Life and Limb (15 page)

T
he kidney was grey and lifeless. Cold, too, because it had been lying in the box at fridge temperature for twenty-five hours now.

He looked at it as it lay in the palm of his hand. He observed it from different angles. Then he cut off a little of the vein and a little of the artery and rinsed out the last remnant of blood – if there was any left.

For a moment Janos Kempinski studied the patient's exposed abdominal cavity in front of him. Normally he gave it very little thought. There was simply no time for deep, meaningful reflections on life and death, since a doctor had to be on call for emergency surgery and transplant work in addition to planned operations. He had personally collected this kidney from Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm after a day's work full of meetings and operations. This kidney had become available after the tissue type test, when a computer in Sweden had flagged this Danish patient as the most suitable recipient for organs from a young woman who had been in a coma following a suicide attempt. After consulting with doctors, her family had decided to switch off her life support.

Again Kempinski stared at the kidney. Peter Boutrup had nicknamed him Dr Death, and there was a grain of truth in it. Death followed him wherever he went. Life, too, of course. To him they were inseparable. In his experience, it was often the case that one person had to die for another to live.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and winced. He rarely felt tired until afterwards but today his whole body ached, and if he closed his eyes for just a moment a pricking sensation became apparent behind his eyelids. He hadn't had enough sleep and it wasn't just because of his work.

As he took a deep breath, placed the kidney against the lower left side of the stomach and started sewing, he was grateful for the routine he had built up over the years. Slowly, and with patience born of experience, he secured the blood vessels from the new kidney to those supplying blood to one of the patient's legs. Then he connected the ureter to the bladder and let his thoughts wander.

It wasn't as if he had anything to complain about. He had turned forty-eight only a couple of months earlier. He had never wanted children. His work was his life – he had always known that – and to him love was accidental and quick, to be fitted in whenever it was convenient.

He stared at his own latex-clad hands as he sutured. Why couldn't he shake off this feeling that absolutely nothing was as it should be? Where did this gnawing dissatisfaction come from? A midlife crisis? These weren't words he normally had much time for, but the thought had crossed his mind of late. And something momentous had happened: Lena Bjerregaard had entered his life.

‘Janos.'

The theatre nurse was waiting with the scissors and he nodded and turned his attention back to the one thing he felt he could handle. For years he had lived for this moment and this alone: the moment when the operation was over and the new kidney was ready to be tested.

He tied the final knot and the theatre nurse cut the suture. He removed the two clamps preventing blood flow during surgery and once more the miracle happened, to the accompaniment of the entire surgical team's sighs of relief and delight at a job well done. Slowly the grey, lifeless kidney changed colour in front of their eyes and turned pink and healthy. This organ, which had been inside a dying person some hours ago, was now inside this patient and bursting with life.

He gave the team a bloodstained thumbs-up with both hands and received the same gesture in return. Then he closed up the patient.

It was well past dinnertime when he was finally able to leave the hospital. He inhaled the fresh air as he walked to the car, and convinced himself that he could smell the crops from the surrounding fields. Exhaustion sapped his body now. It was several hours since he had last been outside. If he could summon up the energy, he would eat out tonight and relax with a beer alone. It was something he did from time to time.

Debating this on the way to his car, he saw a small figure standing nearby, fumbling with a remote control which apparently would not work. It was Lena, in a red summer coat with a belt that emphasised her narrow waist and gave her a defined silhouette.

He cleared his throat. She looked up and flashed him a smile that looked more tortured than cheerful.

‘It won't work. I think it must be the battery.'

He was no handyman, but he wanted to be helpful.

‘Can't you use the key?'

She shook her head.

‘I've already tried. Nothing.'

He lingered next to his own car. His was a new Audi, only six months old. Hers was a Skoda Felicia. He wanted to take the remote from her and desperately wished he knew something about cars. But everything he touched, in that respect, had a tendency to go wrong, so he said the next thing he could think of.

