Sacrifice

36

THE BEACH WAS NARROW, SLOPING UPWARDS, SCATTERED with boulders that gleamed black in the darkness. On all sides, low jagged cliffs reared above me. They seemed to be moving and I almost cried out, then relaxed. The cliffs were home to hundreds of nesting sea birds – gulls or fulmars, I couldn't tell – white bellies squirming, wings fluttering, heads nodding against the black of the granite cliffs.

I pulled the anchor from its locker and walked several paces up the beach until I could wedge it behind a small rock. Assuming I made it back to the beach, the boat would be waiting for me. I tugged on a small backpack I'd brought with me and set off.

I started towards the lowest point on the cliff. It was far too dark to see clearly and every few seconds I tripped or slid. At the edge of the beach I began to climb. After a few yards the pebbles gave way to thin soil, some scattered clumps of grass and coarse, springy heather. It wasn't steep but I was breathing heavily when I reached the top. A barbed-wire fence ringed the upper part of the island but I was prepared for it. With the aid of a small pair of pliers from the boat I'd soon cut a way through. After that there was a stone wall, about waist high. I climbed over, taking care not to dislodge any of the loose stones. I looked round, found a stone that had fallen and placed it on top of the wall as a rough marker of where I'd cut the wire.

Keeping low, I looked around me. Tronal is a small island, oval in shape, roughly a mile long and a third of a mile wide, with three stubby promontories at its south-eastern edge. It is fifty metres above sea level at its highest point, pretty much the place where I was crouching. Looking north I could see the lights of Uyeasound on Unst and also several down on Tronal's tiny marina. A single pier, new and solidly built, jutted out from the small natural harbour. Several boats, including a large white cruiser, were moored there. A Land-Rover was parked near the jetty. I thought I could see movement around it.

From the harbour a rough, single-track road led across the island to the only buildings that were visible. Almost in the centre of the island, the terrain rose and then dipped, forming a natural hollow in which the buildings nestled. I dropped lower and started making my way towards them.

Instinct told me to stay close to the hillside, to move as quickly as the rough ground allowed. At one point I thought I heard voices, ten minutes later the sound of a boat engine, but the wind was still strong and I couldn't be sure.

After about fifteen minutes of ducking and scrambling, I could see lights not too far away from me. I climbed the hill to its summit and lay down on the coarse, prickly grass. Below me, not fifteen metres away, was the clinic.

It was a one-storey building, made of local stone with a high slate roof, built around a square and with a central courtyard. A gated archway in the north-western elevation permitted vehicular access to the courtyard. The gates stood open. Dormer windows appeared at regular intervals along the roof, six to a side. Only a few lights shone from the building itself, but the area surrounding it was dimly lit by a series of small lights set along the gravel pathways. I set off again, keeping a good distance away, to inspect the building from all angles before deciding whether it was safe to approach.

Moving south away from the gate I found a whole row of dark rooms. Blinds weren't drawn but I could make out nothing inside them.

The south-eastern side was busy. Several windows had blinds up and lights on. I sank back into the shadows and watched. There were men inside. I managed to count half a dozen, but couldn't be sure there weren't more. Three, maybe four, were in some sort of common room; I could see easy chairs and a TV on the wall. Another two were in a large kitchen that gleamed with stainless steel. Some of the men wore jeans and sweaters; a couple were dressed in white surgical scrubs. They stood around, chatting, drinking from mugs. One of the men in the kitchen was smoking, his cigarette held out of an open window. My watch told me it was just after ten o'clock. A normal hospital would be quietening down for the night. No sign of that here.

I crouched low, thinking about video surveillance, security lights, alarms. If this building were the prison I believed it to be, it would surely have all of those. Turning another corner, I found a row of eight windows, all of which had blinds drawn. I moved on. There was a row of outbuildings about ten metres away from the house. I planned to hide behind them.

I must have been about six metres away from the sheds when there came a terrifying explosion of sound: the manic barking of several large dogs. I dropped to the ground, curling instinctively into the tightest ball I could manage, tucking my hands into my chest.

The barking grew in intensity, claws scratched against wood, animals yelped, hurting each other in their urgency to reach me, to be the first to tear me apart.

Nothing happened: I didn't hear the pounding of large paws, jagged teeth didn't clamp down on to my flesh. But the cacophonous din continued, the dogs getting more and more furious with themselves, with me, with the situation. With a relief that almost made me pass out, I realized they couldn't reach me. They were locked up.

