that too, but all I got was the same answer-machine that she had earlier. Now the bugger pops up here out of the blue. Open it, and let’s see what he’s telling her.’
Montell double-clicked the sender name and waited for the seconds the message took to open. ‘The title is “Keeping in touch”, ’ he began ‘and it reads,
‘Hi Sis
I’m on the move, so this will have to be a quick message. I hope you’re well and selling your pictures like crazy. It was good, what you told me about the man being in touch about one of your pictures. You make a friend like him and word will spread around town. Just don’t let him get too friendly! I can’t tell you often enough, you can’t trust men, but you know that from your own experience. I’m glad it seems to be working out for you with your new boyfriend. He has a good background. After you told me about him I checked out his father, and he seems like quite a man. He was very successful in business and before that he was a war hero. I wish our own dad was more like him. We know what he did when he saw war on the horizon.
I’m out of the country just now, finishing up a piece of business. I expect it to be taken care of in the next couple of days. Once it is, maybe I’ll come to Edinburgh to see you and your little friend, and meet Harry.
Love, Drazen.’
‘Looks like his secretary was telling the truth, boss.’
‘I never doubted her. Is the message dated?’
‘According to the heading it was sent today, at twelve fifty GMT.’
‘That’s well after the press conference. Griff, I want you to send a reply. Tell him it’s from me, give him our office address, phone number and e-mail, and tell him that when he picks it up, he should get in touch with us as soon as possible.’
Montell’s fingers were flashing on the keyboard even before he had finished speaking. ‘I’m ahead of you, boss. I wonder who the man was that Drazen mentioned,’ he added idly, as he worked.
‘Maybe Zrinka’s old e-mails will tell us. Finish up and let’s get back to the office, so you can start to work on them, and on any other surprises that might be in there.’
Thirty-eight
There was nothing about the process of the MRI scan that was frightening, in itself, to a mature, sensible woman. She lay undressed, but under a sheet, on a movable bed, as it passed slowly through a giant, circular magnet. She kept absolutely still, as she had been told was necessary. The supervisor had offered her a mild sedative to help her, but she had declined. She felt no discomfort, no pain, as it progressed, and she was sure that her child was equally unaffected, since she felt no kicking or undue movement within her. She willed herself to concentrate on the scan itself, and to think of nothing else; she might have dropped off to sleep had it not been for the loud repetitive clicking that signalled each successive stage. Finally it was over. She would have guessed that she had been under the magnet’s beam for less than half an hour, and yet a check of the clock on the wall, as she slipped on the hospital-issue dressing-gown, told her that fifty minutes had elapsed.
But, still, Maggie Rose was apprehensive, as she had been from the moment that she had seen Fine waiting for her in the reception area. She was strong-willed and had been able, if not to banish her fears, then at least to pack them away in a box at the back of her mind, but his presence . . . not routine, whatever he said . . . coupled with the disturbing family history that Sylvia Thorpe’s research had uncovered, had unlocked it and set them free to push everything else aside.
She frowned as she dressed, rubbing her hand idly over her bump as she fastened the elasticated uniform trousers that had been made specially for her. She was still frowning as she returned to the waiting area. A nurse offered her a cup of tea and a biscuit, and she accepted, then left them untouched on the table beside her. She was so preoccupied that she failed to see Mr Fine until he was standing in front of her, hair slicked back, pencil moustache as neat as ever, round spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose.
‘Would you like to come with me, please, Mrs Steele?’ he said, in a voice that sounded reassuring, but was in total contrast to the signals that all his years of professional practice could not prevent from showing in his eyes. She followed him without a word, along the corridor and into a small narrow room with a curtained window, an examination table, a backlit display screen and three chairs, one of which was behind a desk.
Several transparencies were attached to the board, brightly coloured cross-sections of a human body that she knew to be hers. She stared at them, almost slipping as she lowered herself on to one of the two patient chairs. Fine put out a hand to steady her, then took the other himself, beside the board.
He pointed at the images. ‘I could spend a while going through these in detail with you, Mrs Steele, as I’ve just done with my colleague Dr Goyle, our most senior consultant radiologist. I could point out to you what we’ve found, but it wouldn’t mean anything to you, since it takes a couple of years’ training and then several more years’ experience to be able to interpret these pictures. So I’ll just tell you what the position is.’
Maggie’s heart was hammering. She hugged her abdomen, as if she was protecting her child, as, subconsciously, she was.
The consultant read her mind; he waited, giving her time to control herself, then caught her eyes, holding her attention. ‘The scan,’ he continued slowly, ‘has detected abnormalities in both of your ovaries, and in your Fallopian tubes. There is also a shadow on your uterus. For one hundred per cent certainty we’d need to do a biopsy, but neither Dr Goyle nor I are in any real doubt. We believe that you are suffering from what is called an epithelial ovarian carcinoma. I’m very sorry, Mrs Steele, but that’s the long way of saying that you have ovarian cancer.’
Maggie felt all of the colour drain from her face. ‘Jesus,’ she whispered. She had known fear throughout her life, and violence on more than one occasion, as an adult and as a child, but she realised that before it had always been mixed with anger, and that until that moment she had never felt true terror.
‘Yes,’ said Fine.
‘The baby?’ Her voice trembled.
‘Your child is unaffected.’
Her breath exploded from her in a huge sigh, and she felt herself relax, a little. ‘Oh, thank you for that,’ she gasped.
Fine gazed at her kindly. ‘It’s not a matter for thanks.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ she told him, with a very faint smile: it showed for only a second or two, before her frown returned. ‘That’s my diagnosis, but what’s my prognosis?’
‘It’s much more positive than it might have been,’ he replied. ‘Your condition has been detected fairly early, which isn’t usually the case with this type of disease. With immediate intervention and a subsequent course of treatment, still to be determined, you have an excellent chance of recovery.’
‘What do you mean by intervention?’
‘We’ll have to end your pregnancy now, and operate to remove your ovaries, tubes, womb and any other troublesome tissue that might have been hidden from the scan.’
‘Terminate my pregnancy?’ Maggie exclaimed. ‘But I have eleven weeks to go.’
‘Nonetheless, Mrs Steele, we have to act immediately.’
‘By killing my child?’
‘Your child has a fair chance of survival, even with such an early delivery.’
‘But you’ve just told me she’s small.’
‘Yes, but she’s viable.’
‘What does she weigh, right now?’
‘Maybe two and a half pounds . . .’ he paused ‘. . . but babies of that size regularly survive nowadays.’
‘Maybe, you’re saying to me. As in “maybe but she could be less”, right?’
‘True,’ Fine admitted. ‘She could weigh less than a kilo just now.’
‘And then what would her chances of survival be?’
‘To be honest, they’d be poor.’
‘And if I carry her full term?’
‘She would be six pounds at birth, possibly as much as seven; most of a baby’s weight is gained in the final stages. However, that could be affected by the development of your condition: she might grow more slowly than