‘Do you have any breakdown cover?'

She shook her head again.

‘I could give you a lift,' he offered. ‘Where do you live?'

He already knew: he had looked at the staff address list. One day, when he hadn't had much to do, he had driven slowly past her home.

‘Hoffmannsvej in Brabrand.'

He heard the hope in her voice and he had a sense that her mood was always easy to see or hear.

‘Are you sure?' she added.

‘Of course, hop in. But I think you'll need to get a mechanic to take a look at your car tomorrow.'

He opened the door for her. She nodded and got in carefully, as if she had never been in an expensive car before.

He slipped in behind the wheel. The engine purred like a pampered cat as he reversed out of the parking bay.

They had been travelling in silence when he heard himself say,

‘I was thinking of going for a bite to eat … I …'

He felt awkward and paused.

‘Of course, it's been a long day for you,' said Lena, whose day had been just as long. ‘I do understand.'

He looked at her. Her nose was a tiny bit crooked, but in a nice way. Her lips revealed an ever-present smile.

‘Listen … I fancy a steak and a beer … perhaps you might …'

‘I don't want to be any trouble. You can always drop me at the bus stop.'

‘No, that's not what I meant …'

She stared rigidly ahead.

‘It's quite all right. You can drop me at Stjernepladsen. Lots of buses stop there …'

‘Please …'

They were in Randersvej. In a moment they would reach Stjernepladsen. He visualised her getting out of the car, thanking him politely for the lift and disappearing into the twilight. Indeed, he could see her red coat lighting up like a lantern for a brief moment before she was gone.

‘I'd really like it if you would … I mean, I suppose your daughter's probably waiting for you …'

‘She's with my mother.'

‘Well, in that case. Please may I … I'd really like it if …'

She burst out laughing. He knew he was blushing and he hoped she couldn't see his red face. He hadn't – as far as he recalled – blushed since he was a teenager.

‘How will we make conversation during a whole meal if neither of us can ever finish a sentence?'

He shot her a sidelong glance and knew that beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, mostly to the sound of her laughter still echoing in his ears. ‘I'm not very good at this.'

‘Good at what?'

From her voice, it was clear she was teasing him.

He shrugged.

‘Good at chatting up beautiful women. I don't know how to ask them out without looking like a total prat.' He found it easier to talk because he was driving the car and had to keep his eyes on the road. ‘I find it really awkward.'

He felt her hand brush his. It could have been accidental or a gesture of kindness.

‘Yes, please. I'd like to have a steak with you.'

He had been in love before, of course. But love had always been a fleeting guest, a weekend visitor who left on Monday morning. That was how he had wanted it.

As he drove, aware of her presence, he thought about the passion that had consumed his life so far. Would the two be able to coexist? Was there room for the passion he felt for his work and this one which was starting to overpower him, or did the axiom that something had to die for something else to live also apply to him?

T
he needle had been in the red for a long time; she had seen it and not seen it at the same time.

Dicte pulled onto the side of the road halfway between Aarhus and Viborg with an empty fuel tank. She didn't know what, precisely, she was doing there or where she had been prior to that. The twilight had turned the closest it could to actual darkness on a Danish summer's night. It was past midnight.

Another text message echoed around the car. It was Bo, who yet again wanted to know where she was, expressed more forcefully this time:
Where the hell are you? Ring me!

She braced herself and sent him a short text message.

Back soon. Will explain later.

Even though at that moment she couldn't see how she would ever make enough sense of this extraordinary day to explain it to him.

He immediately sent a reply, which she didn't open. Instead she switched the mobile to silent mode, leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes while fragments from the day bombarded the inside of her brain. She felt better, though, than she had earlier, so driving around aimlessly on the roads of Jutland must have helped clear her mind.