I forced myself to uncurl and start crawling. I went back the way I'd come, back towards the common room and kitchen. As my scent faded, the dogs began to calm. After a few more seconds I heard a male voice talking to them, soothing them.

The television in the common room was turned on and several of the men were gathered around it, watching with interest. With any luck it might distract them for a while. Also, whilst my recent encounter with the canine world had left me shaking violently, I realized the presence of dogs was good news; just so long as they remained locked up. If guard dogs provided the island's security, they might rely less on devices like alarms and cameras. Of course, once the dogs were loose, my life expectancy stood at around ten minutes.

The kitchen was empty, the smoker's window still open.

It was a stupid, ridiculous risk to even think about taking with most of the clinic's staff in the next room. Far better to creep back across the island, climb on to my boat and sail to Unst; try and convince Helen to come back here sooner than planned, to take Tronal by surprise. That way, I might just be alive when the sun came up. But would Dana?

Glancing round, I saw a tall bush and ran for it. Behind it, I unhooked my backpack and pulled off my waterproofs. Underneath were the scrubs I'd been wearing all day. I pulled a cap on to my head and tucked my hair up inside it. Seen quickly and at a distance, it was just possible I wouldn't set alarm bells ringing. I ran forward, paused to check the kitchen was still empty and climbed in.

The volume of the TV next door was turned up loud and I was pretty certain no one had heard me come in. I clambered over a steel worktop, dropped to the floor and listened hard: nothing but the low chanting of a sports crowd on the TV and an occasional expletive from the next room. I leaned over and pulled the window down until it was almost but not quite closed. With luck, anyone glancing at it would think it shut and locked. I crossed the kitchen and gently opened the door. The corridor was empty and I set off left, away from the common room. Looking up, I could see cameras tucked away in the corner between wall and ceiling. I just had to hope they weren't being monitored.

I walked slowly, silently, alert every second for the slightest noise that would tell me someone was approaching. Along the wall on my right-hand side were occasional windows showing a dim view of the internal courtyard. Across the courtyard was another lit and windowed corridor. It would not be easy to remain unseen. From the outside, the building had looked old, but once inside I didn't think it could be. It was just too regular, too clean and modern in its construction, the windows large and frequent. On my left were rooms. Most had closed doors, one with light shining under that I passed by quickly. Two had open doors and I glanced inside. The first was an office: desk, computer terminal, glass-fronted bookcase; the second was some sort of meeting room.

I came to the end of the corridor and found a door to my right leading out into the courtyard. On my left were the steel double doors of a large lift and a flight of stairs. I started to climb.

Seven steps up and the stairs made a 180-degree turn. There was a fire-door at the top. I opened it and glanced through. The corridor was narrow and windowless. Dim spotlights were evenly spaced along the low ceiling. I counted six doors along my right-hand side. Each had a small shuttered window. I slid back the first shutter.

The room beyond was dark but I could make out a narrow, hospital-style bed with tubular framing and a pale-coloured cabinet by its side. Also an easy chair and a small TV, mounted on the wall. Someone lay in the bed but the covers were pulled up high and I had no way of telling whether the someone was young or old, male or female, dead or alive.

I moved on to the next window. Same set-up. Except this time, as I watched, the figure in the bed moved, turning over and stretching before settling down again.

The next room was empty; so was the fourth.

There was light in the fifth room. A woman sat in the armchair, reading a magazine. She looked up and we made eye contact. Then she dropped her magazine, put both hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She was wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. She was pregnant.

She came towards the door. Every nerve ending I had was on fire, but I knew if I ran now the game would be up. She opened the door and tilted her head slightly to one side.

'Hello,' she said.

All I could do was stare back. Creases appeared on her forehead and her eyes narrowed.

'Sorry,' I managed. 'Long day, four hours in theatre, brain not really functioning any more. How are you feeling?'

She relaxed and stepped back, inviting me into her room. I went in, closing the door behind me and making sure the window shutter was pulled across.

'I'm OK,' she said. 'Bit nervous. Mr Mortensen said he would give me something to help me sleep but I guess he's been busy.' She leaned back against the bed. 'We're still OK for tomorrow, aren't we?'

I forced myself to smile at her. 'Haven't heard anything to the contrary.'

'Thank Christ. I just want to get it over with now. I really need to get back to work.'

A termination. Dana had told me the clinic carried them out. This woman, at least, was here voluntarily.

