Blood Money (16 page)
She gripped the corner of the shroud but something stopped her moving it. A thin red substance was trickling around the head, like watery blood. It was like a warning not to look.
Li looked at the sink behind her. There was a crumpled pile of yellow sponges, with wrappers from the gloves. What had been done to the body? That man had obviously cut something out. She envisaged bloodied holes. The strange scissors in her pocket dug cruelly into her hip.
Maybe she could just look at the face and see if it was Bina. She pulled back the sheet.
She moved back immediately and looked away but the image persisted on her retinas. Where the eyes should have been were two empty red hollows.
That man had taken out the eyes.
23
T
HE
C
OURIER
HE
C
OURIER
Li looked anywhere but at the eyeless face. Reflections from the water threw giddy patterns on the walls and ceiling. She would have to look again. The first glimpse had told her it was a female, but she had to know if it was Bina.
Li put her hands over her eyes and lowered her head. She opened her fingers a crack and looked at the face again.
It wasn’t Bina.
She quickly pulled the sheet over the face, hiding the horrible disfigurement. She moved further down the body and lifted the sheet again. The dead girl wore a dirty green shift. Her wrists were emaciated, the bones showing clearly, the skin shrunken – probably she died of malnutrition in the slums and ended up in the canal because her family couldn’t afford a funeral. Li felt sad for her. What a horrible life. No foul play, anyway – at least not while she was living. Until someone stole her eyes.
Li looked across to the other two bodies. The water shadows lapped over their shrouds but they were like rock. It was hard to believe that something of flesh and blood could be so still.
Li decided she’d better check those too. One of them could still be Bina. She paddled through the murky water to the next one and pulled back the sheet.
The same horror awaited her: the eyes had gone. But this time Li was better prepared. It was a man, quite old and thin – probably one of the many beggars who’d died in the streets. Li covered him quickly. On a hunch she had a quick look at his abdomen in case his kidney had been removed, but the thin body was intact.
She moved onto the third corpse. This one was younger and had a large gash on his head, his hair matted with congealed blood. In amongst the mess of that, the eyes had been carefully removed – taken out neatly, the eyelids left intact, even the eyelashes undisturbed. Not a single cut had been made anywhere else. It was a neat, professional job, surgical and precise.
A professional job. Someone who took out eyes all the time. Was it legal to take them from unidentified bodies in a police station? No, she decided, it probably wasn’t. That was probably why Sergeant Chopra’s roll of banknotes was looking bigger than before. He had sold these people’s eyes.
Li got out her phone and keyed in a text.
Alex got the message just as the man with the cool box was padding down the steps of the police station. By the time he had fixed the box onto the back of his bike and started the engine, Alex was out in the street. A motorized rickshaw was pulling in to the side of the flooded road. With no taxis in sight, Alex flagged it down.
The rickshaw driver got off. Alex splashed up to him. ‘How much to hire?’
The driver shook his head. ‘Lunch.’
Alex wondered whether it was a negotiating tactic, but he didn’t have time to play games. The bike was getting away, weaving between the traffic that churned through the dirty water. Alex got a roll of notes out of his pocket. ‘I’ll drive it myself. How much?’
The driver took a samosa out of a battered plastic container and took a bite.
‘How much to hire?’ said Alex again.
The man spoke through a mouthful of samosa. ‘Four hundred rupees.’ He held up four fingers.
It sounded like a lot, but it was about four pounds. Alex handed over the money. The man gave him the ignition keys, grinning broadly, and tucked the money into his top pocket.
Alex got on, gunned the engine and moved off.
Hex, Amber and Paulo were still in the library, waiting for Li.
‘What was the rush?’ said Hex.
‘I don’t know,’ said Amber. ‘Li just told us to follow that man.’
They watched Alex steering through the traffic, beeping like crazy. The rickshaw was a peculiar vehicle: the front end a single motorbike wheel, the back wheel replaced by two bicycle wheels and a wide seat. The handlebars were great tall things that forced him to sit back as though he was waterskiing.
