Dead Tomorrow

56

Lynn sat on Caitlin’s bed, staring at the computer screen. Luke, hunched on a stool in front of the cluttered dressing table, was busily pecking away at the keyboard of Caitlin’s laptop, using just one finger and, apparently, just one eye.

Caitlin, in her dressing gown, had spent much of the past hour going backwards and forwards to the toilet. But she was already looking a little better, Lynn was relieved to see, except she was scratching again. Scratching her arms so hard they looked as if they were covered in insect bites. At the moment, iPod in her ears, she was switching focus between an old episode of the OC playing silently on the muted TV and her purple mobile phone, on which she was texting someone, with furrowed concentration, while rubbing the itching balls of her feet on the end board of the bed.

Luke had been tapping away for nearly an hour now, working through Google, then other search engines, trying out different combinations of phrases and sentences containing the words organs, purchase, humans, donors, livers.

He had found a debate in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly on the topic of human organ trafficking, and on another site had discovered the story of a Harley Street surgeon called Raymond Crockett, who was struck off the Medical Register in 1990 for buying kidneys from Turkey for four patients. And plenty more debates about whether organ donation should be automatic on death unless a person has opted out.

But no organ brokers.

‘Are you sure it’s not just an urban myth, Luke?’

‘There’s a website about part of Manila being called One Kidney Island,’ he said. ‘You can buy a kidney there for forty thousand pounds – including the operation. That site talked all about brokers-’

Suddenly he stopped.

On the screen, in clinical white against a stark black background, the words TRANSPLANTATION-ZENTRALE GMBH had appeared.

In a bar above were options for different languages. Luke clicked on the Union Jack flag and moments later a new panel came up:

Welcome to

TRANSPLANTATION-ZENTRALE GMBH

the world’s leading brokerage for

human organs for transplantations

Discreet global service, privacy assured

Contact us by phone, email

or visit our Munich offices by appointment

Lynn stared intently at the computer screen, feeling an intense, giddying frisson of excitement. And danger.

Maybe there really was another option to the tyranny of Shirley Linsell and her team. Another way to save the life of her daughter.

Luke turned to Caitlin. ‘Looks like we’ve – yeah – found something.’

‘Cool!’ she said.

Moments later Lynn felt Caitlin’s arms around her shoulders and her warm breath on her neck, as she too peered at the screen.

‘That’s awesome!’ Caitlin said. ‘Do you think there’s – like – a price list? Like when you go online shopping at Tesco?’

Lynn giggled, delighted that Caitlin seemed to be returning to some kind of normality, however temporary.

Luke began to navigate the site, but there was very little information beyond what they had already read. No phone number or postal address, just an email one: post@transplantation-zentrale.de.

‘OK,’ Lynn said. ‘Send them an email.’

She dictated and Luke typed:

I am the mother of a 15-year-old girl who is urgently in need of a liver transplant. We are based in the south of England. Can you help us? If so please let us know what service you can provide and what information you require from us. Yours sincerely,

Lynn Beckett

Lynn read through it, then turned to Caitlin. ‘OK, my angel?’

Caitlin gave a wistful smile and shrugged. ‘Yep. Whatever.’

Luke sent it.

Then all three of them stared at the mailbox in silence.

‘Do you think we should have sent a phone number?’ Caitlin asked. ‘Or an address or something?’

Lynn thought for a moment, her brain feeling scrambled. ‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘No harm, is there?’ suggested Caitlin.

‘No, no harm,’ her mother agreed.

Luke sent a second email, containing Lynn’s mobile number and the dialling code for England.

Ten minutes later, down in the kitchen making a cup of tea and preparing some supper for the three of them, Lynn’s phone rang.

On the display were the words, Private number.

Lynn answered immediately.

There was a faint hiss, then some crackle. After a fraction of a second’s time delay she heard a woman’s voice, in guttural broken English, sounding professional but friendly.

‘May I please speak with Mrs Lynn Beckett?’

‘That’s me!’ Lynn said. ‘Speaking!’

‘My name is Marlene Hartmann. You have just sent an email to my company?’

Shaking, Lynn said, ‘To Transplantation-Zentrale?’

‘That is correct. By chance, I have the opportunity to be in England tomorrow, in Sussex. If it is convenient, we could meet, perhaps?’

‘Yes,’ Lynn said, her nerves shorting out. ‘Yes, please!’

‘Do you happen to know your daughter’s blood type?’

‘Yes, it is AB negative.’

‘AB negative?’

‘Yes.’

There was a brief silence before the German woman spoke again.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘That is excellent.’