'Have I seen you before?' she was asking me.

I shook my head. 'Don't think so. How long have you been here?'

'Five days now. I really need to get home. I thought it would just take twenty-four hours.'

'I've been away for a week,' I said. 'Just back on duty this afternoon. I haven't managed to look at your notes yet. Have there been complications?'

She sighed and pushed herself up so that she was sitting on the bed. 'Just about everything you can think of. Blood pressure sky- high, apparently, although it's never been a problem in the past. Sugar and protein in my urine. Traces of a viral infection in my blood, although why that should stop you going ahead is beyond me.'

It was beyond me too. It all sounded like complete nonsense. Something was starting to feel very wrong. I glanced at the notes pinned to the foot of her bed, found her name.

'Emma, can I have a quick look at your tummy?'

She lay back on the bed and pulled her dressing gown open. She was a striking-looking woman: probably in her late twenties, tall with vivid blonde hair showing just a fraction of dark roots. Her eyes were large and light brown in colour, her lips plump and very red, her teeth white and perfect.

I started to press my hands very gently on her abdomen. Immediately something kicked back. I glanced up at Emma but her face had tightened. She wouldn't make eye contact.

'What do you do for a living, Emma?' I asked her, as my hands travelled upwards.

She smiled. 'I'm an actress,' she said, with the air of someone who'd waited a long time to say those words and who hadn't quite got used to the thrill of doing so. 'I've just got a lead in the West End.' She named a musical I'd vaguely heard of. 'My understudy has been filling in but if I'm not back soon they might give her the job permanently.'

I finished my examination and thanked her. I was far from happy. I went back to the foot of the bed and picked up her notes again. On the second page I found what I was looking for. LMP: 3 November 2006. I stared at the tubular frame of the bedpost while I tried to do the calculation in my head. Then I flicked through the rest of the notes. I looked up. Emma was sitting up now and had been watching me. Her eyes looked cautious, her lips set straight.

'Emma, it says here your last menstrual period was on the third of November. Does that sound about right?' She nodded.

'Which would make you… about twenty-seven, twenty-eight weeks?'

She nodded again, more slowly. For a second, all I could do was stare at her. Then I went back to her notes, checking and re-checking everything I found there. She started to push herself forward on the bed.

'Don't tell me now this is going to be a problem. I've been promised-'

'No, no…' I held up both hands. 'Please don't be concerned. As I said, I'm just catching up. I'll let you get some rest now.'

I glanced at her notes once more and then moved towards the door. She sat on the bed, watching me the way a cat watches some- one moving around a room. At the door I stopped and turned.

'How did you hear about Tronal, Emma? If you work in the West End you must live in London. You've come a long way.'

She nodded slowly, still wary of me. 'I'll say,' she agreed. 'I went to a clinic in London. They said they couldn't help me, but they had some leaflets.'

'Leaflets about Tronal?'

A small shake of the head. 'Tronal wasn't mentioned. I had no idea I'd have to come to Shetland. The leaflet said something about advice and counselling for pregnant women in their second and third trimesters. There was a phone number.'

'And you called it?' Somewhere in the building a sound rang out. I tried not to let Emma see me stiffen.

'I didn't have anything to lose. I met a doctor in a room just off Harley Street. He referred me here.'

I had to move on. I forced a smile at Emma and looked at my watch. 'I'll be seeing Mr Mortensen in about an hour,' I said. 'I can check with him then about giving you something to help you sleep. Will you be OK till then?'

She nodded and seemed to relax a little. I gave her a last smile and left the room. With luck, she'd wait an hour before following up on my promise. I had an hour. At best.

Back in the corridor I leaned against the wall, needing a moment to get my breath, to clear my head.

Like most obstetricians, I'm trained to carry out terminations and since being on Shetland I'd performed three. I don't enjoy it, don't particularly approve of it as a general rule, but I respect the law of the land and a woman's right to be the ultimate determiner of what happens to her own body.

Under no circumstances, though, would I have agreed to carry out Emma's termination.

Compared to the rest of Europe, the UK's laws on abortion are fairly relaxed; too relaxed, many would argue. Here, up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, an abortion can be legally carried out providing that two doctors agree the risk to a woman's health (or the risk to her children's health) will be greater if she continues with the pregnancy than if she ends it. This usually amounts to doctors supporting a woman's decision to terminate and has become known as 'social abortion', a practice many deplore.

