Peter James - Dead Tomorrow

Caitlin gave a wry smile. ‘Yeah, well, don’t wear anything embarrassing.’

‘Thanks a lot!’

‘You haven’t brought that horrible orange top?’

‘I haven’t brought that horrible orange top.’

A little over half an hour after leaving Brighton Station car park, they turned in through a smart, pillared gateway, past the sign which read WISTON GRANGE SPA RESORT, then they drove on up a metalled driveway, through rolling parkland and over a series of speed humps. After a short distance Lynn saw a golf course to their left and a large lake. Ahead were the Downs, and she could make out the cluster of trees that formed Chanctonbury Ring.

Caitlin was silent, her eyes closed, listening to music on her iPod, or asleep. Lynn, sitting in funereal silence, did not want to wake her until the last moment, hoping sleep might help conserve her strength.

God, please let me have made the right decision, she prayed silently.

It had been OK until the police officers’ visit this morning. She had known until then that she was doing the right thing, but now she didn’t know what the right thing was any more.

Finally, jerked by a speed hump, Caitlin’s eyes opened and she stared around, bewildered.

‘What are you listening to, darling?’ Lynn asked.

Caitlin did not hear her.

Lynn stared at her daughter with such affection she thought her heart would burst. Stared at the bilious yellow colour of her skin and her eyes. She looked so damn frail and vulnerable.

Stay strong, darling. Just for a little while longer. Just a few more hours and then everything is going to be fine.

She looked through the windscreen for some moments at the place looming up ahead, a big, ugly, stately pile of a house. The central part looked, to Lynn, as if it was Victorian Gothic, but there were a number of modern annexes and outbuildings, some sympathetic to the style, others just bland, modern prefabs. She saw a circular driveway ahead, lined with cars, flanked by a car park on either side, but the driver turned off at a sign marked private, drove through an archway along the side of the house and into a large rear courtyard, bounded on one side by what she presumed had once been the mews stables and on another by a row of ugly lock-up garages.

They pulled to a halt beside an unpretentious back entrance. Before Lynn had climbed out of the Mercedes, a massive beefcake of a woman emerged from the door, wearing a white nurse’s tunic and gym shoes.

Grigore sprang around to open Caitlin’s door, but, with considerable effort, she slid over to her mother’s side, following her out unaided.

‘Mrs Lynn Beckett, Miss Caitlin Beckett?’ The woman’s formal voice and broken English accent made it sound like an interrogation.

Lynn nodded meekly, holding an arm around her daughter, and read the woman’s name tag: Draguta.

She looked like a dragon, she thought.

‘You will follow me, please.’

‘I bring your bags,’ Grigore said.

Lynn gripped Caitlin’s hand as they followed the woman along a wide corridor with white tiled walls which smelled strongly of disinfectant, passing several closed doors. Then the woman stopped at a locked door at the end and punched in a security code.

They walked through into a carpeted area, with pale grey painted walls, which had the feel of an office suite, then the woman stopped at a door and knocked.

A female voice from the other side called out, ‘Reinkommen!’

Lynn and Caitlin were ushered into a large, plush office, and the nurse closed the door behind them. Marlene Hartmann rose up from behind a bare desk to greet them. Behind her was a window giving a panoramic view across towards the Downs.

‘ Gut! You are here! I hope you had a pleasant journey – please sit down.’ She pointed to the two armchairs in front of the desk.

‘We had an interesting journey,’ Lynn said, a hard knot in her stomach and her throat feeling so tight she could barely get the words out. Her legs were shaking.

‘ Ja. We have problems.’ Marlene Hartmann nodded seriously. ‘But I have never let a customer down.’ She smiled at Caitlin. ‘All is good, mein Liebling ?’

‘I’d quite like the surgeon to have Feist playing during the operation. Do you think he’d sort of like do that?’ Caitlin asked quietly.

She sat, scratching her left ankle, hunched up on the chair.

‘Feist?’ The woman frowned. ‘What is Feist?’

‘She’s cool. A singer.’

Now she started scratching her distended stomach.

The German woman shrugged. ‘OK, sure, we can ask. I don’t know.’

‘There’s kind of like one other thing I want to know,’ Caitlin said.

Lynn stared at her in alarm. She seemed to be having breathing difficulties when she spoke.

‘Tell me?’

‘This liver I’m getting – who is it coming from?’

Without any flicker of hesitation, the woman responded, ‘From a poor little girl about your age who was killed in car accident yesterday.’

Lynn glanced anxiously at her daughter, signalling with her eyes not to probe further.

‘Where was she killed?’ Caitlin asked, ignoring her mother. Her voice suddenly sounded stronger.

‘In Romania – outside a town called Brasov.’

‘Tell me more about her, please,’ Caitlin said.

This time, Marlene Hartmann shrugged defensively. ‘I’m afraid I have to protect donor confidentiality. I cannot give you any more information. Afterwards, you may write, through me, to thank her family, if you wish. I would encourage this.’

‘So it’s not true what the police-’

‘Darling!’ Lynn interrupted hastily, sensing what was coming. ‘Frau Hartmann is right.’

Caitlin was silent for some moments, looking around, her eyes searching as if they were having difficulty focusing. Then, speaking weakly, she said, ‘If – if I’m going to agree to have this liver, I need to know the truth.’

Lynn looked at her, bewildered.

Suddenly, the door opened and the nurse called Draguta came back in.

‘We are ready.’

‘Please, Caitlin, you go now,’ the broker said. ‘Your mother and I have business to conclude. She will be with you in a few minutes.’

‘So the photograph the police brought round – that’s not true?’ Caitlin persisted.

‘Darling! Angel!’ Lynn implored.

Marlene Hartmann looked at them both stonily. ‘Photograph?’

‘It was a lie!’ Lynn blurted, close to tears. ‘It was a lie!’

‘What photograph is this, Caitlin?’ the broker asked.

‘They said she was not dead. That she was going to be killed for me.’

Marlene Hartmann shook her head. Her lips formed into a rigid, humourless line and there was astonishment in her eyes.

Very gently, she said, ‘Caitlin, this is not how I do business. Please believe me.’ She smiled warmly. ‘I don’t think your English police are happy with anyone doing something to – how do you say it? – buck their system. They would rather people died than obtain an organ by paying for it. You have to trust me on this.’

Behind them, the nurse said, ‘Now you come, please.’

Lynn kissed her daughter. ‘Go with her, darling. I’ll follow you in a few minutes. I just have to make the final payment. I’ll fax the bank while you’re getting ready.’

She helped Caitlin to her feet.

Swaying unsteadily, her eyes looking very unfocused, Caitlin turned to Marlene Hartmann.

‘Feist,’ she said. ‘You’ll ask the surgeon?’

‘Feist,’ the German woman said, with a broad smile.

Then she took a step towards her mother, looking scared. ‘You won’t be long, Mum, will you?’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can, darling.’