It was well after opening time and Judd was sober, which didn’t suit him. He held a pea-green cup of tea on a saucer, but every time he tried to lift it to his lips he’d given up. They’d been talking for an hour: question, answer, question, answer… routine, aimless, designed to confuse the suspect. Every time Valentine got up to take a cigarette break — which was every ten minutes — he’d ostentatiously taken his packet of Silk Cut with him. Judd didn’t just have a craving for nicotine, he had a dependency; they could see it was beginning to make his yellow-stained fingers shake.
Then Shaw showed him the artist’s impression that Ally Judd said was an accurate depiction of his oldest son.
‘This was in all the local papers, TV. I gave you your own copy too.’
‘Yeah — so?’
‘Your daughter-in-law says it is unmistakably your son, Sean.’
‘Looks like him, all right. You’d think I’d come and tell you that? I can look after my own…’ He regretted that, they could both see it in his eyes. Because he couldn’t look after his own.
‘He came back because you’re dying. But he couldn’t — didn’t — feel he could talk to you. Why was that? He thought Bryan was right, didn’t he? That you’d killed Norma Jean?’
‘So you knew he was back in Lynn?’
Judd whispered to the solicitor. ‘I don’t have to answer that question,’ he said, smiling through wrecked teeth.
‘Can you explain how a pair of your overalls came to be found in the launderette, Mr Judd — soaked in blood — on the night your son died?’
The solicitor stiffened, as though she’d got a shock off a cattle fence. But Judd pushed her hand aside when she tried to place it on the table in front of him. ‘I’ve got a bag of special tokens — Ally gives ’em to me. I work in an abattoir. You’ve seen it — seen what I do. You got me in here to ask a fucking question like that? That is harassment. You’ve got me on the arson charge — there’s a date, for the court. I’m sticking my hand up for that — OK — so well done, boys. Isn’t that enough?’
He hadn’t missed a beat and the explanation had been fluid and calm.
‘But that’s not how it works, is it?’ said Shaw. ‘The abattoir collects the overalls and gets them washed in town, on contract. But not this set of overalls. And not on the night your son died.’
Judd’s eyes widened. ‘It’s Bry, isn’t it? You still think I killed him? You think I don’t love my kids? You think I don’t ever wake up and not think of them first? I’d die for them.’ He fingered a gold cross which had fallen out of his open-necked shirt, and Shaw noticed the contrast
‘There’s twenty — more — who’ll tell you I was out on the street that day — by the fire, drinking. I didn’t kill Bry — I didn’t go anywhere near him. It was cow’s blood on the overalls. Your lot in the white coats too stupid to work that out? It’s not Silent Witness, is it?’
Shaw didn’t have an answer to that, because there was one irritating flaw in Ally Judd’s statement: why had she put the blood-soaked overalls back in the wash? Andy Judd had been released, still constrained by the conditions of bail previously set.
In the shipping agent’s office overlooking the Alexandra Dock Galloway finished his e-mail exchange and Shaw took his place at the computer, punching two words into Google: Kalo Kircher.
He’d been a fool. Phillips’s tangential link with Israel had been a coincidence he should have checked out. DC Twine’s summary of her background had included the fact that Kalo Kircher’s children supported a charitable medical programme in Israel. Ravid Lotnar — the Rosa’s last patient — was an Israeli citizen who had tried to claim that there was documentary proof he’d had his organ transplant in his own country.
Shaw watched the spinning wheel on the screen as Google searched the worldwide web. The first page returned was headed ‘The Kircher Institute’.
Shaw clicked the link. The Kircher Institute was a hospital in Jerusalem offering basic medical services to both the Jewish and Palestinian populations. He worked
He gave his DS a single A4 sheet he’d printed out — a history of the clinic from the website.
