Lynn Beckett sat, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night, her heart thudding, hunched over her kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. She had lain in bed for hours, tossing and turning, shaking her pillows to try to get them comfortable, and getting up, obsessively, every twenty minutes or so to check on Caitlin, help her to the loo, ensure she drank glucose water and took the antibiotic tablets. The combination Ross Hunter had prescribed, probably aided by the jab, seemed to be working. Caitlin’s pain had subsided and the itching was a little less bad.
For a long time after the doctor’s visit, she had remained downstairs with Luke. They had downed a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and smoked their way through an entire packet of Silk Cut, sharing the last cigarette between them.
Now her head was pounding, her lungs were raw and she felt terrible. Luke had finally fallen into a deep slumber in the chair beside Caitlin’s bed.
The television was on. She stared at the 9 a.m. news, but she had no interest in it. Nor in the programme on helicopter rescues that followed. She had no interest in anything, at this moment, except for the phone call she was waiting for from Marlene Hartmann.
Please call. Oh, please God, call.
She did not know what she would do if the German woman did not make contact. If she had simply conned them out of the money. She had no Plan B.
Then, suddenly, the landline phone rang.
She answered it before it had completed the first ring. ‘Yeshello?’
To her relief, it was Marlene Hartmann. ‘How are you today, Lynn?’
‘Yesfine,’ she gasped.
‘Everything is good. We are here. You will be ready for collection?’
‘Yes I will.’
‘The payment is in order? You have the balance ready?’
‘Yes.’ She swallowed.
Her bank manager had already queried the first transfer she had made, and she had given him a lame reason that she was buying an investment property in Germany, from a one-off-payment final divorce settlement from her ex-husband, following an inheritance he had received.
‘You will see us later. The car will arrive for you as scheduled.’
She hung up before Lynn could thank her.
The car was scheduled for midday. Less than three hours.
She was so wound up with stress, fear and excitement, she could hardly think straight.