Scared to Live

31

The bar of the Mulberry Tree in West Street was deserted in the afternoon, once the lunchtime rush was over. It was hardly worth staying open, except as a matter of principle. This afternoon, there were only two customers — and one of them was there reluctantly.

For a moment, Georgi Kotsev smiled at Diane Fry and placed a strong, brown hand on the table between them, like an offering.

‘Baby smuggling,’ he said. ‘It’s very regrettable.’

‘Is that the word you’d use?’

‘Forgive me. My English is not adequate, perhaps.’

‘It’s just fine, Georgi.’

Fry couldn’t remember when she’d last sat in a bar with so little atmosphere. The walls were subdued pastel colours, designed in a mock Georgian style, but with ornate chandeliers. The armchairs were imitation leather and so deep that she had to sit forward on the edge of her chair to remain upright. Kotsev had left his glass of vodka untouched in front of him out of politeness, though she’d refused his offer of a drink.

‘Until the year 2004, baby selling wasn’t a crime in Bulgaria,’ he said. ‘Even now, a woman who sells her baby has committed no offence. By law, she is regarded as a victim.’

‘But what about the dealers? The middle men?’

‘Yes, their activities are now a criminal offence. If they’re caught, they might face a year in prison.’

‘A year? Are you kidding?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Things are changing. But perhaps not quickly enough for some.’

‘Why would a mother sell her baby, Georgi?’

‘Ah, babies are a valuable commodity. A mother might sell one to buy a house, or to feed the rest of her family for a little while.’

‘It can’t be so easy to smuggle babies out of the country, can it?’

‘What? Bulgaria has five borders — Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey — and all of them leaky, like a sieve. And we have the Black Sea coast, with little ports where you can sail a boat across. Yes, our country has become a corridor for smuggling of all kinds. Drugs, cigarettes, vegetables, people …’ Kotsev fingered his drink. ‘A while ago, our authorities broke a kidney-trafficking ring. Six people had been taken to a clinic in Istanbul, where their kidneys were sold to transplant patients. This is a rich business for someone — kidneys are worth between two and five thousand dollars each. It depends on the blood type, you see.’

‘Did you say vegetables just now, Georgi?’

‘Ah, yes. Potatoes, for example. Also apples. Any kind of food that is scarce. In Sofia, the police arrested a smuggler known as Nick the Chicken, on account of his speciality.’

Fry sat back, fighting the feeling that she’d stepped into some kind of Russian farce. The armchair squeaked at her movement. Taped music played somewhere, and a barman appeared to wipe glasses that hadn’t been used.

Kotsev couldn’t resist a sip of vodka. ‘The main interest to us might be in the connection with the victims of the double shooting in Pleven. It seems they not only had a personal relationship, but they were also colleagues.’

‘That’s not unusual.’

‘No. But guess where Dimitar Iliev and Piya Yotova worked.’

Fry didn’t like being asked to guess. Someone who asked you to guess expected you to be wrong, and she usually was. But as she remembered the photo of Iliev’s red Ford Escort with its shattered back window and BG plates, Fry thought she heard distant screams, and the voices of children. And she realized she didn’t have to guess. ‘An orphanage,’ she said.

‘You are almost correct. Iliev and Yotova were employed by an official organization which places children in state orphanages.’

‘So they had a lot of power in deciding the fate of those children?’

‘Da, razbira se.’

‘And perhaps they were in a position to falsify paperwork, remove records, take illegal payments — ’

Kotsev threw out an arm dramatically. ‘Where money is involved, someone will become corrupt. But perhaps they thought they were doing good work too.’

‘Doing good? How?’

‘At one time, our Bulgarian orphanages were not very pleasant places to be. Some children stayed in them for many years, without ever finding homes. Who can say whether it might not have been better to find a child a home, even if illegally?’

‘Somehow, Georgi, I suspect these people aren’t too scrupulous about checking where children are going to end up.’

He bowed his head slightly. ‘Perhaps you’re right. It’s possible some of those orphans went to a bad fate.’

‘Why hasn’t this trade been exposed?’

‘Well, there are political ramifications …’

‘Oh, the European Union,’ said Fry. The phrase had begun to sound like the kiss of death to rationality.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘I suppose what it boils down to is that the Bulgarian authorities wouldn’t want evidence of large-scale baby smuggling to come to light right now.’

‘Especially if other EU member states are involved. It would cause quite a scandal. Worse, it would give ammunition to those who do not want Bulgaria to join the EU.’

