Marlene ran over to him, knelt and helped him to his feet. He looked dazed.
‘There’s a police helicopter here!’ Marlene yelled at him. ‘We need to do a lock-down! Pull yourselves together! Do you understand?’
Draguta fell, with several green-gowned members of the team crashing down on top of her.
‘I’m blind!’ she screamed in Romanian. ‘God help me, I’m blind!’
‘Get her sedated!’ commanded Marlene. ‘Shut her up! Quickly!’
A junior anaesthetist grabbed a syringe, then scrabbled around on the trolley and picked up a vial.
One of the nurses said, ‘We need to get Draguta to an eye hospital.’
‘Where’s the English girl? Caitlin? Where is she?’
Blank, dazed eyes stared at her.
‘WHERE IS THE ENGLISH GIRL?’ Marlene Hartmann shouted.
117
The roundabouts were getting worse. Caitlin, freezing cold, sleet tickling her face every few seconds, bumped against the wall, pushed herself away and almost fell over. It was an effort to move her feet. She dragged one, then the other. She was almost at the front of the building now. She could see a car park. Rows and rows of vehicles.
They came in and out of focus.
She stumbled through a flowerbed and nearly fell. Her iPod, dangling from a wire, tapped against her knee. She itched terribly.
They’re going to be angry with me. Mum. Luke. Dad. Gran. Shit, they’re going to be angry with me. Shit. Angry. Shit. Angry.
Above her was a terrible, loud, clattering roar.
She looked up, furiously scratching her chest. A few hundred feet above her head she saw a dark blue and yellow helicopter, like a huge mutant insect. And she saw the word police along its side.
Shit. Shit. Shit. They were coming to arrest her for stabbing the nurse.
She pressed against the wall, gulping air, fighting for every breath. The wall was moving, swaying. She inched forward. Saw the circular driveway. The helicopter swept away, making a wide arc. Then she saw a taxi, the same turquoise and white colours as the one that had brought them here.
A woman in a fur coat and silk headsquare was standing by the driver’s door, paying the driver. Then she turned and walked towards the front door, towing her bag behind her. The driver was getting back into his cab.
Caitlin ran, stumbling, towards him, waving her arms.
‘Hello!’ she called. ‘Hello!’
He did not hear her.
‘Hello!’
He was getting back into the vehicle.
She grabbed the front passenger door and swayed again, hanging on to it with all her strength. Then she pulled it open. ‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Please – are you free?’
‘I’m sorry, love, this is out of my area. I’m not allowed to pick up here.’
‘Please – where are you going? Could you just give me a lift?’
He was a wrinkled man with white hair and a kind face.
‘Where do you want to go? I have to get back to Brighton.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, great, thanks.’
She half stumbled, half fell on to the front seat. The interior smelled strongly of the woman’s perfume.
‘Are you all right, love? You’re bleeding.’
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?’