by Liz Lawler
Chapter Forty
Emily wondered how many hours she’d been at the house. It seemed like for ever, and the sky through the porthole windows was pitch-black. She’d come to realise that Shelly was no ordinary healthcare assistant. The conversations between her and Meredith as they discussed the child’s condition highlighted a firm medical knowledge. She spoke with confidence of trying different drugs and increasing dosages of the ones already used. She knew more than Emily, that was for sure. Emily wondered if she should make a run for it. They couldn’t both chase after her. Meredith would have to stay with the child. Shelly didn’t look built for running, though there was power in those shoulders; she had felt their strength in that push downstairs. Of the two of them, Shelly concerned her more. There was a meanness in that red slash of a mouth, and while Meredith was clearly the more educated and the doctor minding this child, Shelly showed she was in charge. There was a shrewdness in those blue eyes. She was planning ahead all the time. The chair she had positioned in the doorway, the one she sat on now, was a tactical move to keep Emily in the room. The scalpel blade she held in her hand, which she tapped against her knee, was a warning. Emily would not get past her without a struggle.
‘I can prove it was Maria’s niece in the room with me,’ she said abruptly. ‘I saw her on hospital CCTV footage. Neither of you will get away with what you did to her. You were both by her bed when she was dying.’
Shelly eyed her scornfully. ‘So explain how a dead woman is alive in her own country, then?’
‘Come over here, Emily,’ Meredith interrupted. She was using a portable ultrasound machine and moving the wand over the child’s abdomen. A surgery site was uncovered, the scar clean, but the area distended. ‘I’m going to put a drain in. He has fluid collection.’
Emily stayed still. ‘He’s not getting any better, Meredith. I’m not going to help you any more.’
‘I need your help,’ she uttered between clenched teeth.
‘And he needs to be in a hospital.’
Shelly stood up. She pointed the scalpel at Emily. ‘Get over there and do your job.’
‘Are you going to use that on me if I don’t?’
‘Just fucking test me, why don’t you?’ she snarled.
‘Who was that patient, Shelly? If she wasn’t Maria’s niece, then who was she? Because someone was beside me in that bed and she died.’
‘And so too will this boy if you don’t get over here and help,’ Meredith hissed.
Emily moved over to the bed, her legs feeling like lead. She could feel the heat of her own body coming through her clothes. So much for running, she thought. She was struggling to just walk. She leaned on the bed for support and pulled back fast as she heard the boy groaning.
She smoothed his brow and made soothing sounds. His eyes were opening and as he saw her, she smiled. ‘Hello, Walter.’
A small hand came up and pulled the mask from his face. ‘Your face looks strange,’ he said weakly, his young voice rasping. ‘Smudgy.’
Emily’s eyes darted to the monitor to see his blood pressure and saw it was nearer to normal than before.
Meredith moved up the side of the bed so that he could see her face. ‘Hello, Champ. You’ve been asleep a long time.’
He smiled with effort. ‘Hello, Merry.’
She kissed his forehead and put the mask back on his face. ‘I need to pop a little tube in your belly, Champ, but you won’t feel anything, I promise you.’
Emily moved back from the bed. She refused to stand there and just watch Meredith do her thing. She would run for it, even if she had to crawl to get help. She could not let this carry on. She calculated the distance between the bed and the doorway and looked for a weapon she could use against Shelly. She took her first step and went no further. She had just heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine, the wheels crunching on the gravel. Peering out the porthole window, she saw bright headlamps, and then the colour of the car as outside lights came on. The Dalloways were home.
*
Geraldine slammed the brake and pulled hard in against the hedgerow as the car in front of her, coming from the opposite direction, shot across the lane making a sharp right into the private road. Geraldine followed at a slow pace, letting it get ahead. Through the windscreen she’d picked out the shapes of Mr and Mrs Dalloway.
