She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘Just – just shut my hand in a door.’
‘I’ve got a first-aid kit – do you want a sticking plaster?’
Caitlin shook her head vigorously. ‘No. No thanks. I’m fine.’
‘Been having treatment here, have you?’
She nodded, desperately trying to keep her eyes open.
‘Expensive, this place, I’ve heard.’
‘My mother pays,’ she whispered.
He leaned over and pulled her seat belt on for her, then clipped it into place.
She was almost unconscious by the time they reached the front gates.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked.
Nodding, she replied, ‘It’s tiring, you know, the treatments.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘Not in my budget.’
‘Budget,’ she echoed weakly. Then, as her eyes closed, she felt the vehicle accelerate.
‘You really sure you’re all right?’ he asked again insistently.
‘I’m fine.’
Five minutes later, three police cars shot past in the opposite direction, roof spinners flashing, sirens wailing. Moments later, they were followed by another.
‘Something’s going on,’ the driver said.
‘Shit happens,’ she murmured drowsily.
‘Tell me about it,’ he agreed.
118
Alarmed by the abrupt, panicky departure of the organ broker from the room, Lynn went over to the window to see what was causing the incessant, clattering noise. Her gullet tightened as she looked up at the circling helicopter and read the word police.
It was circling low overhead, as if looking for something – or someone.
Herself?
Her stomach felt as if a drum of ice had been emptied into it.
Please, no. Please, God, no. Not now. Please let the operation go ahead. After that, anything.
Please just let the operation go ahead.
She was so tensed up, watching it, at first she didn’t hear the sound of her phone ringing. Then she fumbled inside her handbag and pulled her phone out. On the display it read, Private Number.
She answered.
‘Mrs Beckett?’ said a woman’s voice she recognized but could not place.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Shirley Linsell, from the Royal South London Hospital.’
‘Oh. Yes, hello,’ she said, surprised to hear from the woman. What the hell was she calling about?
‘I have some good news for you. We have a liver which may be suitable for Caitlin. Can you be ready to leave in an hour’s time?’
‘A liver?’ she said blankly.
‘It’s actually a split liver from a large person.’
‘Yes, I see,’ she said, her mind spinning. Split liver. She couldn’t even think what a split liver meant at this moment.
‘Would one hour’s time be all right?’
‘One hour?’
‘For the ambulance to collect yourself and Caitlin?’
Suddenly, Lynn felt boiling hot, as if her head was about to explode.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Pardon?’
Shirley Linsell patiently repeated what she had just said.
Lynn stood in numb silence, holding the phone to her ear.
‘Hello? Mrs Beckett?’
Her brain was paralysed.
‘Mrs Beckett? Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ Lynn said. ‘Yes.’
‘We’ll have an ambulance with you in one hour.’
‘Right,’ Lynn said. ‘Umm, the thing is…’ She fell silent.
‘Hello? Mrs Beckett?’
‘I’m here,’ she said.
‘It’s a very good match.’
‘Right, good, OK.’
‘Do you have some concerns you’d like to talk about?’
Lynn’s brain was scrambling for traction. What the hell should she do? Tell the woman no thanks, that she was now sorted?
With a police helicopter overhead.
Where had Marlene Hartmann gone, almost running from the room?
What if the wheels fell off, despite the payment she had made? Maybe it would be more sensible, even at this late stage, to take the offer of the legitimate liver?
Like the last time, when they had been bumped for some sodding alcoholic?
Caitlin would not survive if they got bumped again.
‘Can we talk through your concerns, Mrs Beckett?’
‘Yep, well, after the last time – that was a pretty damn tough call. I don’t think I could put Caitlin through that again.’
‘I understand that, Mrs Beckett. I can’t give you any guarantees that our consultant surgeon won’t find a problem with this one either. But, so far, it looks good.’
Lynn sat back down at one of the chairs in front of Marlene Hartmann’s desk. She desperately needed to think this through.
‘I have to call you back,’ Lynn said. ‘How long can you give me?’
Sounding surprised, the woman said, ‘I can give you ten minutes. Otherwise I will have to pass it to the next person on the list, I’m afraid. I really think you would be making a terrible mistake not to accept this.’
‘Ten minutes, thank you,’ Lynn said. ‘I’ll call you. Within ten minutes.’
She hung up. Then she attempted to weigh the pros and cons in her mind, trying not to be influenced by the money she had paid over.
A certain liver here at this clinic, versus an uncertain liver in London.
Caitlin should be part of this decision. Then she looked at her watch. Nine minutes to go.
She hurried out across the carpeted area and through the door into the tiled corridor. Ahead on her right she saw a door ajar and peered in. It was a small changing room, with lockers and a bench seat. Lying on the seat was Caitlin’s duffel coat.
She must be somewhere near, she thought. A short distance further along was another open door, to the left. She walked down and looked in, and saw a storeroom with a gurney on wheels and what looked like an operating-theatre door, with a glass porthole, at the far end.
She hurried across and peered through the glass. An unconscious, naked girl, not Caitlin, lay intubated on the operating table. Several masked people, in green scrubs, were heaving a huge, unconscious nurse, covered in blood, up off the floor. As they staggered around under her weight, Lynn saw, to her shock, it was the nurse, Draguta, who had taken Caitlin off.
She felt a sudden fear catching her throat. Something was terribly wrong. She pushed the door open and went in.
‘Excuse me!’ she called out. ‘Excuse me! Does anyone know where my daughter is? Caitlin?’
Several of them turned to stare at her.
‘Your daughter?’ said a young man, in broken English.
‘Caitlin. She’s having an operation. A transplant.’
The surgeon glanced at the nurse, then back at Lynn. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not now.’
‘Where is she?’ she said, almost yelling at him, her fear rising. ‘What’s going on? Where is she?’ She jabbed a hand at Draguta. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I think you should speak with your daughter,’ he said.
‘Where is she? Please, where is she?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
She glanced at her watch. Seven minutes left.
She turned and ran, panic-stricken, from the room, back out into the corridor, shouting loudly, ‘Caitlin! Caitlin! Caitlin!’
She flung open a door, but it was just a laundry room. Then another, but it contained only an MRI scanner and was otherwise empty.
‘CAITLIN!’ she screamed desperately, running further along the corridor, then outside into the deserted yard and the freezing air. She looked around frantically, shouting again, ‘CAITLIN!’
Choked with tears, she went back in and ran along the corridor into the office suite, throwing open door after door. There were just offices. Startled administration staff looked up from their work stations. She opened another door and saw a small back staircase. She sprinted up it and at the top saw a heavy fire door with the words STERILE AREA. STRICTLY NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE across it.
It was unlocked and she went through into what felt, and smelled like a hospital corridor. There was another door ahead, with a hand-cleansing unit, on the wall outside. Ignoring that, she opened the door and stepped in.