The Kircher Institute was founded in 1968 by three brothers — Gyorgy, Hanzi, and Pitivo Kircher, all doctors, based in the United States. The hospital is dedicated to the poor, and named for their father, Kalo Kircher, a pioneering surgeon of the 1930s. In 1970 it offered outpatient services. The first surgical ward opened in 1973 — it now holds nearly 200 patients. No charges are made for the services given. Funding is largely undertaken in the US amongst the Jewish community — although significant donations have been made (see list) from organizations such as the United Nations, and World Jewish Relief (WJR). The Kircher accepts patients on a needs-first basis, irrespective of religion, ethnicity, or sex. The clinic has led a campaign within Israel to amend legislation to allow the removal of organs for transplant from patients certified as brain dead.
Valentine’s mobile rang. He took the call, listened, then cut the line. ‘Campbell’s with Lotnar now. He says he was given the documentation as part of the deal. Operation is listed as taking place at the Kircher Institute ten days ago.’
Shaw called up a newspaper archive story to show Valentine. The headline was ‘Funding Crisis Threatens Kircher’.
The report was over a year old. But the website was live — the clinic still open.
‘How’s that for a noble motive?’ said Shaw. ‘Keeping that clinic open demands a regular, substantial flow of income.’
They both looked out through the tinted windows as the sun began to stretch the shadows of the cranes on the dockside to breaking point. The lights on the Rosa stood out in the dusk, the hold pontoons now slid firmly over the cargo of grain.
A taxi arrived with pizzas and coffee.
Twine sent them an e-mail via the office network — everything he’d managed to track down on the history of MV Rosa and her crew. The ship was eight years old and had been built in Valparaiso, Chile, though she was Brazilian registered. Originally called the Estanca, she’d sailed regularly from Sao Paulo to Tilbury carrying what was termed general cargo — that was foodstuffs, timber and scrap metal. She’d been bought by her present owners, a shipping company based in Basle, three years earlier. The owners were Swiss, anonymous, and appeared on no known criminal record according to Interpol HQ at
‘Tel Aviv,’ said Shaw, training night glasses on the bridge of the MV Rosa.
‘How’d a character like that get another ship?’ asked Valentine.
‘Let’s get Interpol to try the Swiss owners again,’ said Shaw. ‘Get Twine to organize it — get the paperwork started. It’ll take for ever, so the sooner we start the better.’
They watched another small coaster coming through the Alexandra Dock, out of the Hook, carrying TV sets, according to Galloway. It slid into Berth 2 on the far side, dwarfed by an artificial mountain of scrap metal. Fork-lift trucks swarmed like rats, and a necklace of HGVs queued to unload. At the bottom of Erebus Street a bright light burnt in the hawthorn bushes where the power company team had left it on for security. The old
The air-conditioning in the office was making Shaw’s throat dry so he glugged two pints of cold milk he’d ordered delivered with the pizzas.
‘And she can’t sail?’ said Valentine, nodding at the Rosa.
‘Not unless I say so,’ said Shaw. ‘So we wait.’
‘For?’
Shaw didn’t answer, but swung the field glasses over the scene one last time. Berth 4 was still deserted, a flash of last-minute rays from the sun gilding it gold. He focused on the electricity sub-station. His heart stopped, missed a beat, as he watched the gate in the perimeter wire swing open. Two figures emerged, one supporting the other.
Campbell had picked up the movement too and scrabbled for a pair of binoculars. ‘It’s a blind spot,’ she said. ‘Just there, by the gates. I talked it through with Mark — the CCTV’s too far round behind the container park. They won’t be on film.’
And they knew it. The two figures didn’t take a step onto the quayside, but skirted the container park, disappearing into the maze, then re-emerging opposite the gangplank to the Rosa. They both sat, their backs to the metal container side, in the shadow. But Shaw could see them well enough with the night-vision glasses.
It was Andy Judd, and his son Neil.
