Dead Tomorrow

Lynn could call any time. The fourth was from a Swedish woman, in Stockholm, whose thirty-year-old husband had been provided with a new heart and lungs. The fifth was from a woman in Manchester, whose eighteen-year-old daughter had received a liver transplant this time last year. There were home and mobile numbers provided for her.
    Lynn, still in her dressing gown, sipped her mug of tea. She had barely slept a wink all night, she had been so wired. Caitlin had come into her roomat one stage, crying because she was in agony from where she had scratched the skin on her legs and arms raw. Then when she had settled her, Lynn had just lain awake, trying to think everything through.
    The enormity of taking Luke’s money was weighing heavily. So was taking her mother’s nest egg. Taking the contribution from Mal worried her less; after all, Caitlin was his daughter too. But what if the transplant did not work? In the contract she had been through with Frau Hartmann, which the woman had left here, failure of the transplanted liver was covered. In the event of failure or rejection within six months a further liver would be provided at no charge.
    But there was still no damn guarantee the transplant would work.
    And, assuming it did, there was the further problem of finding several thousand pounds a year to pay for the anti-rejection drugs, for life.
    But, more to the point, there wasn’t an alternative. Except for the unthinkable.
    What if Marlene Hartmann was a con woman? She would have handed over every penny she could cobble together in the world and still be nowhere. OK, the company checked out from the credit enquiries she had made, surreptitiously, from work yesterday, and now she had the references, which she would contact for sure. But all the same she was worried sick about taking the next step–to sign and fax the contract and transfer 50 per cent of the fee, 150,000 euros, to Munich.
    Breakfast was on the television, with the sound turned down to silent. The host and the hostess were seated on a sofa, chatting and laughing with a guest, some beautiful young woman in her twenties she vaguely recognized but couldn’t place. She had dark hair and was similar in build to Caitlin. And suddenly she hadan image of Caitlin sitting there on that sofa, chatting and laughing with those hosts. Telling them about how she nearly died, but beat the system, yeaaaahhhhh!
    Maybe Caitlin would become a huge star. It was possible. She was beautiful; people noticed her. She had personality. If she had her health back, she could be anything she wanted.
    If.
    Lynn glanced at her watch and did a quick calculation.
    ‘Wisconsin must be six or seven hours behind the UK, right?’
    Luke nodded pensively. ‘Phoenix will be about the same.’
    ‘So it would be the middle of the night. I would particularly like to talk to the mother there–I’ll call her this afternoon.’
    ‘The one in Manchester has a daughter of a similar age. You should be able to get hold of her. I think you should kick off with her.’
    Lynn looked at him and, through her tiredness and her frayed emotions, suddenly felt a deep affection for him.
    ‘Good thinking,’ she said, and dialled the woman’s home number. After six rings it went to voicemail. Then she tried the mobile.
    Almost instantly there was a click, followed by a loud background roar, as if the woman was driving.
    ‘Hello?’ she said in a thick Mancunian accent.
    Lynn introduced herself and thanked the woman for emailing her.
    ‘I’m just dropping the young ones off,’ she replied. ‘I’ll be home in twenty minutes. Can I call you back?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And listen, love, don’t worry. Marlene Hartmann is a star. You can come up here andmeet my Chelsey. She’ll chat to you, tell you the nightmare she went through with the National Health. I can show you the photos too. Twenty minutes all right for you, love?’
    ‘Absolutely fine, thank you!’ Lynn said.
    She put the phone down with hope suddenly soaring in her heart.

78
    As Glenn Branson drove alongthe perimeter road of Shoreham Airport, the strong wind buffeted the small Hyundai. He passed a cluster of parked helicopters, then glanced at a small, twin-engined plane that was coming in to land on the grass runway. He turned right, beyond the end of the hangars, and drove up to the converted warehouse, inside a mesh-fenced compound, that housed the Specialist Search Unit. The car clock read 12.31 p.m.
    A few minutes later he