Caitlin nodded.

‘I had a daughter, Antje, who was thirteen, two years younger than you, and needed a liver transplant in order to live. It was not possible to find one. Antje died. On the day that I buried her I made a promise, that no one would ever die again, waiting for a liver transplant. Nor for a heart-lung transplant. Nor a kidney transplant either. That was when I set up my agency.’

Caitlin pushed her lips out, the way she always did when she agreed with something, and nodded approval.

‘Could you guarantee finding a liver for Caitlin?’ Lynn asked.

‘Natürlich! That is my business. I guarantee always to find a matching organ and to effect the transplant within one week. In ten years I have not had one failure. If you would like reassurance from my past clients, there are some who would be willing to contact you and tell you their experiences.’

‘One week – even though she’s an AB negative blood group?’

‘The blood group is not important, Mrs Beckett. Three thousand five hundred people die on the roads, around the world, every day. There will always be a matching donor somewhere.’

Lynn suddenly felt overwhelmed with relief. This woman seemed credible. Her years of experience in the world of debt collecting had taught her a lot about human nature. In particular, telling the genuine people from the bullshitters.

‘So what would be involved in finding a matching liver for my daughter?’

‘I have a worldwide network, Mrs Beckett.’ She paused to sip some of her tea. ‘It will not be a problem to find an accident victim, somewhere on this planet, who is a type match.’

Then Lynn asked the question she was dreading. ‘How much do you charge?’

‘The complete package, which includes all surgical fees for a senior transplant surgeon and a second surgeon, two anaesthetists, nursing staff, six months’ unlimited post-operative care, and all drugs, is -’ she shrugged, as if aware of the impact this was going to have – ‘three hundred thousand euros.’

Lynn gasped. ‘Three hundred thousand?’

Marlene Hartmann nodded.

‘That’s -’ Lynn did some quick mental arithmetic – ‘that’s about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds!’

Caitlin gave her mother a forget-it look.

Marlene Hartmann nodded. ‘Yes, that is about right.’

Lynn raised her hands in despair. ‘That – that’s a huge sum. Impossible – I mean, I just don’t have that kind of money.’

The German woman sipped her tea and said nothing.

Lynn’s eyes met her daughter’s, and she saw all the earlier hope in them had gone.

‘I – I had no idea. Is there any – any – payment plan that you offer?’

The broker opened her attaché case and pulled out a brown envelope, which she handed to Lynn.

‘This is my standard contract. I require half upfront and the balance immediately before the transplant takes place. It is not a big sum, Mrs Beckett. I never went to see anyone who could not raise this amount.’

Lynn shook her head in dismay. ‘So much. Why is it so much?’

‘I can go through the costs with you. You have to understand that a liver starts to deteriorate if it is more than half an hour out of a body. So the person this comes from will have to be flown here in an air ambulance on life support. As you know, it is illegal in this country to do this. All the medical team take a great risk, and of course we have to use top-quality people. There is one private clinic here in Sussex, but they are extremely expensive. I personally make very little out of this, after covering my costs. You could save some money by flying with your daughter to a country where legal issues are not such a problem. There is a clinic in Mumbai, in India, and also one in Bogotá, in Colombia. That would be perhaps fifty thousand euros less.’

‘But would we have to stay there for a long time?’

‘For some weeks, yes. Perhaps longer in case of complications, like an infection. Or rejection, of course. You must also think financially, beyond our six-month period, of the cost of anti-rejection drugs, which your daughter will have to take for life.’

Lynn shook her head, feeling in total despair.

‘I – I don’t want us to be somewhere we don’t know. And I have to work. But it’s impossible, anyway. I don’t have that kind of money.’

‘What you have to think of, Mrs Beckett – may I call you Lynn?’

She nodded, blinking away tears.

‘What you have to think of are the alternatives. What are Caitlin’s chances otherwise? That is what you must be thinking, no?’

Lynn sank her head into her hands and felt tears rolling down her cheeks. She was trying to think clearly. A quarter of a million pounds. Impossible! She thought for an instant about some of her clients at work. She offered them payment plans spread over years. But an amount this large?

‘Perhaps you could raise a mortgage on this house?’ Marlene Hartmann said helpfully.

‘I’m mortgaged up to the hilt already,’ Lynn replied.

‘Sometimes my clients get help from family and friends.’

Lynn thought about her mother. She lived in a rented council flat. She had some savings, but how much? She thought about her ex-husband. Malcolm earned good money on the dredger, but not this kind of money – and he had a new family to take care of. Her friends? The only one who had money was Sue Shackleton. Sue was divorced, from a wealthy guy, and had a nice house in one of Brighton’s smartest districts, but she had four children in private school and Lynn had no idea what her finances were like.

‘There is a bank in Germany that I work with,’ Marlene said. ‘They have arranged finance in the past for some of my clients. Five-year-term loans. I can put you in touch.’

Lynn stared at her bleakly. ‘I work in the world of finance. At the tragic end of it, the debt-collecting end. I know that no one is going to lend me that kind of money. I’m sorry, I’m desperately sorry, but you’ve had a wasted journey. I feel so stupid. I should have asked you on the phone yesterday and that would have been the end of it.’

Marlene Hartmann sipped some more tea, then put her cup down.

‘Mrs Beckett, let me tell you something. It is ten years now that I am doing this work. Not once, in all this time, have I made a wasted journey. This may seem a lot of money to you at this moment, when you have not had time to think clearly. I will be here in England for a couple of days. I want to help you. I want to do business with you.’ She handed Lynn a business card. ‘You can reach me on this number 24/7.’

Lynn stared at it, through her blur of tears. The printing was tiny. And her hopes of raising the money were even smaller.

Rares clutched the electronic game in his hands, staring out of the rear window of the Mercedes at the passing English countryside. It was a windy day, with fat, puffball clouds shunting across the blue sky. In the distance he saw a range of tall, green hills that reminded him a little of the countryside where he had lived for his first few years as a child, in Romania.

They drove across a roundabout, past a signpost to a place called Steyning, and he mouthed this name to himself. The car accelerated hard and he felt the seat back pressing against him. He was excited. Soon he would see Ilinca again. He was thinking about her smile. The soft feel of her skin. The trust in her nut-brown eyes. Her confident, independent spirit. She was the one who had found this German woman, who had arranged for their new lives. He loved that about Ilinca. The way she could make things happen. The way she seemed to be able to take care of herself. And he loved the way she told him he was the only person in her life who had ever looked after her.

He wished they could have travelled together, but the German woman had been adamant. Ilinca first, then him. There were reasons why they could not travel together, good reasons, the German woman had assured them. They had trusted her.