After the twenty-fourth week, termination is only permitted if there's medical evidence that the woman's life or health would be seriously threatened by continuing with the pregnancy, or if the child is expected to be born severely handicapped. Looking carefully through Emma's notes, I'd found no valid reason why the procedure was being carried out so late. Nothing in her notes suggested either a serious deformity in the foetus or a significant threat to Emma's own life. The pregnancy was normal; inconvenient, obviously, but otherwise quite normal.

I wondered how much Emma had paid for her illegal operation, why on earth they'd kept her here for five days on ridiculous pretences instead of performing the operation straight away and how many other desperate women arrived here every year, seeking a procedure unavailable to them anywhere else in Europe.

I moved on. I pulled the next window back an inch and looked through. This time the woman inside was sitting up in bed watching television. The woman (no – girl – she couldn't have been more than sixteen) looked pregnant too, although it was impossible to be sure. If I had time to watch her, she'd undoubtedly give herself away. Pregnant women instinctively adapt both their usual pattern of movement and their posture in order to protect the growing foetus. Sooner or later, she'd rest her hands on her abdomen, raise herself up without putting pressure on stomach muscles, rub her back gently. I moved on and turned the corner.

I passed six rooms, all of them empty, and turned another corner. The first room on the next corridor was empty. The bed was bare, pillows without pillow-cases piled up, a folded yellow blanket but no sheets. The next room was a twin of the first.

The third was empty but looked ready to receive a patient. I stepped inside. The bed was neatly made. White towels were folded on the armchair. A flower-patterned nightdress – clean, perfectly ironed and folded – lay at the foot of the bed. On the walls hung several prints of wild flowers. It looked exactly like a neat, clean, comfortable room in an exclusive private hospital. Except for the four metal shackles chained to each corner of the bed.

I backed out and pulled the door towards me, careful to leave it slightly ajar, exactly as I'd found it. As I'd discovered two days ago, the death rate among young Shetland females peaked every three years. The last peak had occurred in 2004, the year Melissa and Kirsten were believed to have died. It was now May 2007, three years later.

Three more rooms. I wasn't sure I wanted to see what was inside. The handle of the next room moved and the door opened. A small bedside lamp gave just enough light.

The woman on the bed looked around twenty. She had dark brown hair and thick dark eyelashes, the willowy slenderness of the very young and perfect white skin. She lay as if sleeping, breathing deeply and evenly, but flat on her back, her legs straight and close together, her arms by her side. People rarely sleep naturally in such a posture and I guessed she'd been sedated. The blanket over her lay taut across her stomach. I wandered to the foot of the bed but there were no notes, just a single name: Freya. There were shackles on her bed but they hung loose, reaching nearly to the floor. I tiptoed out.

The woman in the fifth room looked older, but like the girl in the previous room she lay in an unnaturally still state of sleep on the narrow bed. Her name was Odel and her feet, though not her arms, were manacled. Odel? Freya? Who were these two women? How had they arrived here? Did they have families somewhere, grieving for them, believing them dead? I wondered if I'd seen either of them before, whether they'd passed through the hospital. Neither looked familiar. Neither showed any sign of being already pregnant. I wondered where they'd been that day, during Helen's visit. Where they'd be hidden when she returned tomorrow.

I pushed open the last door, noticing, as I did so, the pyjamas folded neatly on the armchair. They were white linen, with an embroidered scallop pattern around the collar, cuffs and ankles. They were laundered, pristine, showing no trace of the blood that had turned them a soft pink the last time I'd seen them. I turned to the bed, knowing that I'd stopped breathing but seemingly unable to start again. Someone lay in it. I walked over and stared down at the face on the pillow. I know that I cried out: part yelp, part sob. In spite of everything I'd been through, in spite of the immense danger I was still in, such a wave of joy hit me that it was all I could do not to dance round the room, punching the air and yelling. I forced myself to be calm and reached under the covers.

Two days ago I'd arrived at Dana's house, exhausted and scared, already dreading that something terrible had happened to her. I would have been putty in the hands of a skilled hypnotist. Planting ideas in my head – ideas already there in a half-formed state – must have been child's play for Andy Dunn. I couldn't believe how arrogantly stupid I'd been not to think of it before.