Rupert Dalloway was climbing out of his car as Geraldine pulled alongside him. He looked immaculate in a dinner suit and bow tie. She tried not to question whether he’d been drinking and driving. For a start, she didn’t have a breathalyser kit with her, but instinct told her he wouldn’t break this type of law. Mrs Dalloway stayed in the car, letting her husband deal with the visitor.
‘Good evening, Detective Inspector,’ he said, looking unperturbed by her arrival. ‘What brings you out here at this time of night?’
‘A friendly warning, Mr Dalloway. Emily Jacobs is still missing and we just wanted to alert you to that fact, on the chance that she could turn up at your home.’
‘That’s very civic-minded of you, coming all this way when a phone call would suffice.’
‘It’s my job, sir. And you can’t see over a phone call. I wanted to be sure that you’re safe.’
He smiled. ‘Well, as you can see, I am.’
‘And those inside?’ Her eyes went to his house.
He nodded once. ‘Those inside also. I spoke with our childminder only minutes ago to let her know she can get along to bed, that we’re almost home. She would have told me of any visitors or concerns then. She can’t hide it when she’s anxious.’
Geraldine smiled politely. ‘Well, that will be all then. I’ll wish you goodnight.’ She moved to get back in her car, then turned around again. ‘It’s good news about Maria’s niece.’
‘Katka?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘Yes, I spoke to her. The mobile number you emailed me, I got hold of Maria. I spoke to them both. It’s good news that’s she safe.’
The confusion cleared from his eyes. ‘Yes, it is. And I’m glad I was proved right. Maria told Jemma that she’d met up with a boy she didn’t want to leave.’
‘Ah, that explains it. So a good night, then?’ she said, wishing her mouth would shut and stop with the prattling.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Dinner suit. I take it you’ve been somewhere nice?’
‘Ah, the giveaway,’ he nodded. ‘Yes, we have. The hospital was up for an award.’ He paused to give her a chance to say something else. Then smiled politely. ‘If that’s all, I now intend to have a well-deserved drink, so I’ll bid you goodnight and a safe drive.’
Geraldine got back in her car. In the rear-view mirror she saw him standing there, unmoving and watching, as she drove away.
He was aloof, maybe even a little cool, but what else should she expect? She was not above being a bit aloof herself at times, especially if someone turned up unannounced at her front door.
She eyed the road ahead, irritably. She had a wedding to go to tomorrow for which she would have liked to have had an early night. Instead, she was going home late, hungry and having wasted an entire evening.
*
Emily held her breath as she heard footsteps coming up the wooden staircase. If she had a chair she would sit down before she fell down. Fever and fear were making her legs terribly weak.
Dalloway stood at the doorway, taking everything in. Emily’s presence, Shelly standing with a scalpel in her hand, Meredith’s anxious face, the tension in the room. His gaze then fixed on the boy in the bed and Emily saw anguish fill his eyes.
‘I’ve done everything I can, Rupert,’ Meredith said tremulously. ‘He’s more stable now. He’s just spoken to us.’
‘You should have called me,’ he said in a voice suppressed with emotion.
‘I was going to, Rupert, but I was busy sorting him out,’ she replied defensively. ‘I’m just about to put in a drain.’
He gave a sound of utter despair. ‘A drain! Will you look at him, Mered
ith. Just look at him! He’s rejecting it, you stupid woman.’
Emily could hold her tongue no longer. ‘I told her to call an ambulance hours ago. They were both prepared to let him die.’
‘You shouldn’t have come here, Emily,’ he said. ‘The police are looking for you.’
‘Well call them, then. I’ll go quietly with them.’
He shook his head regretfully. ‘Now is not the best time to have them in my home. You’ll have to stay here a little while longer, I’m afraid. Walter needs me.’
‘They said he’s your son.’
‘He is, Emily,’ he said in a voice leaden with sorrow, as he glanced slowly her way, and Emily found it hard to dislike him. He looked beaten.
‘He needs to go to hospital. You can’t keep him here.’
