The Body Thief (11 page)

“I take it you had a rough day?” His voice
was full of sympathy. Another rush of tears pricked Sam behind her
eyes. She blinked hard to hold them at bay.

“Yeah,” she admitted quietly. “It was
tough.”

“Was it a kid? Doing an autopsy on a kid
would have to be the worst.”

“No, it wasn’t a kid and it’s not work that
has worn me out.”

“Then, what?”

Sam bit her lip and debated silently over
what to say. She wanted so much to tell him about her fears—about
what her and Hannah had found—and she wanted to tell him about
going to the police and how an officer she’d met ten years earlier,
might be giving him a call.

And then, all of a sudden, she wanted to
hear what he had to say. If he had nothing to do with it, surely
he’d be just as curious and concerned about the findings as she
was.

“I accompanied Hannah Langdon to the police
station this afternoon,” she blurted out. “We wanted to talk to
someone about our uneasiness over the recent high influx of bodies
that had donated organs.” Her announcement was met with shocked
silence.

Finally, Alistair spoke. “Wow! I… I’m
speechless. When you mentioned it last week, I didn’t realize the
numbers were so high that you’d go to the police.”

“Well, they are and Hannah felt the same
way. I had dinner with her on the weekend. She’s also noticed a
significant increase. She had a deceased come through her funeral
home recently that had not only donated organs, but ligaments and
tendons and even tracts of skin removed. Don’t you think that
sounds strange?”

She held her breath and waited for her
brother to answer. Her hands tightened around the steering
wheel.

“Absolutely! You’re right, it sounds very
weird. I pride myself on being good at my job and I can’t remember
the last time I convinced a relative to give consent for all of
those things. I wish I was that persuasive. For sure we need those
kinds of tissues as much as any of them, but it’s rare for people
to agree. I wonder who the doctor was who managed to secure the
consent?”

Sam’s breath rushed out of her body in
relief. Her brother sounded just as bemused with the whole thing as
she was. If he’d had any prior knowledge or, heaven forbid,
intimate knowledge, surely he’d be on the defensive?

“I don’t know any details, other than the
body came from your hospital,” she hastened to tell him. “Hannah
only receives the most basic information about her clients.”

“Of course. Do you have a name? I could look
them up in our records and see who dealt with them.”

“No, but Hannah does. I could call her and
ask.”

“Don’t bother her tonight. Besides, I’ve
already called it a day. I’m at home, kicking back with a scotch,
watching the rugby game I taped earlier.”

“Lucky you,” she teased. “I have another
three miles to go.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to concentrate on the
road. I don’t want you arriving home in pieces. Or worse still, not
arriving at all.” His tone was light, but Sam appreciated the
concern behind his words. She was lucky to have a big brother like
him watching out for her. Not everyone was so fortunate. With a
promise to take care and talk again soon, Sam ended the call.

There, she’d done it and Alistair had
reacted exactly as she’d expect. Curious, concerned, wanting to
investigate further and get to the bottom of it. There was no way
he was involved. She was sure of it.

Dear Diary,

I woke up last night from a nightmare. I was
trapped in a bottomless pool of blood. It was all over me—sticky,
warm and wet. I wiped myself clean over and over, but by the time
I’d finished I was covered in blood again.

It hung from my hair, it dripped in my eyes;
it filled my mouth and ears. I was drowning in blood. At any
moment, I could disappear, swallowed up by the metallic tasting
fluid, never to be seen again…

* * *

“All done, Doctor Wolfe?”

Alistair was focused on the patient who lay
on the operating table. The only thing keeping the woman alive was
the respirator that sent artificial, measured breaths into her
lungs. Soon, even that would be gone. Registering the nurse’s
question, he looked up and nodded. “Just about, thank you, nurse.
Feel free to leave. It’s way past late. I’ll finish up here.”

“Are you sure?” the nurse asked, unable to
keep the hopeful note out of her voice.

