Dead Tomorrow

focus.
    She stumbled through a flowerbed and nearly fell. Her iPod, dangling from a wire, tapped against her knee. She itched terribly.
    They’re going to be angry with me. Mum. Luke. Dad. Gran. Shit, they’re going to be angry with me. Shit. Angry. Shit. Angry.
    Above her was a terrible, loud, clattering roar.
    She looked up, furiously scratching her chest. A few hundred feet above her head she saw a dark blue and yellow helicopter, like a huge mutant insect. And she saw the word POLICE along its side.
    Shit. Shit. Shit. They were coming to arrest her for stabbing the nurse.
    She pressed against the wall, gulping air, fighting for every breath. The wall was moving, swaying. She inched forward. Saw the circular driveway. The helicopter swept away, making a wide arc. Then she saw a taxi, the same turquoise and white colours as the one that had brought them here.
    A woman in a fur coat and silk headsquare was standing by the driver’s door, paying the driver. Then she turned and walked towards the front door, towing herbag behind her. The driver was getting back into his cab.
    Caitlin ran, stumbling, towards him, waving her arms.
    ‘Hello!’ she called. ‘Hello!’
    He did not hear her.
    ‘Hello!’
    He was getting back into the vehicle.
    She grabbed the front passenger door and swayed again, hanging on to it with all her strength. Then she pulled it open. ‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Please–are you free?’
    ‘I’m sorry, love, this is out of my area. I’m not allowed to pick up here.’
    ‘Please–where are you going? Could you just give me a lift?’
    He was a wrinkled man with white hair and a kind face.
    ‘Where do you want to go? I have to get back to Brighton.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, great, thanks.’
    She half stumbled, half fell on to the front seat. The interior smelled strongly of the woman’s perfume.
    ‘Are you all right, love? You’re bleeding.’
    She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘Just–just shut my hand in a door.’
    ‘I’ve got a first-aid kit–do you want a sticking plaster?’
    Caitlin shook her head vigorously. ‘No. No thanks. I’m fine.’
    ‘Been having treatment here, have you?’
    She nodded, desperately trying to keep her eyes open.
    ‘Expensive, this place, I’ve heard.’
    ‘My mother pays,’ she whispered.
    He leaned over and pulled her seat belt on for her, then clipped it into place.
    She was almost unconscious by the time they reached the front gates.
    ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked.
    Nodding, she replied, ‘It’s tiring, you know, the treatments.’
    ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘Not in my budget.’
    ‘Budget,’ she echoed weakly. Then, as her eyes closed, she felt the vehicle accelerate.
    ‘You really sure you’re all right?’ he asked again insistently.
    ‘I’m fine.’
    Five minutes later, three police cars shot past in the opposite direction, roof spinners flashing, sirens wailing. Moments later, they were followed by another.
    ‘Something’s going on,’ the driver said.
    ‘Shit happens,’ she murmured drowsily.
    ‘Tell meabout it,’ he agreed.

118
    Alarmed by the abrupt, panicky departure of the organ broker from the room, Lynn went over to the window to see what was causing the incessant, clattering noise. Her gullet tightened as she looked up at the circling helicopter and read the word POLICE .
    It was circling low overhead, as if looking for something–or someone.
    Herself?
    Her stomach felt as if a drum of ice had been emptied into it.
    Please, no. Please, God, no. Not now. Please let the operation go ahead. After that, anything.
    Please just let the operation go ahead.
    She was so tensed up, watching it, at first she didn’t hear the sound of her phone ringing. Then she fumbled inside her handbag and pulled her phone out. On the display it read, Private Number .
    She answered.
    ‘Mrs Beckett?’ said a woman’s voice she recognized but could not place.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘It’s Shirley Linsell, from the Royal South London Hospital.’
    ‘Oh. Yes, hello,’ she said, surprised to hear from the woman. What the hell was she calling about?
    ‘I have somegood news for you. We have a liver which may be suitable for Caitlin. Can you be ready to leave in an hour’s time?’
    ‘A liver?’ she said blankly.
    ‘It’s actually a split liver from a large person.’
    ‘Yes, I see,’ she said, her mind spinning. Split liver. She couldn’t even think what a split liver meant at this