Fry felt suddenly exhausted. No matter how hard you tried to achieve some kind of justice, there were occasions when it was obvious you were wasting your time. The realities lined up against you were insurmountable. And this was the way it always would be. Human nature would never change.

‘So we’re looking at a baby selling ring, with at least four people involved. Is that right? The two people killed in the shooting in Pleven, plus Rose Shepherd and Simon Nichols. Or, rather, Rosica Savova and Simcho Nikolov. And what about the Zhivko brothers?’

‘There are connections between them, certainly.’

‘Were Dimitar Iliev and Piya Yotova wealthy?’

‘No, not all. They had an ordinary home in an apartment block in Pleven. They drove an aged Ford Escort, as you saw. They had no money hidden away, that we could find.’

‘And Nikolov was pretty much destitute.’ Fry thought of the electronic gates guarding Bain House in Foxlow. ‘So it appears that Savova made all the money from the enterprise.’

‘Da. It would seem so.’

‘Do you think there was a falling-out between the principal players? Was it Nikolov that Rose Shepherd was afraid of? Did he come to Derbyshire looking for her?’

‘I do not know, Diane.’

‘Well, someone did. And the Mullens got innocently mixed up in this?’

‘It depends what you mean by “innocently”. They must have removed the baby from Bulgaria illegally.’

‘True. We know that much, at least. But why would the Mullens’ adoption have failed?’

‘Who can tell? Adoption has become very difficult for foreigners.’

‘But Bulgaria was supposed to be the place to go to adopt a baby. According to Henry Lowther, anyway.’

‘No longer,’ said Kotsev. ‘Since Bulgaria wishes to join the EU, it has signed the Hague Treaty. As a consequence, our new laws say that orphans or abandoned children become available after having no contact with their family for six months. I understand there are now fifteen thousand children in our orphanages, but only a very few legally adoptable.’

‘So the Lowthers fell foul of that change?’

‘I would say so. It is a legacy of the Soviet mentality — let the state do everything for you, from cradle to grave. And this is the result. The state can look after your unwanted child, why not? So yes, it is difficult. It costs many thousands of dollars.’

‘So they went for the illegal option. They must have been desperate by then.’

Kotsev nodded. ‘Is there a photograph of this child?’ he asked.

‘Yes, here — ’

He looked at the photo of Luanne for several minutes. Then he muttered under his breath something Fry didn’t catch. For the first time, she thought she saw his confident exterior dented.

‘She looks to me as though she might be a Roma,’ said Fry.

Kotsev sighed deeply. ‘Yes, you’re right. I had a suspicion, but no more.’

‘Suspicion?’

He waved a hand, as if he were swatting away a fly. ‘I understand if you’re angry at this, but there is some information that is difficult to share.’

‘Oh, really? I thought you were sharing everything with me, so we could work together as colleagues.’

‘Very well.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s possible that this child belongs to one of our leading criminals, the Mafia boss I mentioned. A very unpleasant gangster.’

‘What do you mean “belongs to”?’

‘They say he had a child, born to a young Romani woman. The woman ran away from him when the baby was born. It took him a little while to catch up with her.’

‘What happened to the woman? Is she dead?’

‘People who upset mutra chiefs don’t survive very long. But her body has never been found, that’s all I can say.’

‘And she sold the baby?’

‘It is possible,’ said Kotsev. ‘Her concern might have been to save the child, to get her out of the way of danger. That is how it is with mothers, I understand. But fathers want their children, too. Some want them very badly.’

‘How would he have tracked her down here, to Derbyshire? Could his influence reach here so easily?’

‘Yes. In fact, he might have preferred it. It’s not so easy in Bulgaria for the mutras now. As I said, the country is changing. There’s no place for those who grew up in the old ways.’

‘The old ways, Georgi? You mean bribery and corruption?’

Kotsev shrugged. ‘After the Change, that was the way things worked. It was the system.’

‘But the system didn’t work equally for everybody, did it? Isn’t that important?’

He smiled. ‘Ah, now you sound like a Communist.’

But Fry didn’t return his smile. ‘In particular, it didn’t work for Zlatka Shishkov.’

‘This is true.’

‘Georgi, would a father really go so far to get his child back? Would he go to any lengths?’

Kotsev took a drink, started to shake his head, then nodded instead. ‘I can’t answer that question, Diane.’

Fry looked at him, wanting to ask him whether he was a father himself. But she was afraid it would sound too personal.

Kotsev shrugged. ‘We might have expected the child to be taken — to be returned to her father. But that hasn’t happened.’

‘Not yet,’ said Fry. ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’

Fry updated her colleagues at West Street with the news, and they considered the theory suggested by the latest information.

