Beautiful Death (10 page)

‘So, using that theory, you think Ms Wu was selected deliberately?’ Angela asked Sarah, and Kate saw a vein in Jack’s temple pulse. How could he continue like this?

‘I do. I think all the victims were selected. But I’ll be interested to hear what the profiler comes up with.’

‘Have we heard from Tandy yet?’ Jack asked Joan.

‘I’m sorry, Jack; I’m afraid John Tandy is on holidays and the other fellow you know is also away at some American convention. He recommended another very good clinical psychologist, that FSS brings in when required.’

‘When will he be here?’

‘She,’ Joan corrected, eyeing him over the top of her glasses, ‘is coming in tomorrow at ten. I’ve already sorted out all the clearances. Her name is Lynda Elderidge — er, that’s Dr Lynda Elderidge.’

Jack nodded. ‘Good.’ Then he screwed up his face. ‘Sorry, Joan, can you remind me to ring, er . . .’ he checked a card he pulled from his pocket. ‘Jane.’

‘Jane . . .?’

‘Just Jane will do. I’ll call her direct, thanks.’

‘Okay.’ Joan made a note.

‘And before I forget, Angela, what about the translator?’

‘All done, sir. His name is Sarju; he has full police clearance, is very popular inhouse, it seems, and comes highly recommended by various departments I checked with. He’s coming in tomorrow. I have no specific time. I suggested in the morning, though.’

‘Excellent. Sarah, I share your view on the not so random nature of the deaths but I think we should all keep an open mind. Let’s see what the profiler has made of the material including the latest victim . . . er, Sarah, perhaps you could make sure Dr Elderidge gets all the new information immediately?’ She nodded.

‘We can’t shut our minds to possibilities,’ he went on, ‘but because of the speed we need to act on this, I have to say my focus is very much on finding a link between Ms Wu and the Asian male victims. It would be my guess — because I knew her — that she had no reason to know these guys. But something or someone does bind her to them and probably the Eastern European. That’s the clue we’re searching for first — let’s find mutual locations, or mutual people in their lives, or mutual activities.

They may attend the same clinic for instance, same library, same DVD store. It could be something as simple as shopping at the same supermarket or eating at the same café. Find that link,’ he said, eyeing them all individually. He won a round of grave nods before he turned to Kate. ‘Right, Kate’s going to tell us everything she learned at the post-mortem today.’ He looked down immediately.

This was the moment Kate had been dreading. She hadn’t at first realised, as the meeting progressed, how much her insides had begun to tighten in anticipation of having to give her report. She hadn’t noticed that her lips had dried, her throat was feeling parched and that her heart had begun to hammer. But she noticed it all now. She had wanted to give him some warning; had tried to foreshadow her discovery. As if Lily’s death wasn’t already grisly enough for him! Whatever the truth behind her news, he was going to be devastated, she imagined. And she was the one who would be kicking Jack Hawksworth in the guts; she was the one he would remember delivering the awful message.

‘Kate?’ he prompted again.

‘Er, yes, sorry,’ she replied, glancing nervously at Jack, flicking back her hair and deciding not to look at anyone, but down at her notes. She felt sick. ‘Postmortem results show that Ms Wu died as a result of an overdose of an anaesthetic agent. There were no signs of excess bruising; in other words, though she was restrained there was no rough handling otherwise. There was no evidence of sexual attack or indeed of any sort of frenzied attack. Her injuries were the loss of kidneys and er . . .’ she paused as she struggled to say it, ‘. . . and her face. Surgical cuts were performed while she was alive,’ she said, aware that Jack was now
staring at her as she talked. She felt her face flush. The worst was yet to come. ‘She was likely to have been deeply sedated, Dr Kent believes,’ she added, when she felt, rather than noticed, everyone wanting to ask the obvious question of how it was done. ‘Apparently this was the same MO for the previous killings.’

‘No change at all?’ Jack asked.

‘No, sir.’ She looked at him briefly. ‘What’s more, Ms Wu’s hair, nails, skin, etc were all suspiciously clean. This was the same for the other victims, although obviously they had since gathered some dirt, but there was no other organic matter that might reveal there had been a struggle, no other fibres or telltale evidence to give us a clue of where they had been just before their deaths.’

‘Someone’s cleaning up behind themselves,’ Brodie commented.