“Yes, of course. The excitement’s over. All
I have to do is suture her up and unplug the machine. Then I’m
done. I don’t need you for that. I’ll talk to the family and make
sure she’s sent to the morgue afterwards.”

The nurse nodded and smiled gratefully.
She’d been on her feet for hours. Alistair was sure she wouldn’t
argue with him about leaving the operating theater a little sooner
than the end of her shift. He was counting on it.

“Thank you, Doctor Wolfe. I’m rostered on
again first thing in the morning, so I really appreciate being able
to get away a little early. I’ll barely have time to put my head
down on the pillow before I have to be on shift again.”

Alistair tossed her a sympathetic smile.
“Yes, those back-to-back shifts are a bitch. I hope you don’t live
too far away?”

“No, about twenty minutes from the hospital.
Long enough, though, when I’m following a late shift with an
early.”

“Go, and don’t think anything more of it.
I’ll see you in the morning.”

She flashed him another grateful smile and
then turned and headed toward the exit. Alistair waited a few
minutes, to make sure she’d left the suite. When he heard the outer
door open and close, he returned his attention to the patient.

The woman’s heart, liver and kidneys had
been harvested in accordance with the consent Alistair had obtained
from her next of kin. The transplant teams had been in attendance
and once the organs were harvested and placed inside insulated
containers, the teams evaporated with their precious cargo, to be
couriered under police escort to the various hospitals around
Sydney where the transplants would then take place.

It was an exciting, tense, nervous time
where every minute counted. Somewhere in the city, even now,
patients were being prepped for surgery. They would have received
the call they’d been waiting for—a donor organ had become
available, giving them another chance at life. He couldn’t help but
send a little prayer heavenwards that one day soon his mother might
be so lucky.

The entire organ donation process filled
Alistair with indescribable hope. It was almost like playing God.
And now, if it meant he made a little extra money on the side, who
could argue with that? It was an excellent outcome for all
concerned, but right now, the woman on the table had so much more
to offer and Alistair was just the man to take advantage of it.
Working quickly, he removed the lungs, intestines and pancreas.

Next, he pinned the woman’s eyelids open and
removed both corneas and the sclera. A lot of people didn’t pay any
heed to what they considered such insignificant tissues but for
Alistair, the thought that he might be responsible for helping a
blind person see was far too important to overlook. Besides,
Biologistics paid good money for eye tissue.

He thought of the terms of his contract with
the US corporation and frowned. He was only in the second month of
his arrangement and already, he risked breaching its terms. August
was all but over and with temperatures rising, he was way below his
quota.

He’d overlooked the fact that, as the
weather got warmer, the number of deaths decreased. As spring set
in, fewer people burned down their homes with faulty heaters or
crashed their cars driving over icy roads. Of course, there was
always the possibility of a heatwave in summer, cutting short a few
extra lives, but even if that happened, it wouldn’t be until
January. There was no way he could wait that long.

While the CEO of Biologistics had been
amenable up until now, Charles Shillingworth had made it clear that
the company took its contracts seriously. There were plenty of
doctors around the world who were clamoring to be part of their
team. If Alistair failed to measure up to his promise, he’d quickly
be replaced.

The thought of losing a second, substantial
stream of income put him into a slight panic. He’d used half of the
first payment bailing out Richard. His act of goodwill had bought
him unlimited access to the deputy coroner and Alistair didn’t ever
have to worry about risking refusal of an authorization from that
quarter, but it also meant he’d seen less than he’d like of the
promised windfall. If he could meet the terms of his contract long
enough to secure his long-term financial future, he’d be more than
pleased.

The problem was finding and harvesting the
amount of tissue to fill his quota when fewer and fewer patients
were dying. It had become almost impossible to achieve. Even
recovering additional tissue that wasn’t included in the consent
hadn’t fully closed the gap.

Alistair continued to justify his actions by
relying on the fact that the patient or their relative had agreed
to donate at least some of their organs. He was sure they wouldn’t
object to him taking all that was of use. What was the difference
between donating a heart or lungs or liver and the other things?
After all, what was the deceased going to do with them? If there
was one thing Alistair couldn’t stand, it was waste.