She had to be true to herself – it was all she had. That was hard enough, but she also had to force herself look at the situation from a distance. Who was she? What were the roles she played? Journalist, girlfriend, mother.
Being a mother had consumed her, and at times it reappeared and unsettled her with fears and pangs of conscience all rolled together in one great big mess. The past loomed large. She had built her entire identity around it – around Jehovah's Witnesses and the child she had given up for adoption. She had always regretted the adoption. She had given away something that could have been hers but the man she had met today was only hers through shared genes. She searched inside herself and found that there was no emotion. Not one she could recognise.

And then her world fell apart. How could she treat it so lightly? Was it because she was in shock?

The truth was that she didn't know. How do you react when your past overwhelms you? Was there a book of etiquette for feelings?

Her phone lit up with yet another text message and she felt like she was waking from a dream. Slowly her surroundings became real again: the steering wheel, the gearstick, the darkness outside, the rear-view mirror where she could see herself if she craned her neck. Life was a strange affair. She had always imagined that meeting her lost son would fill her world with colour. Instead she felt like the living dead in a colourless no-man's-land.

She threw the mobile into her bag, pulled her coat tightly around her, opened the door and started to walk.

Involuntary manslaughter.
She had no idea how she had managed to drive back to the office after the meeting at Skejby Hospital with the stranger whom she was sure was her own son. But she
had. While their conversation replayed in her head, she had looked online and in
Avisen
's own database for everything she could find out about him.

She had read about his case and the crime he was supposed to have committed. What remained in her brain, though, wasn't so much the nature of his act as the past history he had revealed while they sat in the cafeteria.

‘My so-called foster mother got pregnant shortly after I came onto the scene. She preferred her own child, so I was handed back to social services. Blood is thicker than water, as my doctor says.'

He had said it nonchalantly, like a presenter reading the news.

‘It was a crap start to life and it carried on like that,' he continued. ‘My next set of foster parents fell ill when I was four. The wife died of cancer and the husband couldn't manage three children, two of whom were adopted, so Social Services got involved and removed me and my siblings. And in response to this, my father hanged himself.'

He had looked at Dicte without any expression in the eyes that resembled hers, and her mother's, and yet didn't see.

‘Few people want to adopt a four-year-old boy, so I ended up in a care home. From time to time couples would turn up to check out the goods, but they never bloody chose me. I was big and strong for my age. They would rather have had a sweet little girl or a skinny boy with big brown eyes.'

He had been staring at her intently. Then he started to laugh and she felt exposed, for his laughter hadn't been friendly. He pushed himself away from the table, only a little, but she had seen that it required great effort.

‘Now don't take everything I say at face value. I could be making it all up. Don't get too emotional.'

Dicte put one foot in front of the other. Hadn't she passed a petrol station some time ago? She was sure she remembered a neon sign and Statoil and cheap fuel.

She could choose not to believe him, although deep down she knew the truth. He had her genes. In him was a part of her, and of Rose, too. What kind of man was he when you peeled away the story of the adoption and the crime? What were his dreams? What did he look like when he was asleep? Was he capable of loving another human being?

What was he like when he was all alone and didn't need to be on his guard? Did he like the sun and birdsong early on a summer's morning or was he the type to shut his window and close the curtains?

As she walked she heard a sound. It wasn't the sound of gravel crunching under her shoe or her own breathing or the few cars that passed her on the country road.

She stopped. It had been absent for all those years – suppressed, most likely.

It was the sound of his first cry – his very first cry. He had been born with a great, defiant fanfare, as if the world could just come and get him. But the fanfare had turned into a quiet whimper soon after they had taken him away. A subdued, wretched protest that she – at the age of sixteen, exhausted from the birth – had found impossible to take in until later.

Dicte didn't want to let her own curiosity get the better of her, yet it proved irresistible. She wanted to know if it was the fanfare or the quiet weeping that had accompanied him through life. Something told her that it was the former. Something else told her that he might not have survived otherwise. If, indeed, he had.