‘And you think she’d risk it — right here, under our noses?’ Valentine lit a Silk Cut and flicked the match into the dock. He didn’t look convinced. They were outside on the quay, in the dark, getting air, although the heat was bad — the whole dock a giant storage heater re-radiating the day’s sunshine right back into a muggy night sky. The Rosa was 200 yards away, the three crew decks lit. They’d watched Andy Judd and his son for an hour, waiting in the shadows until darkness had fallen. At ten precisely the Rosa’s gangplank lights had gone off for just thirty seconds. When they’d flickered back on they were gone.
‘Phillips thinks we’ve shut up shop, that we believe Peploe’s our man,’ said Shaw. ‘And let’s think about that, George. What evidence did we have on Peploe? Untraced human tissue in the Theatre Seven organ bank. And who had the keys to the organ bank in those vital few hours before we ordered the search? Phillips. What if she just swapped tissue and organs from A, B, or C into D? She could have set him up. She’d already done a fine job painting a character portrait for us: the playboy with the expensive lifestyle and the private patients. She left us to join up the dots. She knows we’re looking for MVR, but she thinks we’re looking up at the hospital.’
A rat swam across the dock, the V-shaped wake geometrically perfect.
Valentine shook his head. ‘If Andy Judd’s the patient, where’d the money come from? You said a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a shot — he works at the abattoir, for Christ’s sake.’
But Shaw was ahead of him now, fitting pieces together. ‘Well — think it through. We can be pretty sure, can’t we, that Bryan Judd was involved in the organ-trafficking. And if he was on the inside then there’s every chance Andy and Neil were as well. But Bryan was there…’ Shaw pointed at his own feet. ‘In the middle. Even that far down the food chain he’d have picked up a pay cheque. Perhaps they promised him an op for Andy at cost price. Perhaps there’s honour amongst thieves. Or…’ And it was the first time the thought had struck. ‘Or, he did something special for them. Something that would buy Andy Judd the op he desperately needs to stay alive.’
Valentine looked towards the Rosa. There was a light on the bridge, but no sign of anyone on watch.
A seagull came in through the floodlights on the far berth, and flapped over their heads. Shaw’s mobile rang. It was the power engineer, Anderson. ‘Hi. The power load on your boat just went up — about five minutes ago.’
‘Significantly?’
‘Well, if it’s going to lights, you’re talking enough to Rosa an hour ago.’
It was warm, even out on the quayside, but Shaw still felt a cold sweat breaking out.
He swore, then cut the line. ‘They’ve started,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t make sense. Judd can’t be a donor, so where’s the healthy liver coming from? Neil?’ He nodded to himself, because that made sense. What had Justina called it? LDLT: live donor liver transplant. Or did they have the organ they needed on ice? He’d been a fool, thinking that they had to wait for the donor to turn up. ‘Ring Twine. Get me a unit down here — fast,’ he said to Valentine, unable to keep the tension out of his voice. ‘Faster.’
By the time Shaw reached the Rosa he was running, certain now that he’d waited too long.
The gangplank to the ship was metal, ribbed, and set askew. As Shaw climbed he glimpsed the oily water below in the three-foot gap between the hull and the wharf, a porthole’s light reflected as a lazy, unmoving oval. Strapped to the side of the gangplank was the three-inch-thick power cable. The ship hummed with power, a note low enough for Shaw to feel it in his bones. A door stood open at the top. He looked over his shoulder and saw Valentine behind him. Back-up would be twenty minutes. The rule book said he should wait. But for once he didn’t have time for the rule book.
He stepped over the metal threshold into a stairwell, immediately struck by the carpet — a corporate flecked POOP DECK — and a plan of the Rosa. The corridors and serried cabins reminded Shaw of the map of Level One. He stood for a second listening; somewhere laughter came in short, drunken bursts. Galloway had said the crew was seven strong. He looked Valentine in the face, about to ask if he was up for going on, but the look in his DS’s eyes told him it was a question he didn’t need to ask.
