The Donor, Page 6

  ‘She told Meg to bring her passport,’ I say. ‘Are you checking the airports?’ There are three within striking distance.

  ‘We’ve issued an alert to all airports, as well as ferry ports.’ DS Morgan says. ‘But they might not be going abroad – Karen might have wanted Meg’s passport for some other reason. ID for new documents, for example.’

  ‘Why is she doing this?’ My words come out in a wail, and Steve squeezes my hand.

  ‘Has Karen ever asked you for money?’ DS Morgan says. ‘It’s a common reason for kidnap and—’

  I laugh – a hard bark too loud for the room. ‘She’s backing the wrong horse if she thinks she can get money out of us – we’re barely scraping by ourselves.’

  ‘Is that what you think this is about?’ Steve says. ‘Because if she wants money, we’ll get it somehow. We’ll speak to the bank – get another mortgage. Anything to get Meg back.’ He’s close to tears, his words choking in his throat.

  ‘There’s no sign of a ransom demand at the moment,’ DC Morgan says. ‘Did your daughter know Jake Edwards? They were only a few years apart – could Karen be taking revenge for something Meg did or said?’

  I feel Steve stiffen at the suggestion. ‘Meg wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ I say. ‘Besides, she didn’t know Jake. We don’t even live in the same area as them.’

  ‘We’ll look into possible connections anyway,’ DS Morgan says. ‘After school clubs, friends of friends – that sort of thing.’ I slump into my chair. This is hopeless. They don’t have any solid leads, they’re just fumbling in the dark.

  ‘One other thing.’ DS Morgan hesitates, and I sit up, my nerve-endings tingling. Something’s happened. Something bad. ‘You mentioned that Meg has to take medication.’

  I nod. ‘They stop her body rejecting the heart. She has to take them every day.’

  ‘How much of the drug do you have?’

  ‘Six weeks’ worth,’ I say. ‘Divided into two pots. Meg keeps one in her room – she’s really good about taking them – and the other one’s in the bathroom cabinet. When Meg’s is empty I give her the reserve pot, and order the repeat prescription.’ I look around the room, confused as to why they’re asking. ‘Meg took her pot with her when she left – I’ve checked.’

  ‘We got a warrant to search Karen’s house for evidence,’ DS Morgan says. ‘In the bin in the kitchen we found Meg’s medication.’

  My blood runs cold. Without the drugs Meg’s body will start fighting the transplanted heart, seeing it as the enemy. How long will it take before her breath starts to catch? Before her arms and legs ache when she moves, and she grows pale and listless? There’s only one reason why Karen would throw away Meg’s medication. She wants her to die.

  But why?

  The next half hour passes in a blur. The police found Meg’s mobile at Karen’s house, too. They passed it to me in a clear plastic bag so I could enter her password. Reading the WhatsApp conversation between Meg and Karen was agony.

  Mum’s trying to stop me seeing you. I hate her.

  She can’t stop you – you’re almost an adult. Do you want me to pick you up?

  Yes please xxx

  ‘I thought I was doing the right thing,’ I cry, ‘stopping her from seeing Karen, but I made things worse!’ Steve puts his arm around me, just as the door opens and PC Stanford comes in, followed by a familiar face.

  ‘Samira!’ I jump up and hug her, sobbing into her uniform. Then DS Morgan pulls up another chair to the table. Samira looks as worried as Steve and I are, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. PC Stanford addresses DS Morgan.

  ‘This is Samira Kaur,’ she says. ‘She’s the nurse who looked after Meg after her transplant, and is a good friend of the family’s now. She has an update on Karen Edwards.’

  Everyone’s eyes swivel to Samira, and we all hold our breaths for what she’s about to tell us. Samira swallows.

  ‘We don’t tell patients who their organs come from,’ she says, ‘and we advise them strongly not to try to get in touch themselves. It can cause all sorts of problems for both sides.’ I flush, although she isn’t directing this at me. ‘Meg’s heart came from a thirty-five-year-old man with kidney failure. His heart was healthy, and a good match for Meg, and the transplant was a success.’

  I start to feel impatient. We know all this. Why is Samira here? What has she found out?

