Struggling desperately hard to maintain her composure at the kitchen table, Lynn stared at the photograph of the pretty, scruffy-looking girl that lay in front of her.
Scare tactics, she thought. Please God, let it be scare tactics.
Marlene Hartmann was a decent woman. It was impossible to believe, for an instant, that what the Detective Superintendent had just told her was true. Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.
Her hands were shaking so much she moved them off the table on to her lap. Gripped them tightly together, out of sight. Impossible!
She had to get through this. Had to get these people out of her house, so she could call the German woman. She felt a lump in her throat choking her voice. Took a deep breath to calm herself, the way she had been taught at work when dealing with a difficult or abusive client.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking up at each of them in turn. ‘I don’t know why you’re here or what you want. My daughter is on the transplant priority list at the Royal South London Hospital. We are very happy with all that they are doing and we are confident that she will be getting her liver very shortly. There is no reason at all why I should be looking elsewhere.’ She swallowed. ‘Besides I – I don’t – I wouldn’t know – know – where to begin – to look.’
‘Mrs Beckett,’ Roy Grace said levelly, staring hard at her, ‘human trafficking is one of the most unpleasant crimes in this country. You need to be aware just how seriously the police and the judiciary view this activity. One gentleman in London recently had a sentence for human trafficking increased by the Court of Appeal to twenty-three years.’
He paused to let this sink in. She felt as if she was going to throw up at any moment.
‘Human trafficking involves a multitude of criminal offences,’ he went on. ‘I’m going to list them for you: unlawful immigration, kidnap and false imprisonment, just for starters. Do you understand? Any person in this country who attempts to buy a human organ here or abroad is open to being charged with conspiracy to traffic, and with being an accessory. These carry the same custodial sentences as actual trafficking itself. Am I making myself clear?’
She was perspiring. Her scalp felt as if it was shrinking around her skull.
‘Very clear.’
‘I have sufficient information to arrest you now, Mrs Beckett, on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic a human organ.’
Her head was swimming. She could barely even focus on the two of them. She had to hold it together somehow. Caitlin’s life depended on her, on getting through this. She stared down again at the photograph, desperately trying to buy time, to think clearly.
‘Where would that leave you, if I arrest you?’ the police officer asked. ‘Where would that leave your daughter?’
‘Please believe me,’ she said desperately.
‘Perhaps we should talk to your daughter?’
‘No!’ she blurted. ‘No! She’s too – too ill – too ill to see anyone.’
She stared desperately at the young woman detective and saw a fleeting glimpse of compassion in her eyes.
There was a long silence, suddenly broken by the crackle of the Detective Superintendent’s radio phone.
He stepped away from the table, pulled it to his ear and spoke into it.
‘Roy Grace.’
The male voice at the other end said, ‘Target One’s on the move.’
‘Give me thirty seconds.’
Grace jabbed a finger at DC Boutwood, and pointed at the door. He turned back to Lynn.
‘Think very carefully about what I just said.’
Seconds later both detectives had gone, deliberately leaving the photograph behind. The front door slammed behind them.
Lynn sank back down at the table and buried her face in her hands.
Moments later she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders.
‘I heard that,’ Caitlin said. ‘I heard everything. There’s no way I’m going to have that liver.’