A Dark and Twisted Tide (37 page)

Mizon stepped away down the hall and pulled out her phone. The sergeant resumed his search of the building.

‘Get him brought in, Neil.’ Dana nodded her head to the room where Christakos waited for them. ‘He’s not telling us everything.’

81

Lacey

‘
DON’T HAVE A
good feeling about this,’ muttered Lacey ten minutes later, as she steered Ray’s motor boat out of the entrance to Deptford Creek and turned up-river.

Lewisham Control had been unable to send support. ‘We’re absolutely up to our eyes in it,’ the dispatcher had told Lacey. ‘RTA on Lewisham High Street and an armed hold-up in Barclays Bank. Can you hold on till things clear up a bit?’

Reluctant to call her own colleagues and divert them from the far more important job of keeping an eye on Dana, Lacey had decided to meet Nadia alone. If what the Afghan woman had to show her was largely irrelevant, it could wait till she reported in later. If it turned out to be important, she could call it in immediately and insist upon back-up. She had a radio, a phone, even a torch, safely tucked inside a waterproof bag in the bottom of the boat. It was broad daylight and she was in a properly equipped boat. What could possibly go wrong?

‘Let someone know where I’ve gone if I don’t call you in an hour,’ she’d told Eileen, who had promised to do exactly that.

She steered wide as she neared the entrance to Sayes Creek, not wanting to give the surveillance team any reason to worry about her
presence on the water. She half expected them to hail the boat and pull it over, even if they didn’t recognize her at the helm, but she didn’t even see the dinghy close to the wall, and the RIB must be further downstream.

Past Sayes Creek, she steered close to the bank again, and after a few minutes saw Nadia waiting for her on St George’s Stairs.

‘That way.’ Nadia pointed up-river, once she’d pulled the life-jacket over her head and climbed into the boat in front of Lacey. ‘This is the way we went when I left the house. It was dark, but I remembered last night.’

Lacey set off again, keeping close to the bank, steering up-river towards the city.

‘I remember that.’ Nadia pointed to the entrance to South Dock Marina. ‘I thought we might be about to go in there, but at the last minute we moved on past.’

Lucky for you, thought Lacey, thinking of the corpses lying weighted on the marina floor. She steered the boat around Greenland Pier, keeping a lookout for the fast vessels that used it to moor up, and then past the entrance to Greenland Lock. Nadia was intent on the south bank.

‘There.’ She was pointing at a gap in the wall. ‘They took me in there.’

‘That’s a sewage outlet.’

‘It leads to a room. It looked like a room for machinery. Very old, but beautiful. There were flowers in the ironwork. And huge great columns.’

Lacey looked at her watch, then down-river again – she could still see no activity outside Sayes Court – and finally at her police radio in its waterproof bag. ‘Nadia, why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘I told you, I never think about that night. I only let myself remember when I realized how important it was to you.’

‘I can’t take you in there.’ Lacey looked again at the tunnel entrance. ‘The tide’s getting quite low, we could get stuck.’

‘OK, just steer to the wall,’ said Nadia. ‘There is something you need to see.’

‘What?’

‘A ring fixed into the side. I think it’s what they tie the girls to. They tie them to the rings and then, when the water comes up, they drown.’

The wound around the corpse’s neck. It was a detail that had never been made public. Oh God, that was horrible. To be tied up in a tunnel, watching the water coming closer. ‘How far in is it?’

‘There are several of them, but the first is just inside the entrance.’

Lacey steered the boat the final few yards that took them to the embankment wall and just inside the tunnel entrance. By keeping the engine in gear and the revs low, she was just about able to hold the boat in position.

‘Just here.’ Nadia was pointing further into the tunnel. ‘A little more in.’

Ray’s boat had a deeper keel than the dinghies the Marine Unit used to patrol these tunnels. Already, they’d moved further in than felt wise. ‘Nadia, I really can’t go any further. I need to get you back on shore and then call this in. What? What’s the matter?’

Nadia had stiffened, was sitting bolt upright in the boat, her eyes going from side to side.

‘Lacey,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘I think there’s someone here.’

Instincts kicking in, Lacey put the engine into reverse and looked back over her shoulder to steer out. A sudden screech. The boat rocked. She looked round in time to see Nadia falling backwards into the water.