  ‘Lizzie told me Karen and Jake’s names, and I looked them up on the hospital system. It’s just as the newspaper articles said: Jake and his dad had a bike accident, and his dad died at the scene. Jake was rushed to hospital and for a while it looked like he might have made it. Only …’ her eyes glisten. ‘Only his heart gave up. The doctor treating him says he did everything he could. He said Jake’s mum begged him not to give up.’

  I picture Karen at the hospital, her son dying in theatre. And a doctor, breaking the news, telling Karen that Jake’s heart is failing. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

  ‘Karen thought Jake should have had the heart that went to Meg,’ I say, and it isn’t really a question, because it suddenly seems so obvious.

  Samira nods. ‘Jake and Meg were in surgery at the same time. It seems Karen overheard one of the doctors talking about the donor, and Karen begged him to give the heart to Jake.’

  I see the scene as vividly as if it was playing out in front of me and, despite everything, I feel a pang of grief for Karen. What must that have been like? Knowing your son was dying? Begging that doctor for what you thought was the answer?

  ‘Jake was critically injured,’ Samira says. ‘There were lots of reasons why he wasn’t suitable for a transplant, but Karen was fixated. As far as she was concerned, that heart would have saved Jake’s life.’

  ‘And Meg got it,’ I say, almost to myself. That poor woman, I find myself thinking, before everything snaps back and my heart hardens again. That poor woman has abducted my daughter, and she intends to harm her. ‘You have to find her,’ I say to DS Morgan, my voice rising with each word. ‘You have to find her now!’

  As if I’ve made it happen, DS Morgan’s mobile rings, and she answers it with a curt, ‘Morgan.’ She nods to the unseen speaker, saying ‘what time was that?’ and ‘understood’. She finishes the call and turns to the uniformed officers, a new urgency in her voice. ‘Confirmed sighting,’ she says. ‘Heathrow, terminal three. I want everyone we’ve got there. Go!’

  There’s a flurry of uniform and banging doors, and running feet in the corridor outside. I hear sirens and shouts, and my heart thuds in my chest like it’s going to break out. I stand up, pulling Steve with me. ‘We have to go.’

  DS Morgan stands too, her hands out in an attempt to calm me. ‘Let us do our job, Mrs Thomas. The best thing you can do is stay here and—’

  But I’m not listening. I’m pushing past her, and Steve’s following, and we’re running from the room and out of the station to the car. We’re going to get our daughter back.

  Chapter 11

  Face to Face

  They were too late, we heard, as we ran to the car. Snatches of radio, of updates from one officer to another. The block on the passport came too late – Karen had already checked them both in online. They won’t show their passports till they’re at the gate. They’ll be stopped then – they won’t be allowed on the plane – but for now they are missing. Somewhere in the departure area, among the shops and the bars and the business lounges.

  We drive in silence, the sirens leading the way and then fading as we fall behind, unable to keep up with the police cars’ blue flashing lights. I stare out of the window, praying that Karen won’t hurt Meg, that Meg isn’t frightened. Steve’s jaw is rigid, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

  ‘Karen had everything,’ he says eventually, almost as though he’s talking to himself. ‘Big house, nice car, expensive clothes, a good education.’ I stay silent. ‘I thought she’d be a good influence on Meg, you know? I figured it was good for Meg to see what she could achieve if she worked
hard.’

  ‘We couldn’t have known.’

  ‘You knew.’ He glances at me. ‘And I wouldn’t listen. I put Meg at risk – I encouraged her to keep seeing Karen.’

  I close my eyes, willing the miles to pass, wishing I could hear the police talk to each other on the radio. Maybe they’re there, now. Maybe airport officials have already found them. Maybe they’ve sat Meg down with a cup of sweet tea and told her she’s safe now, nothing to worry about.

  Or maybe, a voice in my head whispers, maybe Karen’s too clever for that. Maybe she has fake ID, maybe she doesn’t care about the flight to Spain – after all, if you’re going to kill a child does it matter where you do it? I let out a strangled sob, and Steve lifts his hand from the gear stick to put over mine.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he says.

  We abandon the car on double yellow lines, ignoring the shouts of the ticket warden, and running into the terminal. I’ve never been abroad, and I think back to Meg’s excited chatter on her return from France. She told us about the security queue, about taking off her belt, and emptying her bag of electronics and liquids. I scan the building, and am dismayed to see the uniformed man at the entrance to the security area. He is scanning pieces of paper presented by each traveller.