‘You know, I never thought the fire made sense myself,’ she said. ‘And it still doesn’t.’

‘No? What do you mean?’ asked Cooper.

‘Well, starting that fire was a very dangerous thing to do, wasn’t it? It doesn’t fit the same pattern as the killing of Rose Shepherd. Apart from the effectiveness of the technique, there are no signs that it’s a professional job. Where’s the planning, the cool calculation?’

‘Perhaps you’re right, but I’m not sure why.’

‘Ben, look. For a start, they must have known Luanne wasn’t in the house with the rest of the family, or they wouldn’t have risked it. Not if they wanted to get her back so badly.’

‘Yes, I agree.’

‘And I’m not even sure what they hoped to achieve by starting the fire. Did they mean for the Mullens to be killed?’

‘Maybe they just made a mistake. If they acted recklessly and failed to make sure that Luanne Mullen wasn’t in the house — ’

‘They’d be in big trouble, wouldn’t they?’

‘But now it’s Luanne who’s at risk again, isn’t it? These people will stop at nothing. So forget the fire — the living are most important. We have to save that child.’

‘If Brian Mullen is thinking straight, he ought to realize the risk,’ said Cooper.

Fry shook her head. ‘This case has been the same all the way round. No one has behaved in a rational way. Everyone involved seems to have gone headlong towards their fate with blinkers on. You’d think they were a lot of lemmings throwing themselves off a cliff.’

‘Emotions,’ said Cooper. ‘Emotions always interfere with rational behaviour.’

Fry began to put together her notes to update the DI and Mr Kessen.

‘Do you want someone to check on the Heights of Abraham later, Diane?’ asked Cooper. ‘The Lowthers said that’s where John is likely to go.’

‘Yes, thanks.’

As she was on her way out of the room, Cooper remembered one more thing. ‘By the way, I’ve asked Dr Sinclair to listen to the interview we did with John Lowther. He’ll be coming in any time now.’

‘Good idea. It’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say.’

‘Would you be worried if you had hallucinations, Diane?’

Fry frowned. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Apparently a lot of people aren’t troubled by them and don’t seek psychiatric help.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. It’s strange, isn’t it?’

Cooper felt he was putting it mildly. Of course, he only had his experience with his mother to go by. She’d certainly been troubled by the hallucinations caused by her schizophrenia, and so had everyone else around her. But his experience might be a narrow one.

‘What sort of hallucinations are we talking about, though?’ said Fry.

‘According to Dr Sinclair, the misattribution of internal events to an external source.’

Fry laughed. ‘Oh, those sort.’

After she’d been interrogated for twenty minutes by Hitchens and Kessen, Fry felt exhausted. Her eyes were dry and her skin felt grimy. She nipped down the corridor to the ladies’, where she splashed cold water on her face and practised controlled breathing for a while until she felt calmer.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror over the washbasin. Some days, it wasn’t a good idea to do that too often. If she wasn’t careful, she could suddenly get a glimpse of a person she’d almost forgotten — the girl who’d lived in those foster homes back in the Black Country. Sometimes it seemed like a million years ago. But at other times, she knew it was really just yesterday.

Fry had once seen a newspaper article that began: ‘Kate Adie, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Bowen, Larry Grayson, Edgar Allan Poe, Bill Clinton and Steve Jobs … What do they all have in common?’

The journalist’s answer, of course, was that they were all adopted or fostered. It made Fry want to rip the newspaper into shreds and stuff it up the feature writer’s backside. As if she might aspire to make it on to a list that included Larry Grayson and Bill Clinton. It didn’t fill her with positive emotions to know that she shared something in common with Jim Bowen. And Edgar Allan Poe? Wasn’t he stark, raving bonkers?

Fry dried her face, combed her hair, and brushed her jacket. There was no reason for her to look as untidy as Ben Cooper.

Of course, there were a lot of bad reasons for adopting children. Adoption was often a selfish act, but some of the reasons were selfish in particular ways. Some couples thought it would save their marriage, others wanted to replace an infant who’d died, or provide a companion for an only child. They might do it because all their friends had babies, or because they saw a child as a fashion accessory, or a political statement. They thought adoption would provide company in their old age, or a pension plan, a successor in the family business, or just someone to carry on the name. All of those reasons were essentially exploitative. None of them focused on the child for its own sake. So what had Lindsay Mullen’s reason been? Could she believe what Henry Lowther said?

Adoption was always tough. But it seemed evident that the Mullens loved Luanne. If her natural father succeeded in getting her back, there was no knowing what her fate might be.

