every hospital within a hundred-mile radius of here, Roy,’ Potting said. ‘So far nothing, but I’ve discovered something of interest!’ He fell tantalizingly silent, with a smug grin.

‘Do you want to share it with us?’ Grace asked.

The DS was wearing the same jacket he always seemed to wear at weekends, whether winter or summer. A crumpled tweed affair with shoulder epaulettes and poacher’s pockets. He dug his hand into one, with slow deliberation, as if about to pull out something of great significance, but instead just left it there, irritatingly jingling some loose coins or keys as he spoke.

‘There’s a world shortage of human organs,’ he announced. Then he pursed his lips and nodded his head sagely. ‘Particularly kidneys and livers. Do you know why?’

‘No, but I’m sure we are about to find out,’ Bella Moy said irritably, and popped another Malteser into her mouth.

‘Car seat belts!’ Potting said triumphantly. ‘The best donors are those who die from head injuries, with the rest of their bodies left intact. Now that more people wear seat belts in cars, they only tend to die if they are totally mangled, or incinerated. How’s that for irony? In the old days, people would hit the windscreen head-first and die from that. It’s mostly motorcyclists today.’

‘Thank you, Norman,’ said Grace.

‘Something else that might be of interest,’ Potting said. ‘Manila in the Philippines is now actually nicknamed One Kidney Island.’

Bella shook her head cynically and said, ‘Oh, come on. That’s an urban myth!’

Grace cautioned her with a raised hand. ‘What’s the significance, Norman?’

‘It’s where wealthy Westerners go to buy kidneys from poor locals. The locals get a grand – a substantial sum of money by their standards. By the time you’ve bought it and had it transplanted, you’re looking at forty to sixty grand.’

‘Forty to sixty thousand pounds?’ Grace repeated, astonished.

‘A liver can fetch five or six times that amount,’ Potting replied. ‘People who’ve been on a waiting list for years get desperate.’

‘The people here aren’t Filipinos,’ Bella said.

‘I spoke to the coastguard again,’ Potting said, ignoring her. ‘Gave him the weight of the breeze blocks holding down our first poor sod. He doesn’t think the weather conditions of the past week would have been strong enough to have moved him. Most of the current is on or near the surface. Maybe if there had been a tsunami, but not otherwise.’

‘Thank you. That’s good information,’ Grace said, noting it down. ‘Nick?’

Glenn Branson, still looking ragged, raised a hand. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Just a quick point, Roy. All three of these persons could have been killed in another country, or even on a ship, and just dumped into the Channel, right? The story that you told the Argus?’

‘Yes. A few more miles further off the coast and they would not have been our problem. But they were found inside UK territorial waters, so they are. I’ve already got two of our researchers compiling a list of every known vessel that has passed through the Channel in the last seven days. But I don’t know yet how we are going to find the resources to follow up that information, or even if it’s worth trying.’

‘Well,’ Branson went on, ‘the bodies were found in about sixty-five feet of water – so if they hadn’t drifted they were dropped there, from a boat or a plane or a chopper. Some of the bigger container ships and supertankers using the English Channel need more draught than that, so we should be able to eliminate quite a bit of shipping. Also, I would have thought that any boat skipper would know from the Admiralty charts that it was a dredge area, and keep clear of it as a dump site if he didn’t want these to be discovered. A chopper or private plane pilot might not have looked at the Admiralty charts – or noticed. So I think we ought to check out the local airports, particularly Shoreham, find out what aircraft have been up during the past week and check them out.’

‘I agree,’ DI Mantle said. ‘Glenn’s making a good point. The problem is we don’t know what might have taken off from a private airfield without filing a flight plan. If it was a light aircraft on a mission to dump bodies, it’s quite possible the pilot wouldn’t have done.’

‘Or it could have been a plane from overseas somewhere,’ Nick Nicholl said.

‘I doubt that, Nick,’ Grace said. ‘Any foreign aircraft, say from France, would just go out a few miles into the Channel. They wouldn’t fly into British airspace.’

Branson shook his head. ‘No, sorry, chief, I disagree. They might have done it deliberately.’

‘How do you mean deliberately?’ DI Mantle asked.

‘Like, a double-bluff kind of thing,’ the DS replied. ‘Knowing we might find them and assume they were from England.’

Grace smiled. ‘Glenn, I think you’ve watched too many films. If someone from overseas was dumping bodies in the sea, they’d be doing it because they didn’t want them to be found – and they wouldn’t fly that close to the English coastline.’ He jotted down a note. ‘But we need to check every local airport and flying club – and air traffic controllers. And that can be done over the weekend, as they’ll be open.’

David Browne raised a hand. The Crime Scene Manager, in his early forties, could easily have passed for the actor Daniel Craig’s freckled, ginger-haired brother. It had long been a standing joke among his colleagues that a few years back, when the film company was casting the new James Bond, it had sent the contract to the wrong man. Dressed in a zippered fleece jacket, over an open-neck shirt, jeans and trainers, with his powerful shoulders and close-cropped hair, he appeared every inch an action man. But Browne’s looks belied his thorough approach to crime scenes, and his tireless attention to detail, which had taken him almost as high up the SOCO ladder as it was possible to rise.

