Glancing at his notes again, Grace turned to Potting. ‘Anything from your man in Romania?’

‘I had an email from Ian Tilling an hour ago. He’s following up a lead tonight. I may have some information by the morning.’

Grace made a note.

‘Good. Thank you. How about people who were on a transplant list but dropped off?’

‘I’ve been working on that all day, Roy,’ Potting said. ‘I suspect we’re on a hiding to nothing there. First thing we’ve got against us is the Hippocratic Oath – good old patient confidentiality. Second thing is the way the system works. These transplant lists aren’t cut and dried. I spoke to a helpful liver consultant at the Royal South London, one of the main liver transplant hospitals. He told me they have a weekly meeting, every Wednesday at midday, when they review the list. Because there is such a shortage of donors they change priorities from week to week, according to urgency. We’re talking about hospitals all over the UK. We’d have to go to court on every individual to get their records. What we need is a medical insider on our team.’

‘What kind of insider?’ Grace asked.

‘A tame transplant surgeon whom medics would trust,’ said Potting. ‘Someone who might have an overview.’

‘I have something that may be of interest,’ Emma-Jane Boutwood said. ‘I’ve been trying to find disaffected transplant consultants or surgeons on the web. Someone who’s openly critical of the system and has gone public.’

‘Openly critical in what way?’ DI Mantle quizzed.

‘Well – for instance, a surgeon who doesn’t think it is unethical to buy human organs,’ the young DC said. ‘And I’ve found someone – his name is Sir Roger Sirius – and he pops up on several different links.’

She looked at Grace, who nodded encouragement for her to continue.

‘A number of things about Sirius are interesting. He trained under one of the pioneers of liver transplant surgery in the UK. Then he was the senior consultant at the Royal South London Hospital for some years. He actively campaigned for a change in the organ donor laws – advocating an opt-out system – meaning that people’s organs would automatically be harvested on death unless they had requested otherwise. It’s the system they have in Spain, for instance. Now, where it gets even more interesting, is that he took early retirement from the Royal after a row about this. Then he went abroad.’

She stopped and looked at her notes.

‘He appears on some websites involving Colombia – which is a country heavily involved in human organ trafficking. It seems he worked out there for a while. Then he pops up in Romania.’

‘Romania?’ Grace said.

E-J nodded, then went on, ‘He’s into a big lifestyle. Flies his own helicopter, flash cars, and a huge mansion in Sussex, near Petworth.’

‘Interesting,’ DI Mantle said. ‘About Sussex.’

‘Four years ago he went through a very acrimonious and expensive divorce – and he’s now married to a former Miss Romania. That’s all I have so far.’

There was a long silence, then Grace said, ‘Good work, E-J. I think we should go and have a chat with him.’

He thought for a moment. From his limited experience of senior medics, they tended to be upmarket, pompous people. Guy Batchelor, who’d had a public school education, might be the kind of person a man like Sir Roger Sirius would feel comfortable with. It also fitted with what Batchelor had been working on.

He turned to the DS. ‘Guy, this is the terrain you were actioning. I think you should go with E-J.’

‘Yes, chief.’

‘Tell him we are investigating three bodies we believe are connected with an organ trafficking ring and ask him if he could give us his wisdom about where to look for such people. Flatter him, massage his ego – and watch him like a hawk. See how he reacts.’

Then he turned back to his notes. ‘The phone number I was given from Germany. Who’s working on that?’

One of the researchers, Jacqui Phillips, raised a hand. ‘Me, Roy. I obtained an address in Patcham and the name of the subscriber. But there was something else, which I gave to DI Mantle.’

Picking up from this, Lizzie Mantle said, ‘It was good observation, Jacqui. The house owner is a Mrs Lynn Beckett. Jacqui spotted that’s the same surname as one of the crew members of the Arco Dee dredger which found the first body. It was myself and Nick who took the original statements from the crew members, so we went back this afternoon, when it was in harbour, discharging its cargo. We got it confirmed that this Lynn Beckett is the former wife of the chief engineer, Malcolm Beckett. One of his fellow crew members told me that he’s quite depressed at the moment, because his daughter is ill. He wasn’t sure exactly what the problem is, but it was something to do with her liver.’

‘Liver?’ Grace echoed.

She nodded.

‘Did you find out anything else?’

The DI shook her head. ‘No. Malcolm Beckett was very guarded – in my view, too guarded.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I think he had something to hide.’

‘Such as?’

‘He kept saying that his daughter lived with his ex-wife and he rarely saw her, so he didn’t really know what was wrong with her. That didn’t ring true to me – as a parent. Nor did he pass the Detective Superintendent Grace eye test.’

Grace smiled.

‘Perhaps we should put in for a phone tap, Roy?’ David Browne said.

‘I don’t think we have enough to get one at this stage, but I think we’ve enough to warrant a monitoring of calls to that number.’

‘Presumably this Lynn Beckett has a mobile too,’ Guy Batchelor said.

‘Yes, someone needs to get on to the mobile phone companies, see what they’ve got registered to that name and address.’ He looked at his notes again. ‘Tomorrow, I’m flying to Munich and back in the evening, so DI Mantle will be taking over command until I return. Any questions?’

There were none until after the briefing had ended, when Glenn Branson caught up with Roy Grace as he headed along the network of corridors back towards his office. They stopped in front of a diagram that looked like a spider’s web, pinned to a red felt noticeboard which was headed COMMON POSSIBLE MOTIVES.

‘Yo, old-timer,’ he said. ‘This trip to Munich – it wouldn’t be anything connected with Sandy, would it?’

Grace shook his head. ‘God, no. I have an appointment with the organ broker woman – I’m posing as a customer. And while I’m over there my LKA friend is going to slip me some files – on the QT.’

On the diagram behind Glenn’s head Grace read the words, DESIRE, POWER, CONTROL, HATE, REVENGE.

Glenn stared hard at him. ‘Are you sure that’s the only reason for your visit? It’s just – you know – you and I haven’t talked about Sandy in a while, and now you’re going to the place were there was a reported sighting of her.’

‘That sighting was a red herring, Glenn. You know what I really think?’

‘No, you’ve never told me what you really think. Got time for a drink?’

Grace looked at his watch. ‘Actually I’ve got to swing by the house to pick up some clothes, but I’ve got half an hour’s stuff to do in my office first. Where do you fancy?’

‘The usual?’

Grace shrugged. The Black Lion was not his favourite pub, in a city that was filled with great watering holes, but it was convenient and had its own car park. He looked at his watch again.

‘Meet you there at a quarter to eight. But one drink only.’

When Grace arrived, ten minutes later than he had said, Glenn was already seated at a quiet corner table, with a pint in front of him, and a tumbler of whisky on the rocks, with a jug of water on the side, for Grace.

‘Glenfiddich?’ Branson said.

‘Good man.’

‘I don’t know why you like that stuff.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’t know why you like Guinness.’