‘I wouldn’t have picked that as a pursuit vehicle,’ said Paulo. ‘It’s going to be a nightmare to ride.’
Alex heard honking behind him. He turned and the bonnet of a brown Honda swerved past him, drenching him with filthy water. Alex ducked and one of the back wheels left the ground. He sat up again, wrestling with the huge handlebars. The bike was really unstable. He’d have thought three wheels would have been better than two.
The controls weren’t that different from the quad bikes he had driven. But that was on dry land; riding in a virtual lake was very different. Alex tried to get up more speed, but the drag was so strong, it was like trying to move through treacle. He reached forty-five k.p.h. and the front wheel started to wobble like crazy. He began to wonder why the owner had been so willing to hire it out to him. Perhaps he hadn’t hired it; he’d sold it.
The motorbike was now crawling, so Alex was able to catch up. A cow stood dozing in the road, and cars, bikes and pedestrians were going every which way like a watery dodgem ride. The courier slipped past and sped away.
Alex revved his engine. The gap between them mustn’t widen. The rickshaw merely chugged along. Alex glanced down at the petrol tank as if to remonstrate with it – and did a double-take. There was a Harley Davidson logo. The classic American bike. Even Alex, who wasn’t much of a bike junkie, knew he was sitting on a collector’s piece. Paulo, a real petrol-head, would be green with envy.
The bike ahead had slowed and Alex tried to close the gap again. He gunned the engine, but it responded sluggishly. If this was a classic machine it was a bit disappointing. He looked at the logo again. It said
Hardley
Davidson. An Indian-made copy.
Hardley
Davidson. An Indian-made copy.
The bike swerved around a goat. Alex shifted his weight to do the same but nothing happened. The rickshaw steered like a dinosaur. The goat saw doom approaching and hurried out of the way, its eyes rolling.
The motorbike had slowed to get through a narrow gap between two buses. Both were fully loaded with passengers who spilled out of the windows, making the vehicles rock like boats on choppy waters. Alex swerved onto the pavement to pass by. He felt the bump as the wheels mounted the kerb, then an even bigger bump that nearly tipped him over as he came back down. He fought the tall handlebars again and had to slow up. The rickshaw lurched to the side again and stayed there.
Had he got a flat tyre? Alex glanced over his shoulder.
He hadn’t run over anything; he’d acquired a passenger. A tall man with the beginnings of a paunch and big white teeth, a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap grinned at him. ‘Holiday Inn,’ he said in an American accent, and settled back. The movement pulled the front wheel off the slippery ground.
Alex sighed. ‘I’m not taking passengers,’ he called.
Something slapped him on the back. The American had hit him with his baseball cap. ‘Holiday Inn, and step on it.’
Steel entered Alex’s soul. The blow wasn’t hard, but it was intensely rude. He accelerated away. Right, he thought. You’re coming with me.
Another flick. ‘The Holiday Inn’s the other way.’
Alex ignored him. The courier turned his bike into a side street. A taxi was coming and Alex leaned on the horn then swerved in front of it, missing the bonnet by a whisker. One of his back wheels came off the road and the whole bike tilted. His passenger was a big unbalancing lump of ballast.
Flick. The hat came down again. ‘Are you some kind of a nut? You nearly had me off.’ Flick. ‘You! Are you listening?’
Ahead, the road was blocked by a huge train. For a moment Alex goggled at it. Then he realized they were at the station. The tracks were hidden by the water.
‘Don’t think I’m giving you a tip,’ said the voice behind him.
The courier zipped sharply to the left and Alex lumbered after him. The back end of the rickshaw swung violently like a giant, heavy tail. There was a splash, and suddenly the bike felt light again; Alex shot forward. He grappled with the upright handlebars to steady it. When he glanced back, the passenger was on his hands and knees in the water.
Alex grinned. ‘Don’t worry about the tip,’ he called.
Free of his burden, he roared up to the station entrance, a grand building like a gothic cathedral. The courier was dropping off his bike at a hire stall. Then he unclamped the cool box and ran in through the gothic archway.