She blinked in the twilight and resumed walking. The sound of the weeping child diminished with every step she took.

He was right: it was possible to get too emotional and there was no point baring your feelings to a man you didn't know. He was a stranger, and he had made it quite clear that he wished to remain so. This was where she should keep things at, too, if at all possible.

‘Please don't think I'm looking for a mother.'

He had said it as he opened up the page with the article and put a finger on her photo above the byline. ‘I can't really imagine that you're looking for a son, either. Not a thick-skinned journalist like you.'

He put down the paper.

‘All that mawkish therapy crap about seeking out your roots has never been my cup of tea. I don't want anything of that nature from you.'

‘Then what?' she had ventured to ask him. ‘What do you want from me?'

He tapped her photo again.

‘Emotions …'

Another word hovered in the air between them but remained unspoken. He looked up and out into the room.

‘I don't really do emotions. I need only one thing from you – and that's a kidney.'

He met her eyes.

‘I don't give a toss about the reason you didn't want me. But you owe me. Afterwards, you'll never hear from me again. I'll be gone. Out of here. Out of your life.'

It had all been too much to take in at once, and she'd had no idea what to say as she sat there opposite him in the cafeteria. She swallowed; she had a sense that she was sinking and searching for something to cling to. The case, she thought. There is always the case.

‘You said you had some information. If we're to do a deal, it's only fair that you give me a sample of the goods. You're saying this is not the work of a serial killer. So what is it?'

‘Will you think about the kidney?'

She'd nodded. Her brain understood the question, but her senses had switched off.

He drank his coffee, and there had been a mannerism that pressed a button. It was Rose. He had Rose's way of raising the cup to his lips. It was the unconscious habit of sticking out three fingers, even though his way of doing it looked more controlled, more rehearsed.

He was Rose's half-brother. Would she want to meet him? Should she tell Rose about him? And what about
him
? What did his life consist of, apart from prison and kidney disease? Was there someone he loved? Was there someone who loved him?

Beads of sweat trickled slowly down her skin under the T-shirt. She hadn't wanted to be there but she couldn't get up and leave – and anyway, how could you run away from yourself?

‘Six months ago I shared a cell with a man,' he said finally. ‘He knew things that would interest you.'

‘Who? Where is he now?'

He took a good, long time to answer.

‘His name doesn't matter. He has since been released and I don't know where he is, but what I can tell you is this: it's a case of supply and demand. There are people who are prepared to pay for certain goods and then there are those who are willing to provide them. There is no serial killer. It's pure business. A business worth millions.'

‘How can I know if you're telling the truth? Why should I trust you?'

She was fumbling for a safety net that wasn't there and she knew it.

‘You can't,' he said simply. ‘That's the beauty of it. You can't be sure of anything.'

And then he'd raised a hand, clenched his fist and tapped her head. ‘You have to trust your instinct, wherever that's located.'

Finally Dicte arrived at the petrol station with the neon sign. It turned out to be closed, though, and there was no one around. She needed a fuel can. Why didn't she keep an empty canister in the car for this very purpose? And why didn't she have a first-aid kit or a warning triangle either? Why was she always so ill prepared?

She looked around. There was a watering can with a brush for cleaning windscreens. She tipped out the water and, using her credit card to pay, filled the can with petrol to overflowing. It took her forty-five minutes to walk back to the car, during which time she received three more messages from Bo, who was now threatening to call the police.

She reached the car exhausted and poured the petrol into the tank. It felt good to be doing something, even though she still had the feeling that a sticky substance had covered her and was trying to force her down into the darkness. It struck Dicte that it was always like that. No matter how much quicksand she was in, taking action always made her feel better. But would it help her this time?

She threw the watering can into a ditch, got into the car and took out her mobile phone.
On my way home
, she replied to Bo before she started the engine and could feel that what she dreaded most was about to happen. The child's tears mingled with her own and wet trails traced down her cheeks as she turned the car and headed home.