Every day, people were dying around the
world from diseases or damage that could be repaired if there was
enough donated tissue to go around. It didn’t make sense to him to
cremate healthy, useable organs or put them in the ground. Skin
from deceased persons could totally transform the lives of victims
suffering from severe burns and protect them from life-threatening
bacterial infections and it had done wonders for breast
reconstructive surgery. As far as he was concerned, there were only
positive gains to be had from increasing the supply of human
tissue.

Moving to the feet of the patient, he ran
his scalpel across the woman’s ankles. With an efficiency that came
from experience, he stripped away the tendons and ligaments. He did
the same to her wrists and carefully stored the tissues in the
special containers that were used for that purpose. He could only
hope the woman didn’t end up at the funeral home where his sister’s
friend worked.

Thinking of Sam and Hannah and the fact that
they’d gone to the police gave him a moment’s pause. Ever since
Samantha had told him, it had been playing on his mind. He was more
than concerned that at least two individuals had noticed his
handiwork.

He should have known better than to
illegally harvest tissues from a patient tagged for an autopsy, but
after Sam’s birthday, when she’d first mentioned the increase in
donor bodies, he’d talked to Richard and the man had assured him
again the only pathologist to handle Alistair’s bodies would be
him.

That obviously hadn’t happened, or Sam
wouldn’t have seen what she did. He remembered the patient she
spoke of. He’d been at work when he’d been paged by the ICU. In
accordance with the State law and hospital protocol, he’d called
Richard and had obtained his authority to harvest prior to the post
mortem. At that time, Richard assured Alistair he’d conduct the PM
himself. To make things worse, Alistair now had an embalmer from a
funeral home taking note of the number of donor bodies coming her
way. To have Hannah Langdon question the anomalies was just another
thorn in his side.

The best thing to do would be to stop the
illegal harvesting, at least until the interest in it had died
down. Hell, thanks to his sister and her friend, even now he might
have an over enthusiastic police sergeant about to knock on his
door asking questions. He had no way of knowing how serious the
officer had taken the girls’ concerns, but even so, it would be
wise to keep a low profile for a little while.

He could always start up again in summer,
but it would mean breaching his contract and that could be the end
of the money until things picked up again. Furthermore, there was
no guarantee Biologistics would rehire him. In fact, more likely
the opposite. Charles Shillington probably wouldn’t want anything
to do with him if he couldn’t come up with the contracted
goods.

With a sigh, Alistair sutured the woman’s
wounds closed and then covered her with a sheet. He was still in a
quandary about what to do. Switching off the respirator, he waited
a little while and then called a porter to transport the body to
the hospital morgue. She’d be collected by whatever funeral home or
crematorium the family had arranged, and with a bit of luck, that
would be the end of it.

He wished he believed deep in his gut that
it would be that simple. When had life become so complicated…?

* * *

Rohan swung the unmarked squad car alongside
the curb and killed the engine. A large, bold sign fixed to the
fence bordering the nearest property announced to the world that it
was Forsyth’s Funeral Home. He glanced across at his partner who
sat beside him.

“Have you ever been inside a funeral home,
Bryce?”

“Nope, but it can’t be any worse than the
morgue and I’ve pulled that short straw on more than one
occasion.”

Rohan chuckled. “There are close to fifty
funeral homes in the vicinity of the Sydney Harbour Hospital. For
this stage of the investigation, I’ve chosen the five that are
closest. I want to determine whether any other funeral homes have
noticed an increase in donor bodies or other anomalies over the
past few months.”

Bryce nodded. “It’ll be interesting to hear
what they have to say. I can’t imagine that a rogue doctor,
illegally removing body tissue, would take the time to enquire
about where the bodies are to go for services and burial. In fact,
that kind of information generally wouldn’t even have been decided
upon at that time.”