  ‘We won’t get through!’ I say to Steve. ‘Look!’

  ‘Come on,’ he says grimly. He’ll never forgive himself for trusting Karen, I know, and yet I don’t blame him. Steve’s right – she does have everything. A big house, a nice car, great clothes … But not Meg. She’s not having our Meg.

  I follow Steve towards security, half-running to keep up with his long strides. As we approach he mutters to me, ‘I’ll distract him – you slip past,’ and my pulse thumps in my ears. Slip past? I can’t! They’ll see – they’ll stop me.

  The security man is big and burly, arms straining at his sleeves. Steve gives my hand a final squeeze then drops it, moving a few paces in front of me, his eyes fixed on the guard. ‘Excuse me!’ he calls.

  I try to breathe deeply. Surely everyone can see the heat rising through my body? The sweat breaking out across my brow?

  Come on, Lizzie, I tell myself. What’s the worst that can happen?

  Meg getting hurt, comes the answer. Nothing else matters. My breathing slows, and I hold my head up. Steve breaks into a jog and grabs the security man around the shoulders, saying Please help me, my daughter’s missing. I slip past them both and join the mercifully short queue for security.

  Unsure exactly what they need, I throw my handbag and the contents of my pockets into a black tray.

  ‘Shoes,’ says a bored girl with a tight, high ponytail.

  ‘What?’ Panic rises in my throat. Meg. I need to get to Meg.

  ‘You have to take your shoes off.’

  Frustrated, I tear off my shoes, and walk through the archway, crossing my fingers that nothing else will hold me up. And it doesn’t, and I’m through, abandoning my handbag and running, running, running with no idea of where she might be, only that she’s here somewhere. My Meg.

  I’m close to tears, my breath short and painful as I run barefoot into every shop, every restaurant, looking wildly around for Karen and my daughter. People look at me, amused, pointing and nudging each other. I don’t care.

  ‘Have you seen a fourteen-year-old girl?’ I say. I reach for my phone to find a picture, then remember it’s on a conveyor belt with my handbag. With my shoes. There are shrugs and head-shakes – awkward glances as though I might be mad.

  I hear the commotion before I see it. Confident commands of get back please, and nothing to see here. I break into a run and follow the noise, my feet pounding the floor in time to the voice in my head: Meg, Meg, Meg.

  Around the disabled toilet between two gates is a crowd of people, straining their necks to see to the front. I push through them, to where sunhats and shorts give way to police hats and dark blue trousers.

  ‘Stay back, please, madam.’ A police officer with a large black moustache holds up a hand. ‘All of you,’ he raises his voice, shouting at the crowd. ‘Back off!’ There’s a grumble as people start to amble away, moved on by seemingly dozens of uniformed staff.

  ‘They’re in there, aren’t they?’ I say. ‘Meg and Karen?’

  There’s a moment’s hesitation. ‘I can’t release any information about—’

  ‘She’s my daughter!’ I scream it long and loud, the tears finally coming, so fast I wonder if they’ll ever stop. Alarm shows on his face, and he grips my shoulder, half in support and half in restraint. He beckons to an officer standing by the toilet door. He comes over, his look of annoyance turning to concern once moustache-man tells him who I am.

  ‘Everything’s under control,’ he says. ‘I’ll have someone escort you to one of the offices, where you can wait for updates.’

  ‘I’m going nowhere,’ I tell him. ‘Not till I see my daughter.’

  ‘We’re waiting for a negotiator, Mrs Thomas.’

  ‘A what?’ I don’t even hear the word, let alone understand it. The crowd has been moved back now, this entire section cleared of anyone but airport staff, police, and me. And Karen and Meg, presumably locked in the toilet.

  ‘Someone trained in talking to people,’ the police officer explains. ‘The negotiator will help Mrs Edwards understand that her best option is to come out quietly.’

  ‘Come out?’ Frustration boils inside me. ‘Why are you waiting for her to come out? Just bash the door in – isn’t that what you lot do?’