Jack nodded. ‘Is there more?’

‘Er, yes, sir, there is.’

He returned his gaze to his shoes. ‘Continue.’

She wished she didn’t have to. ‘According to Dr Kent Lily Wu, prior to her death, was a healthy, fit, thirty-year-old. By this I mean her organs were all in good shape.’

At this, Jack looked up sharply. There was no going back now.

‘What relevance does that have?’ he asked.

‘Well, Dr Kent wondered why more of her was not, er harvested, sir. The same query applies to the other victims, of course.’

He held up a finger and Kate held her breath. It was as if she was living through a horror film. Every second that passed, her tension increased. She just wanted the next bit done!

‘Sarah?’

‘Sir?’

‘Find out everything you can about organs on the black market. Even though only kidneys seem to have been taken, and not from all the victims, we shouldn’t fully dismiss organ theft as a motivator, so let’s do some homework. How they’re sourced, delivered, protected, price, anything and everything. Dermot, perhaps you and a couple of the others could help DS Jones. Sarah, let me know if you need more hands. I’m beginning to believe that the kidney harvesting was a ruse — a way of throwing the police off. If the killer was really sourcing organs for the black market, then the opportunity would not be wasted to harvest as many organs as possible. But we need to be thorough.’

‘Right, sir, thank you.’

He looked back at Kate. ‘More?’

She nodded, eyeing him sadly. She watched his lids flutter slightly as his glance narrowed, sensing something bad, no doubt, but utterly unprepared for what was coming.

‘Um,’ she hesitated, then blurted it out. ‘Ms Wu was pregnant.’

She blinked, watched her boss’s head snap back in shock; watched everyone else look up in astonishment.

‘What?’ he whispered.

‘Er, six weeks, sir. I’m . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way.’

Everyone instantly looked at their shoes, or cleared their throats. Sarah and Angela both reached for the same suddenly ringing phone but Joan had already got to her feet and said she’d get it outside, and made her escape.

Kate knew Jack wanted to ask her if Kent was
sure. It was a natural reaction but she saw him bite it back, and instead stared back at her, looking broken. She remembered that expression from the last case they had worked on together. He was right; it was happening again. Different circumstances, different operation, different crimes — but it was personal and the pain was real and no doubt identical.

She had to do something because Jack wasn’t saying anything. So she took charge, dragging everyone’s attention away from the DCI and back to herself by standing up. ‘So at this stage,’ she began, as though she had been asked to summarise, ‘it does appear as if we’re dealing with some sort of bizarre organ theft for black-market purposes, although the killer could be deliberately arranging things to appear that way. But as the victims were of roughly similar ages, all with seemingly healthy, fit bodies, I think that might be the beginning of a link there, even though they probably differed in terms of culture, demographics and social standing.’ She eyed Jack, noticing he was still staring at nothing. ‘So I agree the black-market notion is something we should move on.’

Malik shrugged. ‘That would then explain the anaesthetic, the precision cutting, presumably?’

Everyone nodded. ‘That’s right, it would,’ Kate said. ‘I agree we need to learn as much as we can about black-market organ removal and what it involves. For instance, is it always done with the person alive — but clinically dead — or can organs be sourced from corpses.’

‘I’ll take that on too,’ Sarah volunteered. Kate saw her glance at their boss and look straight back, directly into Kate’s eyes. Sarah understood and now she was helping Kate keep attention away from Jack,
for the time being at least. ‘I
can
do both,’ she added, when she saw Kate frowning at the size of her workload. ‘Especially now I have help,’ she continued, smiling at Dermot. Kate blinked. Good grief, she thought, is DS Jones finally flirting?

‘Okay, excellent, thanks Sarah.’

Brodie looked back to Jack. ‘Sir?’

Pity Cam wasn’t as sensitive as Sarah, Kate thought acidly. She pleaded inwardly for Jack to dig deep and answer, or this hesitation would fly around Scotland Yard and he’d be off the case before he knew it.

‘Yes, Cam?’ Jack said, eyeing him firmly, his voice strong.

She sighed with relief.

‘As we have no better leads perhaps we should start to focus more closely on the RLH. I know you’re door-knocking the streets surrounding it but perhaps our man is one of the medicos based at the hospital? It’s located in the area where some of the victims were found.’