With slow movements he pulled the bow tie from his neck and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. He took off his jacket and laid it across the foot of the bed, and then he moved up to his son and leaned down and cradled the small head in one hand and stroked the sallow cheek with the other. ‘My beautiful boy,’ he whispered.
‘Call an ambulance, Mr Dalloway, it’s not too late,’ Emily urged.
He straightened up and smoothed the red-gold hair. ‘My son has had enough of hospitals. He spent the first year of his life in hospital. He has been through such a lot. His kidneys eventually failed and he has spent most of his life on dialysis. The real kick in the teeth is that one organ’s disease leads to the failure of another. When the liver is affected, there is no machine that will help that. And I thought we had beaten that bastard. All I wanted to do was make him better.’
‘Don’t give up, Rupert.’ Jemma Dalloway cried from the doorway, startling them. She had silently come up to the room, and now stood there with tears slowly falling down her face. ‘Don’t you dare do that.’
Dalloway said nothing. His face said it all and she searched it long and hard, desperate for him to agree with her, to witness anything but this hopelessness and finality, before she suddenly clutched her breast, gave a cry of agony, her eyes widening in horror as she saw what he had already seen. Dalloway crossed the room and held his wife. Emily saw them now, as they were. Despite their wealth and success, despite Dalloway’s gift of healing the sick, they were simply parents facing a terrible ordeal.
‘You told me he would live,’ she cried bitterly. ‘You told me this would save him.’
Dalloway rested his head on top of hers. ‘I was wrong, Jemma.’
Emily’s eyes were glazing, whether from the emotional trauma she was witnessing or the raging infection taking a hold of her. She only knew that if she didn’t lie down soon, she would fall down. She watched as Shelly went over and wrapped her arms around the couple. The image seemed incongruous, and she wanted to tell her to get away from them and leave them to their privacy. Dalloway’s arm moved from his wife’s shoulder and encompassed Shelly in the gathering. Emily stared at the bizarre huddle. She needed to get away from here. She needed to be gone from this house.
Trying to focus, she looked for the door. Then Shelly’s sharp voice broke her concentration. ‘You can try again, Rupert. It’s not too late. You have another donor right here.’
Emily raised her head in shock. They were all staring at her. Shelly, Dalloway and Meredith were all probing her with considering eyes. Jemma was looking at her as if she was the next great hope. Fear made her find her voice. ‘You would kill me to take my liver?’
Shelly flung out her arms expansively. ‘You’re such a drama queen, Emily. We only need a slice. Not the whole thing. And it will regenerate in a few weeks.’
Emily’s legs buckled and her knees went hard to the ground. She struggled to get up, but her limbs refused to obey. She slumped sideways, knowing it was futile to even try to get back up. Her head felt heavy and she let it fall back and the softness of the carpet cradle her. The images of the cricketers stared down at her and she imagined hearing the satisfying crack as ball hit bat, seeing a sunny day, green grass, blue skies. Then in her mind she heard a similar sound, of ribs cracking, as if surgically snapped. She whimpered and tried not to imagine her broken bones, her opened body, trying to bring her mind back to the sunny day, green grass, blue sky – anything to stop the sound of breaking bones.
Chapter Forty-One
Through a gap in the screen she watched the boy’s eyes flutter open. He was alone and she wondered where everyone else was. They had put her on the operating table behind the screens and put the side rails up to keep her from rolling off, and initially she feared that they had already operated on her, until she saw she was still wearing her clothes. She felt desperately ill and had a raging thirst. The sky was still dark and she wondered how many hours were left until morning. It would surely be daylight soon? She felt as if she’d been sleeping for hours. She called to him, ‘Hello, Walter.’
He gazed in the direction of her voice and she reached out an arm and grabbed hold of the screen, wheeling it aside to see him better.
He gave a weak smile. ‘Are you sick too?’
She nodded. ‘A little.’
‘Daddy’s trying to make me better, but I don’t think he can. I think I’m a little bit too ill.’