Fry stared at her reflection and shook her head. She was starting to feel better. She was thinking again, instead of just reacting. She needed expert advice really, but it was difficult to know where to go for expertise in baby trafficking. Not every agency was forthcoming with information.

She remembered that there was a South Yorkshire Police unit called Operation Reflex, set up to combat human trafficking. An officer from the Immigration Service worked with the team to provide information on individuals who might be involved in immigration crime.

But Reflex were interested in women being trafficked for the sex trade. They’d scored a success in Sheffield a little while ago, with the case of a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl sold into prostitution. The girl had arrived at Heathrow Terminal Three to take up a job selling ice cream, and had herself been sold for the price of a second-hand car. Before she arrived in South Yorkshire, the girl had been passed around from hand to hand, gradually losing her value when she was no longer a virgin and had suffered damage from regular beatings. It was probably what the car trade called depreciation.

Fry watched her face change in the mirror. That was better. Now she looked more like someone who was in control.

‘Fear is a very interesting emotion,’ said Dr Sinclair. ‘You can’t be afraid retrospectively. You can only fear something that hasn’t happened yet.’

Setting up the tape for him, Cooper paused before pressing the ‘play’ button. Damn right, he thought. That was why there were so many things to be afraid of.

‘Scared to live,’ he said. ‘That’s the way you described Mr Lowther’s current state of mind.’

‘That’s correct.’ Sinclair looked up. ‘If you don’t understand that concept, then you haven’t learned to glimpse what goes on in other people’s minds. Some individuals find life unbearable, every day a torment. They become convinced that continuing to live will be such an ordeal that dying is the only possible escape.’

Cooper couldn’t think of an answer to that. He started the tape, and they listened to John Lowther’s interview in silence for a few minutes.

‘Yes, some people go abroad, hunting for whores.No — for babies.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Is it time?’

‘He’s conflating two subjects in his mind here, I think,’ said Sinclair. ‘The whores and babies thing, I mean.’

‘I wondered if John Lowther could be a paedophile. What do you think, Doctor?’

Sinclair shook his head vigorously. ‘No, there’s no indication of that.’

‘Are you sure? I’m no psychiatrist, but babies and whores sounds a very dubious association of ideas to me. I understand that Mr Lowther doesn’t quite know what he’s saying, but isn’t that sort of thing called a Freudian slip?’

‘Freud has nothing to do with it. You don’t understand how this works. What we’re dealing with here is not an association of thoughts, but a disassociation. Mr Lowther’s brain is skipping so quickly to an unrelated subject that there appears to be no distinction or separation between them, as far as the listener is concerned. That’s not the way it is in the patient’s mind — his brain just isn’t making normal connections, the way ours would. Mr Lowther is probably saying words that sound like the ones he’s thinking.’

‘OK. Anything else?’

Cooper pressed the ‘play’ button again, and they listened to the rest of the interview. Sinclair jotted a few notes.

‘Yes, in this interview, I think we can hear pressure of speech, where the patient speaks quickly and incessantly. Also derailment, or flight of ideas, when he switches topic, sometimes in mid-sentence. That can be in response to an outside stimulus.’

‘I like your tie.’

‘Yes, that sort of thing. You might also detect a degree of tangentiality, when he replies to questions in an oblique or irrelevant manner. To you, in your profession, that would probably sound very suspicious and evasive, I imagine.’

Cooper nodded. Evasive was the exact word that he’d used about John Lowther after his interview.

‘In this form of speech, he reaches conclusions that don’t follow logically, or his thoughts might have no conclusion at all. Sometimes the individual words are correct, but the manner they’re put together is wrong, resulting in what some clinicians call word salad. Sounds rather than meanings govern the connection between words — a clang association. He might also repeat a word over and over, or echo other people’s speech.’

‘That confusion in his speech was already evident a few days ago.’

‘Really?’ Sinclair frowned. ‘It varies with the individual patient, of course. But perhaps he had stopped taking the medication earlier than we thought.’

‘Will this get worse?’

‘Yes, as his condition deteriorates, he might become incoherent, using inappropriate words or mispronouncing them, or making up new words altogether.’

‘Hunting for whores. No — for babies.’

Sinclair shrugged. ‘It’s impossible to interpret his real meaning without having Mr Lowther here for a proper interview.’

Cooper bristled. ‘A what?’

‘My apologies. I meant a properly structured clinical interview.’

Cooper watched Sinclair gather up his notes, plucking up the courage to say what was on his mind.

‘Doctor, you said that many people who have psychotic episodes find them a positive experience.’

