Dead Tomorrow

the map and made a wide east, west and north arc from the car’s position. There were seven purple rings within that arc, all existing clinics.
    But ten anxious minutes later, the helicopter reported that the Aston Martin was still travelling north. If it kept on this route, Grace thought, staring at the map again, feeling vexed, it would soon reach the M25 London orbital road.
    ‘Where the hell are you bloody going?’ he said out loud.
    None of the twenty-two members of his inquiry team in this room at the moment, hunched in front of their screens, or with phones to their ears, or poring over printouts, had any better idea than he did.

111
    Lynnwas in her room, zipping shut her overnight bag, when the doorbell rang.
    The sound shrilled through her veins. Shrilled through her soul. She froze in total, blind panic.
    Was it the police again?
    Then she stepped across to the window and peered cautiously down. Outside was a turquoise and white Streamline taxi estate car.
    Relief flooded through her. She had not been expecting a taxi, but that was fine, that was good, she realized as her thoughts clarified. A taxi! Yes, very good! A taxi meant that Marlene Hartmann had nothing to hide. A taxi was open. If she was happy for them to be picked up in a taxi, then everything had to be absolutely fine.
    Sod you and your damn scaremongering, Detective Superintendent Grace , she thought. Then she rapped hard on the window. The driver, a man in his forties in a bomber jacket, who was standing outside the front door, looked up and Lynn signalled to him that they were coming.
    Then she carried hers and Caitlin’s bags downstairs with a sudden burst of optimism in her heart. It was going to be all right. It was going to be fine. Everything would be brilliant. She was going to give Caitlin the best Christmas ever!
    ‘OK, darling!’ she called out. ‘This is it!’
    Caitlin was sitting at the kitchen table, cradling Max on her lap and stroking him, staring at the face of the Romanian girl in the photograph. The glass of glucose water and theantibiotic pills from Ross Hunter lay untouched in front of her.
    ‘Have you done Max’s food and water, darling?’ Lynn asked.
    Caitlin looked at her blankly.
    ‘Darling?’
    Suddenly, Lynn’s optimism dipped as she saw the confusion in her daughter’s face.
    ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it!’
    She quickly filled up the water bowl, topped the food up in the dispenser, lifted Max gently from Caitlin’s arms, gave him a nuzzle and a kiss and set him down.
    ‘Guard the house, Max, OK! Remember what you’re descended from!’
    Normally Caitlin would grin whenever she said that. But there was no reaction. Lynn touched her arm gently.
    ‘OK, angel, drink up and take your pills, and let’s rock and roll.’
    ‘I’m not thirsty.’
    ‘It’ll make you feel better. You can’t eat anything this morning, before the op, remember?’
    Reluctantly, Caitlin drank. Holding the glass, she half stood up, then crashed back down heavily in the chair, slopping some of the liquid over the rim.
    Lynn stared at her for a moment, panic rising again. She held the glass, helping Caitlin get the rest of the fluid and the pills down, then she ran outside and asked the taxi driver to help her.
    Two minutes later, with their luggage in the boot, Lynn sat holding Caitlin’s hand in the back of the cab as it pulled away.
    A hundred yards behindthem, the green Volkswagen Passat radioed that Target Two was on the move and read out the index of the taxi.
    From his desk in MIR One, Grace ordered them to follow and keep them in sight.
    ‘Where are we going?’ Lynn asked the driver.
    ‘It’s a surprise!’
    She caught his grin in his mirror.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘It’s all a bit cloak and dagger. James Bond stuff.’
    ‘ Die Another Day ,’ murmured Caitlin, through half-closed eyes. She was now scratching her thighs, harder and harder and harder.
    They turned left into Carden Avenue, then left again on to the London Road, heading south towards the centre of Brighton.
    Lynn looked at the driver’s ID card mounted on the dash. Read his name. Mark Tuckwell.
    ‘All right, Mr Bond,’ Lynn said. ‘Are we in for a long journey?’
    ‘Not this part of it. I—’ He was interrupted by his phone ringing. He answered curtly, ‘I’m driving. Call you back in a bit.’
    ‘Want to give me any clues?’ Lynn asked.
    ‘Chill, woman!’ Caitlin