And why hadn’t Dr Rosengarten in Los Angeles seen she was expecting twins on the scan? When they discussed this with Des Holbein, he told them that at that early stage, if he hadn’t known about her second uterus, and if the boy had been out of position, possibly screened by the girl, and if he had been rushed, as it sounded Rosengarten was, it could quite easily have happened.
John kept in regular contact with his friend, Kalle Almtorp. The FBI were still no nearer to solving who had killed Dettore, and the Serendipity Rose had not been sighted. It was possible, he told John, that the Disciples of the Third Millennium, if they really existed, had sunk it at the same time as they had murdered Dettore – presumably killing everyone on board. They were no closer, either, to finding the killer of Marty and Elaine Borowitz, despite the original claims that it was done by the same Disciples of the Third Millennium. Just as silently as they had surfaced and struck, the Disciples of the Third Millennium seem to have faded back into the ether.
The FBI and Interpol were baffled. His best advice, Kalle told John, was for them to keep a low profile, avoid all publicity, be ex-directory and vigilant at all times. Kalle felt that moving from the US, as they had done, was sensible.
In England they had made the decision to tell no one about their visit to the Dettore Clinic, other than Naomi’s mother and sister. Some of John’s old colleagues, and some of Naomi’s friends, had seen the press mentions when the article had been syndicated around the world, but John and Naomi had successfully played it down saying that, as usual, the press had got the wrong end of the stick and had tried to make a sensational story out of nothing.
By her eighteenth week, instead of the morning sickness having gone, as she had been told it would, it had worsened. Naomi had been vomiting all the time, unable to keep any food down, despite constant cravings for frozen peas and Marmite sandwiches. Suffering severe dehydration, with her electrolytes up the creek, short of sodium and potassium in her blood, she had been admitted to hospital four times over the next two months.
In her thirtieth week, Naomi had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia toxaemia – pregnancy-induced hypertension – with rising blood pressure. There was protein in her urine, causing her very uncomfortable swelling of her hands and ankles, to the point where she could no longer get her shoes on.
When, at thirty-six and a half weeks, Mr Holbein advised them Naomi should have an elective lower segment caesarean section instead of going the full term, because he was worried about the function of the placenta being impaired and possibly causing death of the babies or bleeding behind the placenta, Naomi had taken little persuading; as had John.
The conversation in the operating theatre suddenly quietened and in unison the gowned medics seemed to close ranks around Naomi. John sat down and took her hand. His mouth had gone dry. He was trembling. ‘Starting now,’ he said to her.
He could hear the clatter of instruments. Saw figures leaning over the table, eyes above the masks all serious in concentration. He craned his neck around the screen and watched Mr Holbein drawing a scalpel across the base of the huge bump that took up the whole of Naomi’s abdomen. Squeamishly, he looked away.
‘What can you see?’ Naomi asked.
Then suddenly the obstetrician popped his head around the screen.
‘Would you like to see the babies delivered?’ he asked, cheerily.
John looked at Naomi, bolstered by the confident tone of Holbein’s voice. ‘How do you feel about that, darling?’
‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘Would you like to?’
‘I – I would, yes,’ he said.
‘I would too.’
Moments later, the anaesthetist undid the clips and let the green sheet down.
‘You can hold up her head to give her a better view,’ Holbein said to John.
Gently, John obeyed. They could see a lumpy ocean of green sheets and the surgeons’ gowned arms.
It seemed just moments later that Phoebe Anna Klaesson, tiny, coated in the slimy curds of yellow cream of the vernix and blood, eyes open, crying, trailing her umbilical cord from her belly and gripped firmly in a rubber- gloved hand, was pulled clear of the warmth and bustle of her mother’s womb. She was lifted up into the comparative freezing cold and eerie silence of the operating theatre.
As John watched, totally mesmerized, she was turning, right in front of his eyes, from bluey pink to bright pink.
That crying. That sweet sound of life, their baby, their creation! He felt joy and fear at the same time. Memories of Halley’s birth swirled in his head. All the pride and hope he had had. Please be all right, Phoebe. You will be. Oh God, yes, you will be!
The obstetrician held Phoebe up, while another gowned figure fixed the cord with two clamps, and a third figure cut it between them.
Holding the cord with the baby, Mr Holbein placed them into the green sterile sheet the midwife was holding out. Then, wrapping the sheet around Phoebe, he brought her close to Naomi.
‘Your daughter looks lovely!’
Phoebe cried lustily.
‘Listen to that!’ Holbein said. ‘That’s a healthy cry.’
John’s eyes were sodden with tears. ‘Well done, darling,’ he whispered to Naomi. But she was staring at her daughter with such exhausted rapture she didn’t even hear him.
The obstetrician handed Phoebe to the midwife, who in turn took her over to the paediatrician, who was standing by the resuscitation trolleys, two small mobile tables each with a large flat overhead lamp. ‘And now the next child,’ he said.
As the surgeon moved back down to the abdomen, he said, ‘The second baby is further back and higher up – this is not going to be quite so easy. It’s a breech presentation with the head tucked up in a corner of the womb.’
Still supporting Naomi’s head, John’s anxiety returned. He watched the obstetrician concentrating. The man was moving his hands around inside Naomi, but John could see from his face something was wrong. Sweat was glistening on the man’s brow.
The atmosphere in the room seemed to change. Every pair of eyes now looked tense. The surgeon was still moving his hands. He said something to the scrub nurse, too quietly for John to hear.
A bead of sweat fell from the obstetrician’s head onto the lens of his glasses.
Suddenly the anaesthetist said to John, ‘We’re having a little difficulty here. I think, Mr Klaesson, you should leave us now.’
Holbein nodded. ‘Yes, that’s sensible.’
‘What’s going on?’ John said, glancing anxiously at Naomi, who seemed to have lost what little colour she had in her face.
The obstetrician said, ‘This is really difficult and the baby’s heart rate from cord pulsation has gone right down. It would be better if you went out into a waiting room.’
‘I’d prefer to stay,’ John said.
The anaesthetist and obstetrician exchanged glances. John looked anxiously at Mr Holbein. Was the baby dying?
The anaesthetist pinned back the screen, blocking Naomi and John’s view. John kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, darling, it’ll be OK.’
She squeezed his hand. Then he stood up. Des Holbein came up to Naomi again. ‘I’m sorry, Naomi, I’ve been trying to restrict the incision to what we call the bikini line, but I’m going to have to cut you vertically now.’
She gave a faint nod.
‘The epidural block isn’t high enough,’ the anaesthetist said. Then his assistant suddenly called out, in alarm, ‘Sixty!’
There was an air of panic in the room.
‘I can’t wait,’ the surgeon said.
The anaesthetist raised his voice almost to a shout, ‘I have to get her asleep! Give me a minute!’