‘Yes. Many of them are non-clinical individuals, of course.’

‘Non-clinical?’

‘Individuals who have hallucinations but aren’t troubled by them, so they don’t seek treatment.’

‘But if they have psychiatric problems, they should be receiving treatment, shouldn’t they?’

‘Unless it’s a troubling experience, it wouldn’t be what we term a psychiatric problem.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Sinclair leaned back in his chair and looked at Cooper. ‘Do you believe in the supernatural?’

‘Well, I’m not sure — ’

‘No, of course not. Many of us aren’t sure. But, you see, from a neurological point of view, people with a tendency to psychotic experiences show increased activation in the right hemisphere of the brain. The same increase has been found in perfectly healthy people with high levels of paranormal belief, or mystical experiences. Even creative individuals can show a similar pattern.’

Cooper opened his mouth to ask whether that meant people who believed in the paranormal were mad, but Sinclair shook his head.

‘No, supernatural experiences aren’t themselves a symptom of mental illness. But people with different views of reality or unusual opinions have always held a rather complex role in society. Some are considered mad, while others are treated as prophets and visionaries. At the end of the day, the difference comes down to a question of contemporary social attitudes.’

‘You seem to be suggesting that almost anyone might suffer from psychosis of some kind.’

Sinclair closed the clasps on his briefcase with a click. ‘Well, it has been argued that patients with psychotic illness are simply at one end of a spectrum. Some practitioners say that psychosis is merely another way of constructing reality, and not necessarily a sign of illness at all. Only a small proportion of people who experience hallucinations are actually troubled by them.’

The psychiatrist smiled past Cooper, who turned to see Gavin Murfin hovering near the desk.

‘Well, I suppose police officers have to be feet-on-the-ground sort of people. No time for the imagination, eh? But most hallucinations are quite neutral, you know. They might simply take the form of a voice commenting on what you’re doing. People get used to that. In fact, for some individuals it’s rather comforting, as if they have a permanent, invisible companion, perhaps a loved one who’s died. Believe me, it’s not uncommon.’

‘I can imagine that.’

‘Well, now — instead of something neutral or reassuring, think of a voice that constantly makes negative comments about you and your actions. That’s the troubling sort of hallucination experienced by people in clinical groups, who need psychiatric help to deal with them. Treatment isn’t necessary unless the experience is disturbing.’

They walked down the corridor towards the stairs, passing the busy incident room on their way towards the reception area. By the front desk, the psychiatrist paused to shake hands. He held Cooper’s hand a little too long, giving him an appraising stare.

‘You know, many hallucinations occur in the phases of consciousness between waking and sleeping. You might hear your name being spoken, or get a feeling of someone being in the room, or of falling into an abyss. All of those are common. There’s a sort of paralysis that occurs in the hypnopompic stage just before waking — a sensation like a heavy weight on your chest that prevents you from moving or calling out for help.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Cooper, wondering what he might be giving away by his expression.

Sinclair smiled reassuringly. ‘Generally, people write those experiences off as dreams, DC Cooper. They wake up. And then they get on with their lives.’

Cooper walked slowly back to the CID room, and found Murfin already at his desk, watching Fry heading towards him.

‘You know this voice that constantly makes negative comments about me and my actions,’ said Murfin.

Cooper looked up in surprise. ‘Yes, Gavin?’

‘It’s a relief to know it’s only a hallucination. I thought it was my DS.’

When Cooper had briefed her and left for the Heights of Abraham, Fry thought about John Lowther’s confusion of speech. He hadn’t seemed to mix up his words when she’d seen him on Wednesday — not the way he had later, when he was interviewed. He’d been more vague and confused than anything else. Dr Sinclair might be right. But it was rather more like a description someone else had given her recently.

Ignoring the glances of Cooper and Murfin, Fry picked up the phone and called Juliana van Doon at the mortuary.

‘Mrs van Doon, what would be the effects on a person who’d suffered only slightly from smoke inhalation?’

‘Mild hypoxia? Well, there might be effects on the voice. Coughing, hoarseness, stridor — that’s a high-pitched sound, like croup. You could look for singed eyebrows, moustache, or other facial hair. Also traces of soot in the nose or mouth, slight burns to the face.’

‘Yes, but what about their behaviour?’

‘Their behaviour?’ The pathologist hesitated. ‘This is just an informal opinion?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, I’d say a person suffering from mild hypoxia would appear distracted, and probably clumsy in both their speech and manner. Is that what you were thinking of, Sergeant?’

‘Yes,’ said Fry, nodding gratefully. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking of.’