‘All three bodies were wrapped in similar industrial-strength PVC, which can be purchased from any hardware or DIY store. They were bound with high-tensile cord that’s again widely available. My view is whoever did this wasn’t intending them to come back up. So far as the perp was concerned, it was job done.’

‘What are the chances of finding out where these items were purchased?’ Grace asked.

‘It wasn’t a big quantity,’ Browne said. ‘Not enough to stick in anyone’s mind. There are hundreds of places that sell them. But it would be worth doing a trawl of all the local suppliers. Most of them will be open over the weekend.’

Grace made another note on his Resourcing list. Then he turned to DC Nicholl again.

‘Nick?’

‘I’ve checked the Mispers lists. They have quite a number of missing teenagers who could be matches. They want me to let them have photographs of the victims.’

‘Chris Heaver’s been given photographs of all three of them. He’s preparing sanitized versions to release to the press on Monday. You can send them to the Missing People office at the same time.’

Chris Heaver was the Facial Identification Officer.

‘We’ll also get them circulated to every police station in the south-east, and see if we can get them on Crimewatch if we’ve no joy by the time the next show screens. Anyone know when that is?’

‘Tuesday week,’ Bella said. ‘I checked.’

Grace screwed up his face in disappointment. It was a long time to wait. Then he addressed the young DC, Emma-Jane Boutwood.

‘E-J?’

‘Well,’ she said, in her plummy, public-school voice, ‘I’ve looked into the case of the headless and limbless torso of the small boy that was recovered from the Thames in 2001. The police gave the poor little chap, who has never been identified, the name Adam. It was eventually established that he had come from Nigeria by the examination of microscopic granules of plants found in his intestines. The expert used was a Dr Hazel Wilkinson of the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew Gardens.’

David Browne, the Crime Scene Manager, raised his hand again. ‘Roy, we know Hazel – we’ve worked with her on a number of cases.’

‘OK,’ Grace said. ‘E-J, will you arrange to get her what she needs from Nadiuska?’

‘Yes, and there’s something else. I read about this in hospital.’ She gave a wan smile and a shrug. ‘Thought I might as well try to make use of my time there! One of the forensic labs we use for DNA, Cellmark Forensics, has a US parent, Orchid Cellmark. I’ve been in touch with a helpful guy over there called Matt Greenhalgh – he’s the Director of Forensics. He told me their labs in the US have been making progress analysing the isotopes in enzymes in DNA. Matt said they have established that food – in particular its constituent minerals – is sufficiently localized to get a region of origin, if not an actual country. Lab samples from Unknown Male 1 have been expressed out there and we should hear back early in the week.’

‘Good. Thanks, E-J,’ he said. He pondered the value of this for a moment, when foodstuffs were now regularly shipped all over the world. But it might help. Then he stood up and walked over to one of the whiteboards and pointed at the close-up photograph of the female’s upper arm. ‘Do you all see this?’

Everyone in the room nodded. It was a crude tattoo, one inch long, spelling rares.

‘Rares?’ Norman Potting said. ‘Could be a bad spelling of rash! Which might mean it’s a nasty rash!’ He chuckled at his own joke.

‘My guess is it’s a name,’ Roy Grace said, ignoring him. ‘The most likely thing a teenage girl would have tattooed on her arm is the name of a boyfriend. This one looks as if she might have done it herself. Anyone ever heard of this name?’

No one had.

‘Norman and E-J, I’m tasking you with finding out if this is a real name – and in which country. Or what it means if it isn’t a name.’

Then he looked at DI Mantle. ‘I know you’ve been out of the loop for a couple of days on your course, Lizzie. Anything you need to know at this stage?’

‘No, I’m up to speed, Roy,’ she said.

‘Good.’

Still on his feet, he glanced around the room and looked at the HOLMES analyst, Juliet Jones, a dark-haired woman in a brown-striped shirt.

‘Over the weekend we need a scoping operation – check with every county force in the UK to see if they have anything remotely similar. We can’t assume this is about transplants. It’s the most obvious line of enquiry, but we mustn’t rule out having a lone nutter on our hands. Nadiuska reckons that whoever did this has surgical skills. We need to find out from the Home Office about every surgeon, and doctor with surgical skills, who has been released from prison or from a mental home in the last couple of years as another starting point.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And all surgeons who have been struck off who might have a grievance.’ He noted this down as an action for the researchers.

‘What about the Internet, Roy?’ asked David Browne. ‘I recall that someone advertised a kidney for sale on eBay a few years ago. It would be worth a trawl.’

‘Yes, that’s a very good point.’ He turned to Lizzie Mantle. ‘Can you get the High-Tech Crime Unit on to that? See if anyone is advertising organs for sale.’

‘Do you really think anyone would do that, Roy?’ Bella asked. ‘Kill victims and sell their organs?’

Grace had long passed the period when he questioned human potential for evil. You could take the most horrific thing your brain was capable of imagining, then multiply it by a factor of ten and it still would not bring you close to the levels of depravity that people were capable of.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, I do.’