Next Of Kin (Unnatural Selection #3) (13 page)

“I’ve got some
information.”

He listened
carefully, but his reaction was less than I hoped for. “It’s not
exactly conclusive.”

“No, but this
is what we wanted—a link between the UK and Brazil, and on the ISH
thing. Your colleagues can use this, can’t they?”

“I don’t think
so. Look, don’t yell at me, okay? The ISH thing is still just a
theory.”

“But can’t
they search this clinic for evidence?”

“Based on
what? An anonymous source who won’t talk to us?”

“Then what the
hell do we do?”

“I’ll check
Burton out, see if there’s any history of complaints or if he’s
been mentioned in enquiries. I can check his wife too.”

“But we need
to get inside the clinic.”

“I can’t help
you with that.”

“Andy—”

“Anton,
I
can’t help you
with that. Listen to what I’m saying.”

I stopped and
replayed his words. “But maybe I know people who can?”

“I think you
need to have another meeting—without me this time.”

Finally I
worked it out. “No, you better not be there. But you’ll tell me if
you find anything on Burton?”

“Of course.
Anton, whatever you do, you make damn sure you’re careful. I don’t
want to find your body on fire somewhere.”

Less than a
day later, Charlotte had come up with a plan to get us into the
clinic to snoop around. Two days later, we knew how we would do it.
And four days later Charlotte and Beth were presenting themselves
as Essex county council health inspectors, carrying out a snap
inspection of the Heartwell clinic as a result of anonymous
complaints. Harry and I weren’t with them, but were listening
through hidden microphones, and watching through a camera in Beth’s
briefcase. Both women were also wearing micro-cameras connected to
recorders. Charlotte’s was hidden in a button on her suit, and
Beth’s was in her glasses.

Our two
doctors were almost unrecognisable under wigs and prosthetics.
Harry had been the one to point out that, to pick Nick and the
other two men off, they had to have been under surveillance. This
meant that Nick’s circle of friends would be known to whoever took
him. So Charlotte and Beth had been transformed thanks to a make-up
artist friend of Karl’s, who had done amazing, fast work for us and
had only charged for the materials. Even at point blank range,
Charlotte’s new nose and blonde wig were undetectable. A padded bra
gave her a bosom that Beth—now a redhead with altered eyebrows and
high heels that added four inches of height to her natural five
feet—rather obviously admired.

“Not that I
need big tits to keep me happy,” Beth had assured us all.

“Bit late to
complain, my love,” Charlotte said.

Beth had dated
an assistant council inspector and knew how they operated. They
looked the part. I just hoped they would fool the clinic staff.

The clinic was
located in a lovely Georgian mansion which was also Henry Burton’s
residence. The clinic area occupied the east wing, and the family
lived in the southern part of the house. The west wing was
apparently unoccupied and somewhat dilapidated, but it had bars on
the windows, even the upper floor ones, and all the windows had
shutters across them. Nothing to say that this wasn’t just the
family’s way of keeping that part of the mansion from deteriorating
further, but if they wanted a place to hide at least two men,
that’d be what they could use.

We didn’t have
anything on Burton to suggest he was up to anything, other than
what Harry’s informant had said. I trusted that information but the
police couldn’t use it. Burton was an upstanding, law-abiding
citizen according to his non-existent police record, a
well-regarded plastic surgeon with an equally well-qualified wife.
She also had a clean record, and had lived in Britain for the last
fifteen years. Burton’s company operated clinics in France, Poland,
Russia and Brazil, though local doctors staffed them. He apparently
worked exclusively in Britain, though he and his wife travelled to
Brazil several times a years.

He might not
be our guy. Harry was still following up leads. So far, though, the
Heartwell clinic was the only one which had been named so
emphatically, so it was our best hope right now.

Charlotte was talking to the clinic manager, Mary Fry. So
far it had all gone smoothly, Charlotte playing it firm but polite.
Beth hadn’t taken part in the conversation yet but her camera
scanned the wall and door which I presumed led to the unused west
wing. The door looked well maintained and secure, and to emphasise
that fact, a security guard was positioned next to it. He
could
have been stood there to give
him a vantage point from which to observe the reception area—but he
served equally well to deter anyone using that particular door.
Beth casually turned, moving the briefcase so the camera could take
in details of security cameras, windows and other doors.