82

Dana

‘
I’M SORRY, DANA
,’ said Kaytes, ‘but I think the clinic’s clean.’

They were back at Lewisham police station. Three hours had gone by since Dana and her team had left the house in East Street. Christakos had said nothing beyond what he’d told them already and Kaytes and a team of detectives had just finished as thorough a search of the Thames Clinic as they could without a court order.

‘We’ve lost a young woman.’ Dana was finding it impossible to sit down. ‘There were six of them in that clinic when he allowed me to phone my colleagues and by the time you arrived there were five. He knows where she is. He may have even killed her. He is not getting away with it.’

‘Of course not,’ said Kaytes. ‘But his licence from the HFEA clearly permits him to . . .’

‘Sorry, what’s HFEA?’ Anderson interrupted.

‘Human Fertility Embryology Authority,’ Kaytes told him. ‘It’s the regulatory body for fertility treatment in the UK. You should check with them, see if there are any complaints or investigations outstanding against Christakos. But to be honest, I’d be surprised.’

‘Is it big business, fertility?’ asked Anderson.

‘God, yes. People will practically bankrupt themselves to have a baby. Mind you, most kids bankrupt their parents in the end, so I suppose it just saves time.’

‘So what would a clinic like that turn over in a year?’

‘Millions. Take donor insemination, for a start.’

Dana made herself sit down.

‘A woman might pay up to a thousand pounds a cycle,’ he went on. ‘Let’s say she takes six cycles to get pregnant. Six grand, and what has the sperm cost the clinic? Pin money for some medical student who’s not that squeamish about having a wank in a hospital cubicle.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Mizon, after the moment’s silence that seemed called for. ‘So we can assume Christakos is successful. That he’s making money.’

‘I’ll say,’ said Kaytes. ‘The Thames Clinic has an international reputation. It was one of the pioneers of the egg-sharing scheme back in the 1990s, and that’s a real money spinner.’

‘Do we need to know what egg sharing is?’ asked Anderson.

‘Probably not,’ said Kaytes.

Egg sharing? Dana started to get up, told herself to wait, to be sure.

‘It can’t hurt,’ said Mizon. ‘Don’t we need to know as much as possible about what he’s up to?’

‘Well, it’s a clever idea, really.’ Kaytes settled himself on a desktop. ‘It brings together women who’ve gone beyond the age of being able to produce viable eggs, with couples who can’t afford the huge cost of IVF. Basically, the older, richer couple fund IVF treatment for the younger, who in return agree to share the eggs produced.’

And that’s what it was all about. ‘Thank God we sent for you, Mike.’ Dana was on her feet again.

‘Glad to be of service.’ Kaytes looked flattered but surprised.

‘There’s an acute shortage of donor eggs, isn’t there?’

Kaytes nodded. ‘Very much so. Women who are donating eggs have to undergo almost full IVF treatment. They have daily injections, drugs to shove up their noses. Then there’s the surgical procedure itself, under general anaesthetic. It’s a lot to ask a woman to go through. And usually for the benefit of a perfect stranger.’

Something lit up behind Kaytes’s eyes. He’d got it. The rest, on the other hand, were getting twitchy.

‘Give me a second, guys, I am going somewhere with this,’ said Dana. ‘Mike, in other countries, the USA most typically, egg donors are compensated financially, right?’

‘They are here,’ said Kaytes. ‘But only a few hundred pounds. In the US, couples pay thousands of dollars for eggs from a good donor.’

‘And what makes a good donor?’

‘Young, healthy, intelligent and good looking. And a physical resemblance to the receiving parent is a decided advantage.’

‘What are you two getting at?’ said Anderson.

Dana crossed to a spare computer and typed into the search bar. ‘OK, this is more than I would normally share, but it’ll become blindingly obvious soon anyway. The fact is, Helen and I are hoping to start a family.’

Of the faces around her, only Kaytes didn’t look surprised.

‘But given our particular circumstances, we’re going to need a bit more help than the average couple,’ she went on. ‘Come and look at this.’

The others gathered round.

‘Sperm bank,’ said Stenning, with what sounded like distaste in his voice.

Dana stiffened. ‘You know what, Pete? When the time comes for you and some unfortunate young woman to breed, I really hope you can manage it in the time-honoured way. But if you need a bit of medical help, you’re going to have to lose some of that squeamishness about bodily functions.’

