Death Watch Read online

  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 his way through the site for twenty minutes, then called Valentine over to look at the screen. There was a picture showing a street in a suburb of the city, a whitewashed building behind a set of railings.

  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’.

  He tapped the screen. ‘Two of the founding brothers are dead, the third – Hanzi – is struggling to raise enough cash in the US to keep the Institute open. Its director on the ground in Tel Aviv says here that the hospital needs annual funding of 3.5 million dollars – he’s appealing for ordinary Jews and Palestinians around the world to make contributions. The Israeli government won’t help. The Institute’s campaign on organ retrieval is seen as too controversial. Without some cash, it’s going to close.’

  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 São 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 Lyon. The same could not be said of her captain. Juan de Mesquita, a Brazilian national, had been jailed by a court in Haifa in 1991 under a newly ratified law for ‘aiding and abetting human traffic for the harvest of organs’. He and his co-defendant, a Filipino male nurse called Rey Abucajo, had been jailed for four years and ordered to pay nearly £40,000 compensation to three men they had inveigled into donating kidneys for transplant. De Mesquita and Abucajo were merchant seamen who had bought a flat in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, where the operations had taken place. Previously, de Mesquita’s record had been unblemished, and he’d had his master’s ticket for a decade. The operation to arrest the pair had been partly organized by the International Maritime Organization.

  ‘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 sub-station was still not yet ready to be switched back into the grid. A light shone from Jan Orzsak’s house, overlooking the work. Shaw presumed that he’d been released from hospital after his failed suicide attempt.

  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.

  48

  ‘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.

  ‘And she must have seen Peploe take the epilepsy pills often enough,’ said Shaw. ‘Who’s got access to the hospital pharmacy? Senior staff. And how convenient is it for her that our principal suspect is dead. Maybe Peploe was in it with her, but it’s possible he wasn’t. Either way, to her, he’s better dead.’

  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 play five-a-side football by. And the base level’s high, too. I’ve tracked back to the last ship in, which was four thousand tonnes – a bit bigger, in fact. Power consumption on board her was half what it was on the 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 blue – and the spotless stainless steel banisters. On the wall was a sign – 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.

  ‘I speak English,’ said a small man with his fists held at his side. He was a European, with grey hair and a neck as thick as his skull. ‘The captain is sleeping.’ The stillness in the room was uncanny, and for the first time Shaw heard the trickling of bilge pumps.

  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 sweating, the smell pungent, and that he kept covering his top lip with the bottom.

  ‘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 the door of the cabin, took hold of the T-shirt round the First Officer’s neck, and dragged him to the threshold of the shower room.

  ‘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 arou
nd 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?’

  ‘Yeah. Get one of the crew to help, but don’t believe a word anyone says. Tear it apart. Especially below the water line.’

  49

  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 exchange a glance with one of the crew. Everyone shifted in their seats, fresh cigarettes were lit. Either they were relaxing, or they were pretending to relax.