Dead Tomorrow

stabilized her.’
    ‘When will you have a liver?’
    ‘Well, as I said this morning, I cannot answer that. You could treat her at home for this.’
    ‘What do I have to do?’
    ‘Give her an enema. Usually with this condition, evacuating the bowel will regularize her.’
    ‘What kind of enema? Where do I get one?’
    ‘Any chemist.’
    ‘Terrific,’ Lynn said.
    ‘Why don’t you try that? Give it a few hours, then see how she is and call me. There is someone here all the time and she can come in at any hour.’
    ‘Yes,’ Lynn said. ‘Fine, I’ll do that.’
    She hung up.
    Caitlin was lying back on her bed, eyes opening and closing.
    ‘I think I’ve found what you’re looking for!’ Luke announced.
    Lynn peered over his shoulder. His hair smelled unwashed.
    Reading aloud off the webpage he said, ‘Encephalopathy is a neuropsychiatric syndrome which occurs in advanced liver disease. Symptoms are anything from slight confusion and drowsiness to change in personality and outright coma.’
    ‘How fucking great is that?’ Lynn said. Then she turned to Caitlin, whose eyes were now closed. Afraid, suddenly, that she might be slipping into a coma, she shook her. ‘Darling? Keep awake, darling.’
    Caitlin opened hereyes. ‘You know what?’ she slurred. ‘Liver disease rocks.’
    ‘Rocks?’ Lynn said, astounded.
    ‘Yeah, why not?’ Luke retorted.
    ‘Why does it rock?’ Lynn stared quizzically at Luke, as if somehow she was going to find the answer in his inane face.
    ‘This transplant waiting list, yeah?’
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘There’s a way around it.’
    ‘What way?’
    ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been looking on the Net. You can buy a liver.’
    ‘Buy a liver?’
    ‘Yeah, it’s whack.’
    ‘Whack? I’m not sure I’m on your planet. How do you mean, buy a liver ?’
    ‘Through a broker.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘An organ broker.’
    Lynn stared at him, thinking for a moment this was his idea of humour. But he looked deadly earnest. It was the first time she had ever seen him remotely animated.
    ‘What do you mean by an organ broker ?’
    ‘Someone who will get you whatever organ you want. On the Net. They’re selling anything you could want for a transplant. Hearts, lungs, corneas, skin, ear parts, kidneys–and livers.’
    Lynn stared at him in silence for some moments. ‘You are serious? You can buy a liver on the Internet?’
    ‘There’s a whole bunch of sites,’ Luke went on. ‘And–this’ll interest you–I found a forum about waiting lists for organs. It says the waiting list for liver transplants in some countries is even worse than in the UK. Something like 90 per cent of people on the list in the USA will die before they get a new liver. Sort of puts our 20 per cent into the shade.’
    Unless one of that 20 per cent happens to be your daughter , Lynn thought, staring hard at Luke. One of the three people a day in the UK who die waiting for a transplant .
    She was sick withworry and all twisted up inside with rage. Thinking. Thinking about Shirley Linsell. Her change from warmth to coldness. Caitlin was just another patient to her. In a year or two’s time, she probably wouldn’t even remember her name–she would just be a statistic.
    Lynn was not going to take that chance.
    ‘I’m going to the chemist. When I get back, I’d like you to show me about these organ brokers,’ she said.
    On the way, she stopped at a newsagent’s, went inside and scanned the Argus for any further news on the story about the three bodies. On the third page was a long article, headlined POLICE REMAIN BAFFLED BY CHANNEL BODIES . She stared at the sanitized photographs of the three dead teenagers’ faces. Read the speculation that they might be organ donors. Read the quotes from Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, whoever he was.
    Something dark stirred inside her. Leaving the paper on the rack, not wanting Caitlin to see it, she bought a packet of ten Silk Cut cigarettes, then went back out to her car and smoked one, thinking again, hard, her hands shaking.

55
    Some years ago, whenhe was a detective sergeant, Roy Grace had attended a break-in at a small wine merchant’s premises up on Queens Park Road, close to the racecourse and the hideous edifice of Brighton and Hove General Hospital.
    The proprietor, Henry Butler, a drily engaging, shaven-headed and impeccably spoken young man, appeared more upset at the quality of the wines the thieves had taken than at the break-in itself. While