Stenning shook his head. ‘No, you’ve just reminded me that I did it myself a few years ago. When I was at Hendon. A lot of us did. For the money.’

‘You were a sperm donor?’ Mizon had taken a step away from him.

‘Me too,’ said Barrett. ‘Kept me in beer and ciggies for two years.’

Dana shook her head. ‘That is information I really could have done without just now. But getting back to the point. This is how we choose. Look.’ She found the screen where the listings of
available donors appeared and the little blue, yellow, green and pink icons popped up.

‘So, there are umpteen little Stennings and Barretts running round the place,’ said Mizon.

‘Gayle, would you focus for a second?’ said Dana. ‘This is a sort of online catalogue of available sperm. With some very basic information about the donors.’

‘I wonder if I’m still on it.’ Barrett leaned closer.

‘Not umpteen.’ Stenning turned to Mizon. ‘There are regulations governing how many families an individual donor can supply. And how old are you, twelve?’

‘Stop it,’ said Dana. ‘This isn’t about sperm, it’s about eggs. Mike, am I right in thinking there isn’t an equivalent site that couples who need donated eggs can go to?’

‘Definitely not,’ said Kaytes. ‘We have an acute shortage of egg donors in the UK.’

‘For all the reasons you just told us about. So if a couple have plenty of money but no viable eggs of their own, what do they do?’

‘Oh my God.’ Mizon had got it too, now.

‘Quite a lot go abroad for their eggs, to countries where the authorities aren’t quite so squeamish about paying donors,’ said Kaytes. ‘There are international egg banks. Frozen eggs can be shipped over, but the best results come from fresh eggs. Typically, that means the recipients will arrange for the donor to travel to them, so cycles can be coordinated. You can imagine how bloody expensive that gets.’

‘Unless the women are smuggled in through cheaper, less orthodox channels,’ said Mizon. ‘And especially if they don’t even know their eggs are being taken from them.’

It took a second for the men to catch up.

‘These women are egg donors?’ said Anderson.

‘I think they could be,’ said Dana. ‘They’ve been smuggled in for something and we’ve more or less ruled out the sex trade. So what else do young, attractive women have to offer?’

‘Their fertility,’ said Mizon. ‘You think this bastard Christakos is stealing their eggs?’

‘When people choose a donor, whether sperm or eggs, they’re
looking for someone who looks like they do,’ said Dana. ‘Most couples with the money to spend on egg donation and who are OK with it ethically will be white. They’ll be looking for a white donor.’

‘But these girls are from Afghanistan,’ said Stenning.

‘They’re Pashtuns,’ said Dana. ‘Lacey’s been banging on about it for days. Light-skinned, pale-eyed Asians. Fertilize one of their eggs with white British sperm and you’re going to get a white-British-looking baby.’

‘Well, not guaranteed,’ said Kaytes, ‘but I agree, the chances are pretty fair.’

‘And because these girls are being paid nothing, because they don’t even know what’s going on, the profit margin for Christakos is massive,’ said Dana. ‘Why else was Nadia talking about medical treatment? She was on an IVF programme without even knowing about it. Sahar wasn’t pregnant, she’d had her body pumped full of IVF drugs.’

‘So how and why are some of them ending up in the Thames?’ said Mizon. ‘How come Nadia was fine?’

‘The woman strung up on Lacey’s boat had no trace of IVF drugs in her system,’ said Kaytes.

‘Why would Christakos kill his golden geese?’ said Stenning.

The incident-room door opened and one of the clerical team looked in. ‘DI Tulloch, I’m sorry but we’ve just had a call from the front desk. Someone has just pranged your car.’

Dana stared at her. Of all the moments to pick. ‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Really sorry, Ma’am. They need you to go down and swap insurance details.’

Dana got to her feet. ‘Gayle, while I’m out, can you look up egg donation? Get an idea of just how much people are prepared to pay for donated eggs. Neil, I want the Thames Clinic’s accounts seized. I want to know how much money’s coming through the books and where it’s coming from.’

Dana’s car was at the end of the line. The left tail light had shattered. Pieces of white and red plastic lay around the ground. A
green Ford Mondeo with its engine running was parked just a yard or so away. She set off towards the driver’s door, but as she drew level with the car someone grabbed her firmly by the upper arm. At the same time, the rear door opened and she was shoved inside.