The wrist I held had been dressed with fine white bandages. I leaned over and found the other. Just the same. I was glad I hadn't imagined the ugly, bleeding gashes I'd seen in Dana's bathroom. Her wrists had been cut, but probably only superficially. She would have lost blood, but not so much it couldn't be replaced once she arrived on Tronal. I hadn't felt a pulse in Dana's bathroom – whatever drug she'd been given had made her peripheral pulse undetectable. But I could feel one – strong and regular – now.

As I'd sat trembling and close to fainting in Andy Dunn's car, I'd heard the sirens of an ambulance approaching. Dunn had driven me straight to the hospital and I'd assumed the ambulance was following with Dana. But it wasn't. Instead, Dana had been brought here. For what? To be part of this summer's breeding programme?

I bent down. 'Dana. Can you hear me? It's Tora. Dana, can you wake up?'

I stroked her forehead, risked giving her shoulders a shake.

Nothing, not even a flicker. This was not a normal sleep.

A door slammed and footsteps were coming down the corridor. Voices were talking, softly but urgently. I had seconds. I looked at the narrow, upright cupboard. Wasn't sure I'd fit inside. The bathroom. I crossed the room and pulled open the door.

There was a lavatory, wash-basin and shower cubicle. No window. I pulled open the door of the cubicle, jumped in and crouched down. If someone entered the room, they couldn't help but see me. I would just have to hope. Maybe they weren't even heading for Dana's room. Maybe my luck would hold a bit longer.

The footsteps stopped. The door to Dana's room opened, the draught it caused blew the bathroom door open another inch. For a moment there was silence. Then…

'What do you think?' asked a voice that sounded remarkably like that of my father-in-law. I realized my luck had run out.

'Well… she's bright, healthy, good-looking,' answered the voice I knew better than any other in the whole world. 'Seems like… like a bit of a waste,' he continued, and I didn't know whether I was going to scream or be sick.

'Exactly,' said the voice of Detective Inspector Andrew Dunn. 'Why the hell go to the risk of getting another one?'

I sat in the shower cubicle, shivering so violently it hurt and thinking, Why… why did I come here?

'This was an unforgivable risk,' came another voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar but that I couldn't quite place. 'You were told to get rid of her, not bring her here.'

'Yeah, well, sorry about the reality check,' snapped Dunn, 'but even I can't hypnotize someone into slashing their own wrists. And haven't we learned by now that if we rush an accident we mess it up?'

'She's half-Indian,' said the man whose voice I couldn't put my finger on. 'We don't pollute the bloodstream.'

'Oh, for God's sake,' spat Dunn. 'What is this – the Middle Ages?'

'Robert is right,' said my father-in-law. 'She isn't suitable.'

Robert? Did I know a Robert? Oh God, I did. I'd met him just over a week ago. Robert Tully and his wife Sarah had come to see me about their inability to conceive a child. The bastard had sat in my office, pretending to need my help, knowing his wife wanted a baby so much that she was close to breaking point. Was she, then, intended to be the adopting mother of one of the latest batch of Trow babies?

'All right,' my husband was saying. 'What do we do with Ms Tulloch then?'

'We'll take her in the boat with the other two,' answered Richard. 'When we're far enough out, I'll give her another dose and slip her over the side. She won't know anything about it.'

'I need a leak,' said Duncan. 'Won't be a sec.'

The bathroom door opened and Duncan came into the room. He was still wearing the charcoal-grey business suit I'd watched him put on that morning. He walked to the basin and leaned over it.

And what do we tell the girlfriend?' asked Dunn.

'We send her a coffin,' said Richard. 'Leave it till the last minute, day of the funeral if we can. Someone goes with it in case she wants to view the body. No big deal, we've done it before.'

'OK then, settled. Now, what else do we have to do?'

Duncan turned on one of the taps and splashed water over his face. He sighed deeply and straightened up. In the mirror above the basin I had time to notice the tie that I'd given him at Christmas, tiny pink elephants on navy-blue silk. A second later we made eye contact.

'Patients in one and two we don't have to worry about,' replied Richard. 'Standard adoptions, both likely to deliver in the next couple of weeks. The Rowley woman spoke to both of them today, shouldn't think she'll want to bother again.'

'What about Emma Lennard? Aren't you due to deliver her tomorrow?'

Duncan had turned to face me. I braced myself for him to shout out, alert the others or, even worse, to laugh. I wondered what they were going to do to me, how much it would hurt, whether it would be quick. Whether Duncan would be the one who…

'We're going ahead,' said Richard. 'Once the operation's over, I'll keep her sedated. We can't risk her talking.'