Harry and I
watched intently as the manager showed Charlotte and Beth around
the clinic, describing procedures for cleaning the wards and other
hygiene procedures. Nothing of interest appeared until the three of
them were on their way back to Reception.

“Who’s that?”
I asked. “Damn. I wish Beth would turn to her right. There. Bloody
hell! That’s ‘Gregorio’!” A dark-haired man in a nurse’s tunic was
passing the women in the hallway. I’d only caught a flash of his
face.

“Are you
sure?”

“No. But...now
he’s going away. Bugger.”

“Maybe the
other cameras caught him. Calm down, Anton. We can always come back
for another look if we have to.”

I fidgeted,
hoping the man would return to the reception area. But he didn’t.
Charlotte and Beth were apparently preparing to go....

“Oh, we
haven’t looked in there,” Beth said, pointing to the door into the
west wing.”

“It’s not part
of the clinic. It’s not in use at all.”

“Do you mind
if we confirm that? Just dotting the i’s and so on.”

Fry hesitated,
then said, “Not at all.” She motioned to the guard to unlock the
door. “I advise not going in too far. It’s not safe.”

I held my
breath as the door opened...onto darkness. “There’s no electricity
connected to this part of the house,” Fry said. “Joseph, could you
lend me your torch?”

The guard
obliged, and Fry swung the beam around long enough for Beth to see
that yes, the wing was unused and in ruins. There were doors off
the main corridor, but the peeling paint and uneven floor, along
with a damaged ceiling, showed an uninhabitable area.

“Thank you,”
Beth said. “Can’t imagine your patients wanting to stay there.”

The door was
smartly locked behind Beth and Charlotte. “No, I think not,” Fry
said with a thin, humourless smile. “Was there anywhere else you
wanted to see?”

“No, that’s
fine. Your facilities appear to meet our standards quite well. I
can report that there is no basis to the complaints.”

“I would hope
not. Let me show you out.”

Harry and I
ducked down, though we were a long way from the entrance, sitting
in the car park. Charlotte and Beth said farewell to the manager
and headed to Charlotte’s car.

“We’re clear,”
Beth said. “We’re going to the motorway services as agreed.”

Charlotte
drove off. Harry gave it ten minutes, then we pulled out of the
carpark and headed for the motorway, taking the second exit.
Charlotte’s Audi was parked on the far edge of the parking area.
She and Beth climbed out and into the backseat of Harry’s Ford.

“Did you see
anything useful?” Beth asked.

“I want
another look at that fellow who passed you in the corridor as you
were finishing up.”

Harry fetched
the recorders and backtracked to the point I was interested in.
“There...yes. Freeze that. Now look at this picture.” Andy had
given me the best screenshot they’d been able to get from Heathrow
CCTV of ‘Gregorio’. “What do you think?”

“Pretty
close,” Harry said.

“Yeah, I think
so,” Beth said.

“Could be,”
Charlotte agreed. “But that photo is awful.”

“It’s all we
have. Did either of you see his name badge?”

They both
shook their heads. “I wasn’t paying attention, sorry,” Beth said.
“I reckon there’s something in that wing though.”

“Why?” My
voice squeaked a little with tension. I didn’t think she noticed
though.

“She said it
was unused, but it didn’t have that smell that you get. You know,
that musty, damp sort of smell.”

“Maybe they
heat it. That doesn’t need electricity.”

“Maybe, but
the air still smelt too fresh. And although she said the
electricity wasn’t connected, I saw a brand new electrical switch
on a wall near one of the doors down the corridor. Why would you
install one of those if there was no electricity?”

“Maybe it’s
been recently disconnected?” Harry said.

“Maybe,” Beth
said. “But I don’t think she wanted us to look any further.
Charlie? What did you think?”

