‘This is your daughter?’
‘Yes, Caitlin. It was taken about two years ago.’
She replaced the photograph, then sat down on the sofa, placing her black attaché case beside her.
‘A very beautiful young lady. A strong face. Good bone structure. She could model, maybe?’
‘Maybe.’ Lynn swallowed, thinking, If she lives. Then she put on her most positive smile. ‘Would you like to meet her now?’
‘No, not yet. Give to me first a little of her medical history.’
Lynn put the tray down on the coffee table, handed the woman her cup, then sat in an armchair beside her.
‘Well, OK – I’ll try. Up until nine she was fine, a normal, healthy child. Then she started having bowel problems, strong occasional stomach pains. Our GP diagnosed it initially as indeterminate colitis. That was followed by diarrhoea with blood in it, which persisted for a couple of months, and she felt tired all the time. He referred her to a liver specialist.’
Lynn sipped her coffee.
‘The specialist said that her spleen and liver were enlarged. She had a distended stomach and she was losing weight. Her tiredness was getting worse. She was always falling asleep, wherever she was. She was going to school, but needed four or five naps a day. Then she started getting stomach pains that went on all night. The poor kid was really distressed and kept asking, “Why me?”’
Suddenly, Lynn looked up and saw Caitlin entering the room.
‘Hi!’ she said.
‘Angel – this is Mrs Hartmann.’
Caitlin shook the woman’s hand warily. ‘Nice to meet you.’ Her voice was quavering.
Lynn saw the woman studying her daughter closely. ‘It is very nice to meet you, Caitlin.’
‘Darling, I was just telling Mrs Hartmann about your stomach pains that used to keep you awake all night. Then the doctor put you on antibiotics, didn’t he? Which worked well, for a time, didn’t they?’
Caitlin sat down in the opposite sofa. ‘I can only sort of remember.’
‘You were very young, then.’ Lynn turned back to Marlene Hartmann. ‘Then they stopped working. That was when she was twelve. She was diagnosed with a condition called PSC – primary sclerosing cholangitis. She spent almost a year in hospital – first down here, then in London, in the liver unit at the Royal South London. She had an operation to put stents inside her bile ducts.’
Lynn looked at her daughter for confirmation.
Caitlin nodded.
‘Can you understand what it is like for an active teenager to spend a year in a hospital ward?’
Marlene Hartmann smiled sympathetically at Caitlin. ‘I can imagine.’
Lynn shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think you can imagine what it is like in an English hospital, I really don’t think so. She was at the Royal South London, one of our top hospitals. At one point, because of overcrowding, they put her, a teenage girl, in a mixed ward. No television. Surrounded by deranged elderly people. She had to put up with confused women and men climbing into bed with her, day and night. She was in a terrible state. I used to go up and sit with her until they threw me out. I’d then sleep in the waiting room or in the corridor.’ She looked at Caitlin for corroboration. ‘Didn’t I, darling?’
‘It wasn’t that great in that ward,’ Caitlin confirmed, with a wistful smile.
‘When she came out, we tried everything. We went to healers, priests, tried colloidal silver, a blood transfusion, acupuncture, the lot. Nothing worked. My poor angel was like a little old person, shuffling along, falling over – weren’t you, darling? If it wasn’t for our GP, I don’t know what would have happened. He’s been a saint. Dr Ross Hunter. He found a new specialist who put Caitlin on a different regime of drugs, and he got Caitlin’s life back – for a while. She returned to school, was able to swim, play netball, and she took up music again, which had always been a big love of hers. She started playing the saxophone.’
Lynn drank some more of her coffee, then noticed, to her irritation, that Caitlin’s concentration had gone and she was texting on her phone.
‘Then about six months ago, everything went pear-shaped. She started finding her breathing difficult on the saxophone, didn’t you, darling?’
Caitlin raised her head, nodded, and returned to her texting.
‘Now the specialist has told us that she needs to have a transplant – as a matter of urgency. They found a matching donor and I took her up to the Royal for the operation a couple of days ago. But at the last minute they said there were problems with the donor liver – although they never explained exactly what those problems were – not to my satisfaction. Then we were told – or at least, it was hinted to us very strongly – that she was not being treated as a priority. Which meant that she could be in that group of 20 per cent of those waiting for a liver transplant who…’
She hesitated, looking at Caitlin. But Caitlin completed the sentence for her.
‘Who die before they get one, is what my mother is saying.’
Marlene Hartmann took Caitlin’s hand, and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Caitlin, mein Liebling, please trust me. In today’s world, no person needs to die because they cannot get the organ they need. Look at me, OK?’ She tapped her chest and pouted her lips. ‘You see me?’
Caitlin nodded.
‘I had a daughter, Antje, who was thirteen, two years younger than you, and needed a liver transplant in order to live. It was not possible to find one. Antje died. On the day that I buried her I made a promise, that no one would ever die again, waiting for a liver transplant. Nor for a heart-lung transplant. Nor a kidney transplant either. That was when I set up my agency.’
Caitlin pushed her lips out, the way she always did when she agreed with something, and nodded approval.
‘Could you guarantee finding a liver for Caitlin?’ Lynn asked.
‘Natürlich! That is my business. I guarantee always to find a matching organ and to effect the transplant within one week. In ten years I have not had one failure. If you would like reassurance from my past clients, there are some who would be willing to contact you and tell you their experiences.’
‘One week – even though she’s an AB negative blood group?’
‘The blood group is not important, Mrs Beckett. Three thousand five hundred people die on the roads, around the world, every day. There will always be a matching donor somewhere.’
Lynn suddenly felt overwhelmed with relief. This woman seemed credible. Her years of experience in the world of debt collecting had taught her a lot about human nature. In particular, telling the genuine people from the bullshitters.
‘So what would be involved in finding a matching liver for my daughter?’
‘I have a worldwide network, Mrs Beckett.’ She paused to sip some of her tea. ‘It will not be a problem to find an accident victim, somewhere on this planet, who is a type match.’
Then Lynn asked the question she was dreading. ‘How much do you charge?’
‘The complete package, which includes all surgical fees for a senior transplant surgeon and a second surgeon, two anaesthetists, nursing staff, six months’ unlimited post-operative care, and all drugs, is -’ she shrugged, as if aware of the impact this was going to have – ‘three hundred thousand euros.’
Lynn gasped. ‘Three hundred thousand?’
Marlene Hartmann nodded.
‘That’s -’ Lynn did some quick mental arithmetic – ‘that’s about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds!’
Caitlin gave her mother a forget-it look.
Marlene Hartmann nodded. ‘Yes, that is about right.’
Lynn raised her hands in despair. ‘That – that’s a huge sum. Impossible – I mean, I just don’t have that kind of money.’