They climbed towards the noise. One flight, two, then three, before stepping through another door into a corridor. Again, the odd feeling that he was on a cross-Channel ferry — the antiseptic smell, the blue metal doors, the carpet, the helpful signs.
Footsteps were suddenly near, and round a corner came one of the crew — a Filipino in spotless white shorts, carrying a towel. He stopped in his tracks, then turned and ran. They followed for twenty yards, then a sharp left and a door ahead, a sign which read MESS.
The crew were ready for them, all standing, tensed, the smell of fear in the airless room as solid as the cool metal walls. There were two tables with banquette seating, a wall-fitted flat-screen TV, a shelf of videos and DVDs; two portholes, thrown open. There were six men in the room and none of them spoke.
Shaw flashed his warrant card. ‘Captain?’
No one spoke again.
‘Anyone speak English?’ asked Valentine, walking in to see that they’d been watching a DVD — no sound. Porn: two men, one woman, the smiles and gasps as fake as the suntans.
Shaw knew they’d be calculating too, trying to work out if these two policemen were really stupid enough to come aboard without support. He tried not to show that his heart beat had hit 120.
‘George, stay here. No one leaves. I’ll get the rest on the search.’
Valentine’s mobile trilled and he flicked it open to see a text from Twine.
FIVE MINUTES AWAY
‘Unit 3’s at the gate as well,’ said Valentine, leaning back against the metal wall. ‘You lot can sit.’
They subsided slowly, like tower blocks on a demolition site.
‘You,’ said Shaw, pointing at the man who spoke English. ‘Name?’
‘Albert Samblant, First Officer.’ The man looked Shaw in the face, unable to stop his focus falling on the moon eye.
‘Right. Tell ’em to sit tight. No one’s going anywhere. Then I want you to take me to the captain’s cabin.’
Samblant spoke to the crew in English, Spanish and French. Then he led the way, his short legs working crab-like, so that he seemed to sidle down the corridor.
The captain’s cabin was another ladder up. Samblant knocked, then stood back. Shaw noticed that he was
‘Open it,’ said Shaw.
Albert shrugged, rattling the lock, but the door wouldn’t open.
Shaw knocked once, twice, then took two steps back, swivelled onto his left leg, and kicked out — making contact at a point precisely three inches above the lock. The door and jamb buckled, so that the second kick left it hanging from a single hinge.
The room stank of cigarette smoke and a plate of chorizo and beans which was on the small table, untouched. There was an ashtray containing a single match — broken to form a V. Shaw tried to understand what that meant — that Andy Judd had been in the cabin? Maybe.
The First Officer hadn’t moved. He stood on the threshold as if barred by an invisible trip wire.
There was one other door and Shaw pushed it open to reveal a shower room. The air was still heavy with moisture, the mirrors misted. Sitting in the shower, the curtain wrapped round his neck, was a man with a face the colour of a rotten peach, a film of vomit dripping from his chin to his naked chest. No one, Shaw instantly knew, with a face like that, had ever taken another living breath. The rest of the body was blotchy but white, a thin stain of urine running away from the corpse in a spiral towards the plughole.
Shaw’s heartbeat was painful now, and the almost physical shock of seeing a corpse sparked a massive release of adrenaline in his bloodstream. He went back to
‘Is this the captain?’
‘Jesus,’ said Samblant, trying to cover his face. Then he threw up, missing the toilet bowl.
Shaw got hold of the corpse under the armpits. The flesh was still warm. Lifting the body away from the tiled shower wall, he tried to unwrap the plastic curtain which was clinging to it like a second skin. When he’d got the material away from the neck he felt for a pulse. He was appalled that a body could be at once so hot and so dead. The captain had been fifty, maybe more, just the hands and face browned by a lifetime afloat. In the base of the shower there was a tide mark, a thin line of dirt, red and gritty. Shaw ran a finger along it and looked at the smudge, smelt it, worked it between thumb and forefinger. It was red sawdust.