Charlotte was
busy peeling off her fake nose, examining the result in a hand
mirror and rubbing at the glue traces on her face, but she had paid
full attention to the conversation. “I got the same impression. She
was watching us too carefully. She didn’t want us to walk inside
even a little way, and there was nothing there that was unsafe. In
fact, although the ceiling plasterwork had come down in places, the
ceiling itself looked sound. I couldn’t smell rot or damp. If it
was really unsafe, Health and Safety would have been all over it
with signs and warnings.”

“Agreed,” Beth
said. “So what are you going to do, Anton?”

I wanted to
say, “Go back to the clinic and force them to release Nick,” but I
was trying to be sane and sensible about this because I was asking
people to do some very risky stuff on my behalf. So instead I said,
“Show this footage to Andy, and tell him what you saw and what you
think. Thank you.” I twisted around to kiss Charlotte’s cheek, then
Beth’s. “You’ve done wonderful work.”

Beth patted
her wig. “I could get used to this. Maybe I should be in another
line of work.”

“Being a PI
might pay better,” I said, “but I don’t know if you could look at
yourself in the morning.”

“It’s not me
that has to, is it?”

Charlotte
laughed and hugged her girlfriend. “I could look at you whatever
you did. Now can we get out of this crap? I look like a tart with
these falsies.”

~~~~~

To my relief
and not inconsiderable surprise, Andy seized on the footage of
‘Gregorio’ and said if the missing persons investigation didn’t
question the man, he would badger his own DI and see if they could
do something. He thought Beth’s observations about the west wing of
the clinic were interesting, but not enough to justify a warrant.
“But let’s shake this guy and see what falls from that.”

Then I had to
wait until the man was questioned, which took another forty-eight
hours. All the time I was thinking about that ‘unused’ wing, and
wondering if Nick was there, or if we were completely off-track.
Karl had to listen to a fair bit of whining from me over those two
days, though he said he sympathised with my impatience. Of course
he did. But I was being a pain in the arse as well.

When Andy came
around to the house to talk to me, I knew it was because he was
delivering bad news.

“I better make
tea, hadn’t I?” I said as I opened the door.

“Might help,”
he said, following me into the kitchen.

I filled the
kettle, put it on, then turned to face him. “Okay. What?”

“His name is
Luis Oliveira, and yes, he’s Brazilian, with no criminal record
whatsoever. He’s a nurse, and Burton’s brother-in-law.”

“So presumably
hand in glove with him.”

“Possibly. But
we can’t prove Burton’s done anything for him to be hand in glove
with. The missing persons team didn’t want to bring Nick’s name up
at this point, so they said they were investigating a hit and run
in London during the period ‘Gregorio’ was thought to be in Brazil.
His wife vouched for him, and his timesheets at work back up his
alibi.”

“Well, they
would, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah, I do
know that. But we can’t prove he’s ‘Gregorio’ and there’s nothing
else to hold him on. We’re pulling phone and bank records, but
those will take time to check. We can’t push too hard because if
you’re right, Nick could be endangered.”

“Bloody hell,
Andy.”

“I know. We’ve
sent Oliveira’s photo to the police in Brazil, and they might be
able to do something with it.”

“That
could take weeks! If Nick’s being held captive, I don’t want him to
have to wait for Inspector
Ferreira to pull his finger
out.”

He made a
face. “Are you sure Harry’s contact won’t talk to us? That would
give us the perfect excuse to investigate the clinic directly.”

“I asked him
again. He says no. Can’t the police look for clues along those
lines? What about informers?”

“Informants.
They’re fine for criminal underworld stuff but this champagne set
kind of crime? Useless.”

“We have to do
something, Andy. Nick’s been gone over two months now. Can you
imagine what it’s like for him?”

“No, I can’t,
because it’s more horrible than I can dream of.”

“I’m breaking
into that damn clinic and getting him out.”

Andy put his
hands over his ears, then removed them. “I didn’t just hear you say
that. And you didn’t just hear me say I’ll help as much as I can
without being indirectly involved.”

“So I guess
you won’t hear me asking you how I might go about this.”

“I really
didn’t hear you ask me anything. But since you didn’t ask, this
won’t be my suggestion.”