I tried to get up. I didn't want to be caught crouched, damp-assed, in a shower cubicle. But I couldn't move. All I could do was stare at Duncan. All he did was stare back.

'Isn't Emma safer on the boat?' In the outer room they were still talking, oblivious to the silent drama being played out in the bathroom.

'She would be, if we could be sure the police will only be here one more day. We can't hold on to her much longer, she's getting very edgy. Better to get it over with and get her out of here.'

And the woman in room six?'

'I think we'll be OK. She's only twenty-six weeks anyway, plus she's insisting to everyone who'll listen that all the scans are wrong and she's just twenty weeks. I've already changed her notes.'

'It's risky.'

'Tell me something I don't know.'

One of us had to break the deadlock, one of us had to move, say something, shout out loud. I would do it. Anything was better than this unbearable tension. Then Duncan put one finger to his mouth. He glared at me as he left the room, pulling the door firmly closed behind him.

'A cargo of three then, Richard. Sure you'll be OK on your own? Don't want to leave it till dawn?'

'No, I want to be well away before there's any chance of the police coming back. Right, I'm going downstairs to get that TV switched off. There's work to do.'

Footsteps faded away down the corridor. Had they all gone? Could I risk moving? What the hell was Duncan going to do? Dana's room was silent. I started to push myself up -

'Sorry, mate,' said Duncan, as though commiserating a friend on losing a tennis match. 'It really doesn't do to get involved.'

'Oh, and you didn't with Tora?' shot back Dunn, his voice thick with bitterness. Did he actually care for Dana? Was that why'd he'd saved her life against orders, why he'd been arguing to keep her alive for a few months longer?

'You look like shit. Been here all day?'

'In the basement,' replied Dunn. 'With three sedated women. Felt like the house of horrors. Police nearly found the door at one point. Probably will tomorrow.'

'We'll sort it. Have it looking like a dusty old storeroom by morn- ing. Right, we need a trolley. Can you get one from downstairs? There's something-'

A furious, terrified yell broke through the night, just as the door of the bathroom started to move inwards.

'Next door,' sighed Dunn. Footsteps ran from Dana's room and I heard a struggle in the next room along. There was banging and then a low, terrified whimpering, a noise I might have thought came from an animal; except I knew it wasn't an animal they were keeping chained up in there. Then the bathroom door opened and Duncan reappeared.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he hissed at me. 'Jesus, you idiot, you fucking idiot!' He opened the door of the cubicle, reached in and pulled me up. 'How the hell did you get here?'

I couldn't reply. Couldn't do anything but stare at him. He waited a split second before shaking me. 'Boat?' he said. 'Did you come by boat?'

I was able to nod.

'Where is it?'

'Beach,' I managed. What did it matter if they found the boat? There was no way I was going to get away now.

'We need to get you back to it. Now.' He took my arm and started to drag me out of the room. I found the strength to pull back. No, not that easy, Duncan; I wasn't going to be that easy. Then Duncan grasped me close, wrapped both arms around me and put one hand over my mouth.

I could hear something. A clanging, whirring sound. Then footsteps returning along the corridor. They were coming back. Creaking, sliding noises told me they were bringing trolleys with them. I wanted to struggle against Duncan but he pressed his mouth against my ear and whispered, 'Ssshhh.' The door to Dana's room slammed open. A trolley was wheeled inside. I heard footsteps moving around the room, the sound of covers being pulled back. A voice I didn't know muttered a countdown, 'Three, two, one, lift…' and there was a soft thud.

'Strip the bed, bring the chains,' said another voice. Then I heard the trolley being pushed out of the room. Beside me Duncan let out a noisy breath.

From the next room along the corridor came similar, if fainter, sounds. I thought I heard someone cry out, but couldn't be sure. For a few seconds the corridor outside was as noisy as that of any normal hospital. Then the footsteps and the sound of the wheels faded. I heard the clanging noise of the lift's mechanism and then nothing. Silence.

Duncan spun me round to face him. He was white, except for red blotches around his eyes. I'd never seen him so angry. Except it wasn't anger. He was afraid.

'Tora, you have got to get a hold of yourself or you are going to die. Do you understand what I'm… no, don't you dare cry.' He pulled me close again. 'Listen, baby, listen,' he whispered, as he swayed gently, the way a mother might rock a child. 'I can get you out of the clinic but then you have to get back to the boat. Can you do that?' He didn't wait for a reply. 'Head for Uyeasound. Get as far from the island as possible then get on the radio to your policewoman friend. Can you do that?'