‘Bloodwood,’ he said.
‘Where’s Phillips?’ he said to Samblant, who was sitting against the wall beside a washbasin. A dark saddle in his jeans around his groin showed that he’d wet himself. He still held shaking hands across his face. Shaw pulled the meshed fingers apart, grabbed his chin. ‘Where’s Phillips, the surgeon?’
But there was still enough fear in this man to summon up the nerve for what must have been one last lie. ‘Gone. An hour, two.’
In the corridor they heard footsteps and Twine appeared at the door. He took in the scene. ‘Unit’s here — six officers. Another on the way. Search the ship?’
Twine’s team searched the Rosa in twenty minutes: six decks down to the engine room, eighteen cabins, the forward stores, the galley, the mess room. Nothing. Then they did it again, this time using the plans on each deck to block off each room shown, and with a dog team they’d called in from St James’s. Nothing. The Port Authority got them a skeleton crew for the quayside so they could roll back the last pontoon to reveal the cargo — three separate holds brimful of grain, the surface of each as untouched as a beach at dawn. Then they edged down the side of the deck to the fo’c’s’le and checked that. Again nothing, just cable, anchors, and rope.
Shaw was back in the mess room when Twine reported in. ‘We’re doing it again.’ Shaw laid his hands out on the mess table, aware that stress was making his joints ache. If the operating room wasn’t on board, where was it? They hadn’t actually seen Andy and Neil Judd go aboard — perhaps they’d gone somewhere else, the surgeon too? The containers on the dock? That was possible. Metallic. Hot. But did they rumble and hum? The dockside cranes would make them vibrate. Or the HGVs edging past in first gear.
‘OK, Paul. Rustle up the dock manager — I want all the containers opened on the quayside. Now.’
Twine went, and Shaw was pretty sure he saw Samblant
He rang Birley at the dock gates. ‘Mark? Run the CCTV back to when the Rosa was in port last time — see if you can ID any of the containers on the dockside that night. Then compare that with what we’ve got out there now. OK — do it.’
He looked at the crew. One of them smiled, a fatal error, because you couldn’t fake a smile like that.
‘Stand up,’ said Shaw. They all stood, exchanging glances, and one or two now suppressing smiles. They thought they were safe, and that made Shaw certain they weren’t. Valentine came in with DC Lau.
‘Search them,’ he said. They did a two-hander, shuffling each one forward and then pushing them through to the galley. Nothing.
‘OK — strip off,’ said Shaw. They piled their clothes on the mess table and stood, their faces showing something else now — anger, betrayal, shame perhaps, so that the tension in the room was electric.
Six naked bodies. Six clean naked bodies. ‘Clean as whistles,’ said Valentine. All except for the white charity bracelets on each wrist. But they were clean, and that’s what Shaw had missed, until now.
‘The ship’s got two thousand tonnes of grain on it — the dust’s everywhere down by the hold, but everyone’s spotless,’ said Shaw. ‘The ship’s spotless.’ He ran a finger along the table top. ‘Why?’ he asked Samblant, stepping inside his personal space. ‘Why’s everything clean?’
‘We don’t touch the cargo,’ said Samblant. ‘It’s loaded,
Shaw thought about that, and the bloodwood dust in the captain’s shower room. He tried to call up a mental picture of the single sheet of A4 Twine had put together on the history of the Rosa — a ship’s CV. He couldn’t recall its original name, but he remembered its trade — running timber between Sao Paulo and Tilbury for five years in the early 1990s.
‘So why, and how, did the captain get covered in sawdust?’ he asked. He held up a finger, still smudged red. ‘Muirapiranga — bloodwood,’ he said. Samblant’s eyes faked confusion, but Shaw could see that the emotion he was trying to mask was fear. He didn’t get an answer to his question — but that didn’t matter. Because he knew now — not only why, and how, but where.