  And then I take in the kindness in the officer’s eyes, the emptied section of the airport, the sheer number of police summoned for one woman and a schoolgirl. And I understand.

  ‘She said she’ll hurt Meg if you open the door, didn’t she?’

  There’s a pause, then the officer nods. ‘It took a while to locate Edwards on CCTV, but when we did, she dragged your daughter into this washroom.’

  I think of the security queue, of the liquids and handbags emptied onto the conveyor belt. ‘She can’t have a weapon though, can she? Not here? She can’t hurt Meg.’ I don’t know if I’m asking the question, or pleading for that to be true.

  ‘We have nothing to suggest that Edwards is armed,’ the police officer says. ‘But …’ his voice is gentle. Kind. ‘It’s possible to hurt someone without weapons, Mrs Thomas.’

  My heart contracts. Meg is right there. Right there. Ten metres from me, yet I can’t keep her safe. I push past the police officer, hammer on the locked door and scream Meg’s name, so she knows she’s not alone. Behind me I hear someone – a police officer? – swear. Someone else grabs my shoulder and pulls me back, but then there’s a hard click and the door flies open with a slam against the wall.

  ‘Meg!’ I cry.

  ‘Mum!’

  Karen’s hand is twisted into Meg’s hair, pulling her head backwards. In her free hand is a jagged piece from a glass bottle, the sharp point pushed against Meg’s exposed neck. Karen looks at me, a twisted smile on her face.

  ‘Finally,’ she says. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

  Chapter 12

  Taken Hostage

  The glass is green. It shimmers in the light like something magical – something from a fairy tale. I think again of the woodcutter fable. You must give me your first-born child …

  ‘Let her go,’ I say, my voice shaky. ‘Please, Karen, just let her go.’

  ‘Mum, I’m scared.’ Tears run down the sides of Meg’s face.

  ‘It’s okay, love, it’s going to be all right.’ I don’t know if it’s true, but I have to believe it. Meg is my world, my everything.

  ‘Jake died because of her,’ Karen says. As she speaks, she twists the glass in her hand. Meg cries out, and a thin trickle of blood runs down her pale neck. I feel the pain as keenly as if the glass were in my own neck.

  ‘Let go of my daughter!’ I roar. I step forward, but the police are faster than me. They lunge towards Karen, but she yanks Meg’s hair harder backwards and grips t
he glass more firmly.

  ‘One step further,’ she says, ‘and I drive this straight through her neck.’

  Meg whimpers. Everyone is still for a second, then one of the police officers nods, and they all take a stride back.

  ‘Or perhaps,’ Karen says, her tone light, as though she’s considering her shopping options, ‘I should push it into her heart?’ She places the glass dagger against Meg’s chest, trailing it idly in a circle. Blood from the tip stains Meg’s white T-shirt.

  ‘It’s not too late, Karen.’ The officer who spoke to me – the one who seemed in charge – speaks to her in a calm, measured voice. ‘You can still make the right choice. If you hurt Meg you’ll go to prison for a long time.’

  Karen’s lips tighten. ‘I lost my husband and son in one day,’ she says. ‘I’m already serving a life sentence.’ There’s a rawness about her tone – about the pain in her eyes – that tugs at my heart. I take a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Are you?’ Karen spits the words. ‘I don't think so. It was too late for Michael, but Jake … Jake had a chance. You took that chance away.’

  In her head it makes perfect sense, I realise. Jake’s heart was giving up. There was a heart waiting for a patient. In Karen’s mind, that heart was the difference between life and death. Does that make her mad? Or just mad with grief?

  ‘Jake had other injuries, Karen,’ I say carefully. ‘Other life-threatening injuries.’

  ‘You took the heart that could have saved him,’ Karen says. ‘Have you any idea what it feels like to lose a child? For the hand you’ve held for so many years to be cold to the touch? Do you know what it’s like to choose a coffin for your child? To put his favourite songs onto a playlist for a funeral instead of a party?’

  The lump in my throat makes it hard to speak. ‘It isn’t Meg’s fault, Karen. Let her go.’

  ‘You can’t imagine, can you?’ She gives a hollow, bitter laugh. ‘But you’re going to find out.’ She twists the glass again, releasing a fresh trickle of bright red blood. Meg screams, and I spin from one police officer to another.