Jack cleared his throat, and sat up straight. ‘Yes, that’s logical. You and Kate handle that. Let’s wrap up here now because we’ve all got important work to get on with. We’ll meet again tomorrow morning. I can be reached on my mobile if anyone needs me.’

He stood, nodded at everyone. ‘Good hunting.’ He strode from the ops room, not even pausing to pick up his jacket.

Kate threw a glance at Sarah, who lifted an eyebrow. It was enough encouragement. She excused herself quietly and followed Jack, ducking into the lift just before the doors closed.

‘Sir —’

‘Kate, I need a moment, I —’

‘Look, I understand. Take all the time you need. I’m not here to gloat or tell you I told you so. I want you to know I’ll help. Lean on me if you need to.’

‘You’ve already rescued me once,’ he said, punching the button for the ground floor as though it would make the slow lift travel faster.

‘I want to —’

The doors opened and two others got in.

‘Hey, Jack. I hear you’re on a big operation?’ one said, lightly tapping his arm.

Kate watched him feign a grin. ‘I am.’

‘How’s the arm?’

‘It can lift a pint with ease now,’ he replied.

‘Great,’ the fellow said, ducking out as the doors opened. He motioned drinking a beer. ‘Friday at the Half Moon, I’m buying.’

Jack nodded. Kate could see he had no intention of meeting the man on Friday. Another officer still stood between them.

‘How are you, Charles?’ Jack asked.

‘Packing up. We’re moving across to Empress next week.’

‘Oh, that’s right. Will that be easier for you?’

‘Much. Can’t wait to get out of the city.’

Kate couldn’t wait for the lift to reach the ground floor. The doors opened and the three of them negotiated their way past a visitor group milling in the lobby. Kate paused briefly to acknowledge their guide as he ushered the group towards the lift.

Jack strode ahead and as she caught up he murmured. ‘Am I the only one who wants to stay here?’

‘Yes, sir, you are. Most of us prefer being based in Earls Court. Er, where are you headed? You haven’t got a coat . . . it’s freezing out there.’

He turned left. ‘The gym. It’s quiet. I need to think. Alone, Kate.’

She left him to the odorous gym with his dark thoughts. She knew she would probably never share them, although perhaps there was someone who could help — and that ‘someone’ should know about the latest development.

She stepped outside through the revolving lobby doors, cursing her boss for having drawn her down here in little more than a sweater. She punched a number into her mobile and stamped her boots against the cold as she waited for it to answer.

‘Er, hello, sir,’ she said. ‘It’s DC Kate Carter here, I er, I’m working with DCI Hawksworth on Operation Panther. Look, I’m not sure if you remember me, I —’

‘I remember you. The nervous one.’

‘Ah,’ she replied, suddenly hating her impulsiveness. ‘Um, sir, we need to talk about my DCI . . . and his involvement on this high-profile case.’

The man sighed. ‘When?’

‘You tell me, sir, I’ll be there.’

‘Empress. 4 p.m.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

She snapped the phone shut. Jack was going to hate her.

In the gym Jack stared into space, feeling entirely disconnected from his life. Lily was pregnant! A fresh wave of sorrow crashed around him. How had it happened when she was on the pill? Why hadn’t she told him? Was it not his? He admonished himself for wondering that. They had spent every spare moment together these last few weeks and she had told him
she would not sleep with Chan until they were married. So the baby was his. Perhaps she didn’t know she was pregnant. She’d been so tired recently: she’d mentioned it on a few occasions and she’d sounded impatient with herself. His sister hadn’t realised she was pregnant until she was nearly three months. Lily was always so busy it would be easy to let the weeks rush by and not notice subtle changes, missing a period. A baby would have changed everything; the wedding would surely have been called off. Perhaps Lily had been contemplating that the baby might be her chance at making a life together with Jack? He groaned, banged a fist down on a saddle of one of the bikes. This was hopeless and damaging. He would never have the answers to any of these questions. His child was dead and so was its mother. That’s what he had to come to terms with.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. Dr Jane Brooks. He’d promised Geoff he would call her and he couldn’t think of a time he could possibly need therapy more than now.

He dialled and waited.

‘Jane Brooks.’

‘Oh, you answered yourself,’ he said, taken by surprise. ‘This is DCI Jack Hawksworth.’