Chapter Two

"I don't know where she is!" Ana looked at them in annoyance, her arms folded. "Look, I told you guys about a thousand times, Suha left for Pakistan-"

"Well we know she didn't." Gene interrupted, inpatient and furious. "And we found you with six others and a whole load of dope. Enough to make you a dealer. So unless you want to go down for it-"

"I ain't sayin' nothing." Ana's eyes narrowed, glaring at them. She was a woman in her twenties with caramel coloured hair that fell in soft waves, a Californian who'd come over to study medicine in London. "I told you, Suha went home."

"And we know she didn't!" Gene repeated, standing up, slamming both hands on the table and staring down at Ana. Alex sighed.

"Look, Ana...we know Suha didn't go home. Because we found her-"

"Yes, we found her looking like Frankenstein's monster in the early hours of the morning in London. In other words, rest in bloody peace!"

Alex sighed again, gritting her teeth and fighting back the retort. She saw Ana's face turn from shock, to fury, to disbelief, to confusion.

"No. You're lying." She answered. "You trying to get me to tell you where she is?"

"Suha's dead, Ana. She was murdered." She spoke calmer than Gene, sounding apologetic. "We found her body this morning-"

"No!" Ana stood up, her fist slamming down on the table. "No no no no no!" She turned around, punching a wall, screaming as she did. Alex glanced at Gene, shaking her head when he opened his mouth to say something...sarcastic, most likely.

When Ana had calmed down, she leant against the wall breathing deeply, eyes shut, a few tears glistening on her cheek. Alex glanced at Gene for a second, who was glaring at her in his usual, unsympathetic way, before turning back to her.

"Ana...we need to know where Suha went-"

"I want proof"

"What?"

"I want to see her body. I want proof."

She screamed as soon as she saw the body.

"Like bloody Donna Mitchell." Gene sighed in frustration, arms folded. The case where the father had killed the son involved in a loan sharking business. And Gene had almost crushed someone to death with a crane.

Alex hadn't heard anything from 2008 since the operation. She wasn't home yet. There was no signs that she was about to. She felt no different. The wait was tedious. She just wanted to go home.

Did she? Was that all she wanted? Forced to chose between Gene and Molly she'd chose Molly every time. Why hadn't Gene been around in the 2008. If he'd been around then, no doubt, Arthur Layton would never have shot her in the first place. He would have protected her.

"So you have proof. Where did Suha go?"

"Gene!" Alex hissed, glancing between the screaming woman and her boss. "She's in shock, she-"

"She wanted to see the body. But at the very least, I guess that's a positive ID." Gene snapped back at her, irritably.

"Well it's not exactly a pretty sight!" Christ, she'd been sick when she'd looked at the body, she felt sick when she thought about it. Organs torn out, body left them dismembered and dissected by the Thames...

"Well, when is a body a pretty sight?"

Alex sighed, and walked out of the mortuary, bumping into Shaz on the way and asking her to please escort Ana away from the body, and quite possibly make a cup of tea. Gene followed her out, shutting the door behind him.

"We're going to get the bastard that did this, Bolls." She glanced back at him, seeing the determination in his blue eyes.

"I know." She answered quietly. "Look...let me talk to Ana, you're not exactly-"

"Helping?"

"She's just found out her friends been murdered, and seen her body torn open the way it was." She sighed. "You shouldn't have let her see that."

"She wanted proof. I gave her proof. Maybe now she'll start bloody talking."

Once again, Alex sighed in frustration, and walked away. Gene stared after her. For some reason he couldn't work out, panic was building in his stomach.

It took a while for Ana to fully calm down. Gene had reluctantly agreed to stay out of the way, something Alex was pleased about. It would easier for Ana to talk to her.

As soon as Alex entered to room, Ana blurted out exactly what she needed to know.

"It was Emerys that killed her."

"Who?" Alex blinked in surprise. The name Emerys sounded vaguely familiar, she just didn't know where from. Emerys...

"Emerys d'Orleans. His family and my family...we know each other. It was Emerys that killed her."

"You know Suha was dead?"Alex sat down, frowing, confused. Because she'd been sure that Ana hadn't known anything...there'd been nothing to suggest she'd been lying earlier.

"No...not knew." Ana shook her head, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. "It's a...long time ago. I swore not to tell anyone what happened-"

"Your friend is dead. If you want the person who did this to be punished, then you need to tell us what you know."

"I'm protecting my family." Ana looked at her, eyes pleading. "My mother didn't have a choice, none of us did. Emerys saved her."

"What do you mean he saved her? What were you-"

"She was dying." Ana looked at Alex, pleading. "Mother, I mean. She had Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease. She was on dialysis. And it was barely keeping her alive. Do you know what that means?"

Slowly, things pieced together in Alex's head. The murdered girl with her organs torn out. A mother with kidney failure.

"Did she have a transplant?"

Ana nodded, eyes shut and head bowed not saying anything.

"Did...Emerys provide the organ."

Ana was silent for a while, before explaining quietly. "Father met Emerys on a business trip in Toronto. Emerys came over to our house...and explained. He could get her the kidney she needed. He could save her. He told us there was people in America who would sell there's if we were willing to pay. Illegals, people in debt...they needed money more than they needed there kidney. We had money. We just didn't have a kidney for mother. And it seemed like the only way we could save her."

"The hospitals couldn't do anything?"

"We thought about it, and then finally, mother decided she'd do it. Emerys found a match. A woman from Mexico, an illegal...Maria. We even met with her...and we agreed a price. We paid her ten thousand dollars for that Kidney." Ana said quietly. "It was illegal, we were warned that. We couldn't tell anyone we'd paid Maria. Maria pretended to be mothers friend, we did the transplant in hospital...nobody knew we'd bought it..." She took a deep breath and turned away. "We later found out that Maria was murdered in Oregon."

"Did Emerys kill her?"

"No...we never though he'd killed her and it was never solved." Ana said quietly. "I met Emerys again when I came over here. He said he'd fled America. There was a warrant for his arrest. Claimed it had something to do with taxes...I didn't put two and two together."

"You think Emerys killed Maria?"

"I don't know!" Ana looked at her.

"And what does Emerys have to do with Suha? Did Suha donate a-"

"No." Ana shook her head. "Not at first. He later told Suha what he did for a living. She said it was...noble. She called him a saint for saving lives as he did. They had a...relationship. When Suha graduated with a medical degree, she planned to go home. But she didn't. She knew her family would never let her be with Emerys. She tried to apply for another visa. It was rejected. And thats when she told me...she and Emerys had a plan. I had a bad feeling about it, but she said they were going to run. She said she wasn't going to go home. She was going to stay with Emerys and help save lives. I don't know where they went."

"And you think Emerys killed her?"

"I don't know...but I can just...I just know he something to do with it."