Draguta shouted a command for her to come out, as if she were shouting at a dog.
‘She’s alive, at this moment, yes,’ the younger man said enthusiastically, as if this was something Caitlin wanted to hear.
She lunged forward, grabbed at the drip lines that were in Simona’s arm with her left hand and jerked them free, then grabbed the ones out of the neck and tore at the cardiac monitor pads.
The surgeon seized Caitlin by her shoulders. ‘Are you crazy, little girl?’
Caitlin responded by biting his hand, hard. The surgeon cried out in pain and she wriggled free, twisting, staring at pairs of eyes behind masks, all of them in shock, uncertain what to do. Then she saw the nurse marching towards her.
She raised the scalpel, holding it by the handle like a dagger, brandishing it at everyone, beyond caring.
‘Get her off that table!’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Get her off that table now!’
The entire theatre team stood motionless, staring at her in shock.
Except the big nurse, who pushed through, grabbed Caitlin’s free arm and yanked her so hard she almost fell over. Then she jerked her back across the room to the door, Caitlin’s trainers sliding on the tiled floor as she tried, with her failing strength, to resist.
‘Let me go, you ugly fucking cow!’ she hissed.
The nurse stopped to push open the door, then jerked Caitlin hard again. She stumbled forward, falling, and as she shot out her arm to cushion herself, the blade of the scalpel, still gripped tightly in her hand, sliced through the top of the woman’s cheekbone, cleanly through her right eye and the bridge of her nose.
The woman let out a terrible howl, her hands shooting to her face, blood jetting in every direction. She staggered against someone, wailing like a banshee, and several of the team rushed over to help and to stop her falling.
In the commotion, no one noticed Caitlin stumbling out.
116
Marlene Hartmann was striding anxiously down the tiled corridor, her normal steely composure already shot to pieces, when she heard the screams. She broke into a run, then saw what looked like utter mayhem spilling out of the operating theatre.
She stormed through the supplies room and saw her theatre team frantically trying to restrain the massive nurse, who had blood gouting from her face and spurting all over her white tunic. She was lashing out with all her considerable strength and screaming hysterically as, blood-spattered, Sir Roger Sirius and two junior surgeons, the anaesthetists and the scrub nurses all wrestled with her. Simona lay on the operating table, wires and lines all around her, oblivious to everything.
‘
Gottverdammt
, what is happening?’
‘The girl went crazy,’ Sirius said, panting.
Then, before he could say anything further, Draguta’s meaty fist smashed into his cheek, sending him reeling backwards and crashing on to the hard floor.
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?’
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.