I didn't know. But I think I nodded. Duncan opened the bathroom door and we slipped out. Dana's room was empty. The bed had been stripped back to the mattress and her pyjamas were gone. If I'd been fifteen minutes later I'd never even have seen her. Duncan walked to the door and looked out. Then he beckoned me forward, grabbed my hand and pulled me into the deserted corridor. I wasn't sure my legs would carry me but they worked fine. We rounded a corner, ran down a short, fourth corridor and made it to the stairs. Duncan paused at the top. We could hear nothing below so risked running down to the mid section. A camera fastened high on the wall glared down at us.

We listened again. Nothing. We ran to the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves in a short corridor, twin to the one above. One door stood open on our left. I glanced inside. It was an operating suite: small room where the anaesthetics would be administered, then an open door into theatre. Duncan pulled me onwards.

We were now in the wing of the building I'd been watching when I'd disturbed the dogs. The rooms had been occupied; I'd seen light and movement behind them; we had to move quickly, someone could appear at any time. We walked forward, reached the first door. The glass window showed only darkness. We moved on. Another door, another window, light beyond. Duncan stopped and I was able to peer through. The room was well lit, about twenty metres long by eight wide. As far as I could make out there was no one inside. At least…

Duncan tugged again but this time I held firm. 'Come on,' he mouthed at me, but I shook my head. A sign on the door read: STERILE AREA, STRICTLY NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE. Pulling my hand out of Duncan's grasp, I pushed open the door and went inside.

I was in a neonatal intensive-care unit. The air temperature was several degrees warmer than that of the corridor and heavy with the continuous humming of electronic equipment. Around me I saw ultrasound scanners, a Retcam, paediatric ventilators, a transcutane- ous oxygen monitor. Several of the machines emitted soft beeping sounds every few seconds. Dana had been right. It was state-of- the-art. I'd worked in some very modern, well-equipped facilities in my time, but I'd never seen such a concentration of the very latest equipment.

'Tora, we don't have time.' Duncan had followed me into the room, was tugging at my shoulder.

There were ten incubators. Eight of them were empty. I walked across the room, no longer caring if someone found us. I had to see.

The infant in the incubator was female. She was about eleven inches long and, I guessed, would weigh around 31bs. Her skin was red, her eyes tightly closed and her head, tucked inside a knitted pink cap, seemed unnaturally large for her tiny, emaciated body. A thin, transparent tube ran into both nostrils, connected by sticking plaster to her face. Another tube ran into a vein on her wrist.

I found myself wanting to reach in through the hand access, to touch her softly. I wondered how little human touch she'd known in her short life. The longer I looked, the more I wanted to scoop her up, hold her to me and run, although I knew that to do such a thing would be to kill her.

I moved on, towards the next cot. Duncan followed, no longer trying to stop me. This baby was male, even smaller than the girl. He looked as though he'd be lucky to make 21bs, but his skin was the same dark, blotchy red. A ventilator was breathing for him, a monitor by the cot gave a continual reading of his heartbeat and a tiny blue mask covered his eyes to protect them from the light. As

I watched, he kicked one of his legs and gave a tiny, mewling cry.

I felt like someone had stuck a dagger in my heart. We stood there, staring down at him, for what felt like a long time. Neonatal units should never be left unattended, it could only be a matter of minutes before someone would return, but I simply couldn't move, except, every few seconds, to look up and glance across towards the baby girl. I wondered if they too had spent the day in the basement with Andy Dunn and three sedated women. Or maybe the people in charge had taken the risk of leaving them where they were, gambling that Helen and her team wouldn't insist upon a closer look around a sterile neonatal unit, and that, even if they did, they wouldn't recognize the significance of what they were seeing.

I knew now where Stephen Gair had been getting his babies from. I knew why Helen had been able to find no paper trail of the babies that had been adopted overseas.

George Reynolds, the head of social services, had protested his innocence, claiming that he and his team had been involved in no overseas adoptions, had given no approval, prepared no papers. He could well have been telling the truth. The babies Duncan and I were looking at would need no formal approval, no paperwork to be adopted overseas, because – officially and legally – these babies did not exist.

Their gestation had been terminated prematurely, some time between twenty-six and twenty-eight weeks. They were aborted foetuses – that were still alive.