Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(58)

‘What was it the letting agent said Chichester wanted, Ebb?’ asked Jeanie.

‘He wanted semi-remote but near a major road. The manager remembered that Chichester said he’d pay a lot to be left alone. It didn’t matter about the house being in poor cosmetic shape.’

‘So basically he paid a lot of money for a house that wasn’t worth it. He must have been a dream client.’ Jeanie answered.

‘So before Chichester the house had been empty for a few months?’ Robbo asked.

‘Nearly a year. It must have been hard to let,’ said Ebony. ‘Then Chichester had the work done to it; that took two months.’

‘So we’re not looking at a snap decision here, are we?’ said Davidson. ‘Chichester took a few months to find this place, another two to make it ready. This was no heat-of-the-moment thing. He planned it meticulously for a predetermined purpose. That was to harvest kidnapped victims and sell the organs to wealthy clients. So why did he leave there? Did he talk about staying on there to the estate agent?’

‘Apparently there was an option on it, sir. Chichester hadn’t decided. The estate agent was waiting to hear.’

‘He wasn’t in a hurry?’

‘The agent said he knew he wouldn’t be able to let it again till after Christmas. He thought Chichester would stay. That was his impression.’

‘Maybe he intended to.’

‘Think everything Chichester does is intentional, sir. If he left early it was because it fitted with his agenda; it was for a reason.’

‘A holding pen keeping them till when? What about Silvia and her pregnancy? asked Davidson. ‘Why allow her to carry the child at all if they didn’t harvest it?’

‘I can answer that,’ said Harding. ‘I had the results back for the section of skin above Silvia’s left eye. It has traces of the rubber from the treadmill. She fell whilst she was running on it.’

‘Why would she be running at eight months pregnant?’ asked Jeanie.

‘When you’re pregnant the heart and lung size increases to cope with the demands of the unborn child.’Answered Harding, ‘they are a muscle like others; they respond to demand. You can train them and make them even bigger. So maybe they were waiting till they were at their peak condition. The gym could have been part of preparations and perhaps the baby was “an option”.’

‘Option?’ Davidson looked at Harding and shook his head. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘Well, it’s insurance for later, isn’t it? They could harvest the mother and keep the baby as part of the family, bring her up as their own, in case other organs failed later in life. In case they needed to harvest her.’ She shrugged. ‘Why not? If you’re that ruthless and calculating?’

‘What about thirteen years ago?’ asked Jeanie. ‘What about Rose Cottage?’

‘The piece of hospital gauze that the gardener found by the gatepost?’ said Robbo. ‘That must mean thirteen years ago Louise Carmichael was carried back into Rose Cottage from having been operated on somewhere else.’

‘Yes . . . has to be,’ said Carter. ‘The bodies of Chrissie Newton and Louise Carmichael had a large amount of anaesthetic in their bodies.’

‘It would answer a lot of questions,’ replied Harding.

‘The cross-contamination theory, for example.’ said Ebony. ‘Maybe there was no mistake made, after all. Chrissie and Louise were taken away to be operated on and brought back so that their bodies could be discovered at the house. That’s why they had each other’s DNA on their backs. They had both lain on the same place after death. That must also be why the lividity had a small discrepancy; they had been moved but then laid down again in the same position.’

‘And their organs were missing.’ said Jeanie.

‘Not all their organs; they only removed their hearts,’ Harding corrected.

‘Are we sure they didn’t harvest anything else?’ Carter said and glanced nervously Davidson’s way. ‘I mean, samples got contaminated, reports had sections missing from them. I’m not being funny but how do we know?’

‘I know,’ said Harding, about to lose her rag. ‘At the time we didn’t make the full report public because we didn’t want the panic that would ensue but it didn’t mean to say that a full and accurate report wasn’t written, because it was.’

‘I meant no disrespect.’ Carter held his hands up in a surrender gesture. ‘Thirteen years ago the gang may have worked differently, been inexperienced, who knows?’

Harding composed herself. ‘Three hours passed between first Chrissie and then Louise dying. There was definitely time to remove their hearts.’

‘Then we need to find a hospital near Rose Cottage where they could have taken them.’ Davidson moved to the front of the room to wrap things up.

‘There are hundreds of private hospitals within range,’ said Robbo. ‘They could have driven to an airstrip and taken the organs a long way. We know there are illegal immigrants coming in by small aircraft on makeshift landing strips around the UK. They could easily take something like organs out on a small plane.’

‘Or someone could have been waiting here for the organ,’ said Ebony.

‘Yeah . . . I think that’s most likely,’ said Harding. ‘There are many hospitals within reach. I’ll look into it for you. I’ll find out who was working in them at that time and who was the kind of surgeon to do it.’