Ken McClure - Donor

‘The patient’s room,’ whispered Dunbar.

They had just started to move off again when a door ahead opened and an Arab woman stepped out into the corridor. She saw them and let out a scream. A door on the other side of the corridor opened and Leo Giordano looked out. He saw Dunbar and quickly backed in again.

‘In there!’ said Dunbar leading the charge.

Giordano failed to get the door closed in time. Dunbar put his shoulder to it and kept the stalemate until two of the constables added their weight and it crashed open.

‘This is an outrage!’ said Giordano.

‘Save your breath,’ said Dunbar looking round the room. Ross was there, along with Kinscherf, Ingrid, two Arab men and the American medics.

‘I’ve stopped Amanda Chapman’s transplant,’ said Dunbar, looking directly at Ross. ‘I know what’s been going on. Where’s the real donor kidney?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ross calmly, meeting Dunbar’s stare. ‘This is an outrage. Explain yourself!’

‘It’s all over, Ross. You must see that. Where is it?’ demanded Dunbar.

There was a moment of silence before Ingrid suddenly shook her head and said, ‘He’s right. For God’s sake tell him!’

‘Shut up!’ snapped Ross but the westerners started showing signs of unease too. One of them got to his feet and said to Dunbar, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here but it’s nothing to do with me. I’ve just been contracted to be part of a surgical team for one transplant.’

‘Me too,’ said another getting up to join his colleague. ‘I don’t know anything about anything.’

‘Sure,’ said Dunbar sourly.

Both men looked down at the floor.

‘Sit down,’ said Dunbar. He turned back to Ross.

‘They exhumed Amy Teasdale and examined her heart,’ he lied.

A flicker of doubt appeared in Ross’s eyes.

‘For God’s sake tell him!’ pleaded Ingrid.

Ross turned to the younger of the two Arab men and said, ‘Will you please tell the sheikh that these men have come to stop the operation to save his son.’

The man did as he was bid in Arabic. The sheikh listened, then looked up very slowly at Dunbar and his colleagues. His eyes, which had been calm, were now hard and full of anger. He rasped something at the younger man, who pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Dunbar. The armed policeman swung the butt of his weapon and caught him on the jaw. The Arab collapsed in a heap and the policeman recovered his weapon. Dunbar had to step over the Arab to get to Ross.

‘It’s all over, Ross. Where is it?’ demanded Dunbar.

‘For God’s sake tell him!’ said Ingrid again; she was now almost hysterical.

Dunbar nodded to the policemen to take her away.

‘Where is the kidney, Ross?’ Dunbar repeated, his voice betraying his urgency and frustration.

‘I’ve nothing to say. I demand to see my solicitor.’

‘Does anyone else know where the real kidney is?’ asked Dunbar looking around. ‘The child is going to die, for God’s sake!’

The others in the room, looking pale, shook their heads.

‘Jesus,’ said Dunbar. ‘Nobody.’

‘We could search the building,’ suggested Renton.

Dunbar looked at his watch. ‘We’re already out of time,’ he said. Then, looking with loathing at those in front of him, he said, ‘Get them out of here.’

He rapped his knuckles against his forehead as he tried to think what Ross might have done with the missing organ. ‘Come on… think, man… think,’ he muttered.

Suddenly it was obvious. It would be near where Ross would need it next. The post-mortem suite! He raced out the door past the melee of policemen and prisoners and down the stairs to the basement corridor. He sprinted along to the PM suite and crashed the door open. The lights seemed to take for ever to stutter into life. ‘A fridge… a fridge,’ he repeated as he pulled open cupboard doors all round the room. Then suddenly he found it. The fridge interior light clicked on to illuminate a metal container sitting there. It was similar to the one sitting beside Amanda on the operating table upstairs. Dunbar removed it carefully and undid the lid to look in. There was a kidney sitting there in crushed ice, scarlet on white.

Praying all the way that it wasn’t too late, Dunbar rushed back up the stairs and along to the transplant theatre. He held the container in two hands in front of him.

‘You got it!’ exclaimed Lisa as he burst into the scrub room.

Dunbar was out of breath. He handed over the container to Turner who, like Lisa, was waiting there in surgical dress in case they were needed.

‘What’s happening?’ Dunbar gasped.

‘You were right. The path report on the kidney they were going to give to Amanda says it’s an animal organ.’

‘How is she?’

‘We’re just about to find out,’ replied Turner.

As Turner entered the theatre, one of the theatre nurses came out, obviously distressed. ‘I just can’t believe what’s been happening,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m sorry… I can’t… I just can’t.’

Dunbar looked at Lisa and nodded. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

Not having been through the scrub procedure, Dunbar couldn’t enter the theatre himself. He went upstairs to watch from the teaching gallery. He turned on the sound relay so he could hear what was said.

‘Dr Turner, would you assist?’ he heard Hatfull ask. Then Hatfull turned to Lisa and said, ‘Staff Nurse Fairfax, I’m obliged to you… If everyone’s ready?’ There were nods all round. ‘Good, let’s get on with it.’

Dunbar sat down and felt exhaustion sweep over him like a fast-running tide. It was over. It was finally over. If there was any justice in this world, Amanda Chapman’s new kidney would give her back her childhood. Her family would be restored… Her family? Dunbar suddenly realized that Sandy and Kate would be waiting downstairs for news of their daughter’s operation. He wondered what, if anything, they’d been told. He took it upon himself to go down and sit with them.

Sandy and Kate stood up as soon as he entered the family waiting area. ‘Any news?’ they asked in unison, before realizing who it was.

‘The operation is progressing,’ said Dunbar. ‘The surgeons encountered a little difficulty at the outset, but everything’s going well now.’

‘We’ve been worried sick,’ said Sandy. ‘There seems to have been an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the hospital tonight.’

‘There were police cars outside,’ added Kate.

‘You didn’t forget to tax Esmeralda, did you?’ asked Dunbar in an attempt to change the subject.

‘Probably,’ answered Sandy with a smile.

Dunbar woke with wintry sunshine streaming in the window and playing on his eyelids. It took him a moment to realize that he was in Lisa’s flat.

‘You’re awake are you?’ said Lisa. She was standing in the doorway, smiling down at him.

‘God, I slept like a log.’

‘You deserved to.’

‘What’s the time?’

‘Eleven thirty.’

‘Good Lord. Amanda! What about Amanda?’

‘She’s doing fine,’ said Lisa. ‘I phoned earlier this morning. Her new kidney’s working well and she’s making a more than satisfactory recovery.’

‘Thank God,’ sighed Dunbar.

‘No. Thank you,’ corrected Lisa.

‘Thank a lot of people, including you.’

‘Is the whole Medic organization crooked?’

Dunbar shook his head. ‘No, just the four of them. Ross, Kinscherf, Giordano and Ingrid, and, of course, the fifth element.’

‘Fifth element?’

‘Mindless, pitiless greed.’

‘Frightening,’ said Lisa quietly. ‘What people will do for money.’

‘And the medical profession is no exception.’