Emily swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Your daddy’s a very clever doctor.’
‘I know, but it would be better if Daddy was just Daddy now. Then he can just talk to me and not be busy. He could take me in the garden and play cricket with me. Isobel could run for the ball, though she’s not very good at catching.’
‘And Mummy?’
‘Mummy could go back to being a doctor. She had to stop working when I got ill.’
Emily felt tears form. He had it all worked out. He had planned how he would like things to be. His entire family consisted of medical experts, and between them they were battling to save his life and he wanted them all to stop and just be with him. She didn’t want him to give up hope.
‘They’ll get you better, Walter. They love you very much.’
He sighed tiredly and closed his eyes. ‘I know, but I don’t want to be sick anymore. I just want to play in the garden.’
*
When she next woke, Dalloway was sitting on the edge of her bed, her wrist in his hand as he injected fluid into a pink cannula. She was in a bedroom in a single bed, sunlight bathing the walls a pale lemon, no longer lying on an operating table. He was unaware that she was awake, his head lowered. She saw that he was still in the same shirt as the night before and wondered if he had sat up all night with his son. A sheet covered her body, leaving her shoulders bare, its lightness a blessing against the throbbing of her left breast. She watched him replace the first syringe with a second smaller one and guessed it was saline to flush residue from the cannula.
‘You moved me.’
He didn’t jolt at the sound of her voice and kept a steady hand on what he was doing. She was not surprised. He was a surgeon and could not afford to be easily unnerved. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘To a room next door. We needed you out of there. And lying in a bed’s more comfortable.’
‘The woman I saw wasn’t Katka, was she?’ The mystery of the woman was starting to make sense now. Katka had returned to her own country. She hadn’t been Katka at all, but some other woman who looked like her.
‘Her name was Sophia,’ he said without looking at her. ‘She had been a friend of Katka’s. They came over together. Katka stayed here and Sophia stayed in the city, looking to find work. She spoke good English and had been over here before.’
Sophia. She said the name aloud in her head. Her name was Sophia.
She clocked the last thing he said. She had assumed the girl couldn’t speak English. She now wondered if it was the fear of what she faced that had kept her silent.
‘Only she had a small problem,’ he continued. ‘She was pregnant. She had it aborted over here, not by me and not at The Windsor Bridge Hospital, let me add. She had come prepared with money to pay for it and the name of a clinic already. I wo
uld never have known about it but for the fact that she came to our house one day with a fever. Jemma put her to bed and asked me to examine her when I got home from work. It was nothing too serious, she just hadn’t given herself enough time to recuperate. I gave her antibiotics, much the same way as I’m doing with you now, and took bloods just to be sure, and she went on her way and I forgot about her. I had more pressing things to think about. Walter had just become seriously ill. I went into work to clear my desk, so to speak, when I got her results back. It was like looking at a lottery win. She had blood group B – the same as Walter. Only ten per cent of the population in the UK have this blood type.’
‘Surely you or your wife could have been a donor, donated a slice of your liver as Shelly so crudely put it?’
‘We couldn’t. Trust me, we had already tried all family members. None of us was a match. You don’t understand. It was like a sign—’
‘You mean an opportunity,’ she said with scorn.
‘It was the answer. Waiting for a dead organ donor when we had a healthy live one, with blood group and HLA matching, with little risk to the donor, was like a dream come true. I don’t know how much you know about transplants. Rhesus negative/positive does not matter with liver donation as the Rh antigen is only present on red blood cells. Really it is only the blood group and human leukocyte antigens matching that is important. We had a perfect match.’
‘One thing I do know,’ she said scathingly, ‘is that you had to have tested for that. And you did, because you were on the lookout for a donor.’
‘Time was of the essence, Emily,’ he said earnestly. ‘And we were running out of it. His life could be saved. Sophia was desperate for money; she understood completely what I was asking of her, and she was going to be paid very handsomely for this gift.’