Alex parked the rickshaw, hid the keys under the seat and splashed after him. Running through the water was easier than driving. When he bounded up the steps onto dry land he felt suddenly free.
The courier was running to one of the platforms. Alex followed him, dodging families who squatted on the concourse with large cloth bundles of belongings. The courier jumped onto a train that was belching grey diesel fumes into the rafters, ready to go. The whistle blew as Alex pounded through the barrier. The train began to move. Alex sprinted, fast. He reached an open door, grabbed the handle and swung in.
Gasping for breath in the space between the compartments, he took out his phone.
24
T
HE
E
ND OF THE
L
INE
HE
E
ND OF THE
L
INE
The bathroom in the hostel was going to be occupied for quite some time. Li was having the longest shower of her life.
Amber, Hex and Paulo sat in the bedroom discussing what she had told them.
‘That cool box had eyes in it?’ said Amber.
‘And Li saw Chopra with another lot of money,’ said Paulo. ‘So he’s selling the eyes of random bodies who turn up at the morgue.’
‘Why would anyone sell eyes?’ said Amber.
‘Why would anyone
buy
eyes?’ said Hex. He was already tapping on his keyboard. ‘There’s only one way to find out – Aha. Transplants. And there’s a huge shortage of donor eyes.’
buy
eyes?’ said Hex. He was already tapping on his keyboard. ‘There’s only one way to find out – Aha. Transplants. And there’s a huge shortage of donor eyes.’
Amber nearly gagged. ‘They transplant whole eyes?’
‘No,’ said Hex. ‘Just the cornea: the transparent flesh at the front. It covers the iris and the pupil. If it gets diseased you go blind. A cornea transplant literally opens the curtains again.’
Paulo was also finding the idea hard going. ‘But eyes from dead bodies? Bodies that have been in the water all night, or found in the street? Don’t donors have to at least be – er – fresh?’
Hex was reading from a website. ‘
Harvesting an eye
. . . blah blah blah . . .
must be done within six hours of death. It can be done anywhere with simple instruments
.’ He looked up. ‘So you don’t need an operating theatre. Just whip the eye out.’
Harvesting an eye
. . . blah blah blah . . .
must be done within six hours of death. It can be done anywhere with simple instruments
.’ He looked up. ‘So you don’t need an operating theatre. Just whip the eye out.’
Amber winced. ‘Yes, thank you, Hex, we get the picture.’
Hex noticed her discomfort. ‘Get a spoon.
Ping
. Out it comes like a billiard ball.’
Ping
. Out it comes like a billiard ball.’
‘Yes, thank you, Hex,’ said Amber, more fiercely.
Hex continued to paraphrase the website. ‘They can be stored in special eye banks. When a donor cornea is needed, it is carefully removed from the eye’ – he glanced at Amber – ‘with something like a potato peeler – and transported to—’
‘Stop, stop, stop!!’ She buried her face in her hands and shook her head.
Hex grinned at her and prepared to play his trump card, a gruesome picture on the website. But then his phone bleeped with a message. He looked at the screen. ‘It’s Alex . . . he’s on a train.’
‘A train?’ said Paulo. ‘Going where?’
‘He doesn’t say – must still be following the courier.’
‘How’s Alex getting lost going to help us find Bina?’ asked Amber.
‘Think about it,’ said Hex. ‘It’s part of the black market in organs, right? There’s Trilok, who sells kidneys, and there’s Chopra, who sells eyes. Chopra helps Trilok keep out of trouble. Now suppose Chopra is helping him hide Bina? Where would be a nice, secure, out-of-the-way place? A nice, secure medical establishment. Which is no doubt where the courier is headed.’
Li came in, combing her fingers through her wet hair. She was back in her normal clothes.
‘I get it,’ said Paulo. ‘The eye bank where Chopra makes regular deposits.’
Li sat on the bed. ‘But it might be miles away. Bina must be quite close to here because she has to be brought back for the operation.’
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