Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(70)

‘Unless Nikki de Lange is a victim,’ said Jeanie. ‘She’s ruled by her father and her husband . . . maybe.’

‘Maybe it was part of a deal with de Lange,’ said Robbo. ‘You run my companies and you’ll get a big slice of it in the end.’

‘What about her? What does she get?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robbo. ‘She’s caught in the middle of it all, maybe. She was home-tutored by Martingale. There are no records about her exam results, her university achievements. There’s not a photo of her in any newspaper clipping. It’s like she’s barely been allowed to exist.’

‘No photos? Not even when she got married? The local press must have covered it?’ asked Jeanie.

‘Not even then . . .’ answered Robbo. ‘More than that . . . so far I haven’t been able to find any proof that they are married . . . There is an entry in a midwifery hospital in Port Elizabeth for her birth. It ties in with what she said about being four years older than Chrissie Newton. Apart from that she seems to have lived her life in seclusion and maybe even isolation.’

‘Daddy’s girl,’ said Jeanie.

‘And now he’s paired her off with Daddy’s right-hand man,’ Carter replied.

‘We should try and find out more about her,’ said Jeanie. ‘Ask Harding . . . see if she knows any more about it than we do,’ Jeanie winked. ‘She likes you. Ebb.’

Carter laughed. ‘Don’t tell Ebony that. She’ll ask for a transfer. We need to go round to Mr and Mrs de Lange and see how the happy couple co-habit.’

Robbo commandeered Carter’s desk as he logged into his own PC remotely.

‘Let me also show you this. You asked me to dig up any dirt I could find on Martingale. Well maybe this is not directly about him but it’s about one of the companies on the list you gave me. It’s a company called Remed Ltd. They are a medical research company. Bear with me.’ Robbo brought up several photos on the screen. He clicked on the first one.

‘This is Mr Hans Grun. And this is one of the last photos of him alive. Here he is with his devoted American wife called Patsy.’

‘He looks healthy enough,’ said Carter as he studied the photo of the silver-haired, fit-looking man in his early fifties.

‘Hans Grun died in Soho under suspicious circumstances on one of his many visits to London on business. That was in nineteen eighty-four. They think Hans was murdered when a robbery went wrong. In his will, Hans’ wife Patsy discovered that he’d left his body to science and she donated it to Remed Ltd. Sweet – you think. Very commendable that your dying wish is to donate your body to medical science? What would you expect to happen to it?’

‘Used for research, I suppose?’ answered Carter.

‘Exactly. You’re going to think the worst that can happen is some spotty-faced med school kid messes with it . . . but hey, it’s in the name of science. But then Patsy decided to track down what happened to his body and here’s the fun bit. Patsy discovered that her husband’s bones had been melted down to make dental products for cosmetic dentistry and had also been made into a gel for plumping women’s lips. Patsy wasn’t happy and she sued Remed Ltd.’

‘Interesting,’ said Carter.

‘They gave her some compensation; it wasn’t illegal just a bit unethical.’

‘When I looked into the shareholders in Remed Ltd I found a familiar name. Digger Cain has been there from the very beginning. He was certainly there when Hans got melted.’

‘So Martingale must know Digger? He must have lied to us.’

‘Not necessarily; it’s Justin de Lange who set the company up and who has been running it all this time.’





Chapter 45


Ebony walked over to the Whittington Hospital where Harding worked. It was less than a two-minute walk. Carter would pick her up in thirty minutes to drive to Hammersmith and check out the de Langes’ living arrangements. She took the lift down to Pathology in the basement and signed in at the reception.

‘Doctor Harding, can you spare me a few minutes?’

Harding looked up from her microscope and removed the slide she was examining. It was a cross-section of one of Silvia’s femurs.

‘Shoot.’ Harding sat back in her chair and pointed at another chair over at Mathew’s empty desk. Ebony drew it over. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I wanted to ask you about James Martingale . . . you’re a friend of his?

‘Yes . . . in a way. He’s been very good to me, to this department. I told you. We wouldn’t be so well equipped if it weren’t for his generosity. We wouldn’t have been able to carry out the investigations we have. I’m proud of that.’

‘Did you know about his daughter, Nikki de Lange?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘So you never met her before?’

Harding shook her head; ‘I only heard about her existence the other day. I may have met her at some point.’

‘Do you not think that’s odd? That no one’s heard anything about her before? She was Chrissie Newton’s older sister. She must have been around when Chrissie died but there’s no mention of her in the original report.’

‘No need, I suppose. She wasn’t in this country; she wasn’t part of the investigation.’