Dead Tomorrow Read Free Page B

appeared a little more cluttered on every visit. The number of grey, four-drawer filing cabinets against one wall seemed to keep increasing, as did the index boxes in which he kept his patients’ notes stacked on the top, along, incongruously, with a plastic drinking-water dispenser. There was an eye-test chart inside a light box on onewall; a white marble bust of some ancient sage she did not recognize–perhaps Hippocrates, she thought–and several family photographs above a row of crammed, old-fashioned bookshelves.
    One side of the room, behind a free-standing screen, contained the examination couch, some electrical monitoring equipment, an assortment of medical apparatus and several lights. The flooring here was a rectangle of linoleum inset into the carpet, giving this area the appearance of a mini operating theatre.
    Ross Hunter motioned Lynn to one of the pair of black leather chairs in front of his desk and she sat down, putting her bag on the floor beside her, keeping her coat on. His face still looked tight, more serious than she had ever seen him, and it was making her nervous as hell. Then the phone rang. He raised an apologetic hand as he answered it, signalling with his eyes to her that he would not be long. While he spoke, he peered at the screen of his laptop.
    She glanced around the room, listening to him talking to the relative of someone who was clearly very ill and about to be moved into the local hospice, the Martlets. The call made her even more uncomfortable. She stared at a coat stand with a solitary overcoat–Dr Hunter’s, she presumed–hanging from it and puzzled over an array of electrical equipment that she had not seen, or noticed, previously, wondering absently what it did.
    He finished the call, scribbled a note to himself, peered at his screen once more, then focused on Lynn. His voice was gentle, concerned. ‘Thanks for coming in. I thought it would be better to see you alone before seeing Caitlin.’ He looked nervous.
    ‘Right,’ she mouthed. But no sound came out. It felt as if someone had just swabbed the insides of her mouthand her throat with blotting paper.
    He retrieved a file from right at the top of one pile, put it on his desk and opened it, adjusted his half-moon glasses, then read for a few moments, as if buying himself time. ‘I’ve got the latest set of test results back from Dr Granger and I’m afraid it’s not good news, Lynn. They’re showing grossly abnormal liver function.’
    Dr Neil Granger was the local consultant gastroenterologist who had been seeing Caitlin for the past six years.
    ‘The enzyme levels in particular are very elevated,’ he went on. ‘Particularly the Gamma GT enzymes. Her platelet count is very low–it has deteriorated quite dramatically. Is she bruising a lot?’
    Lynn nodded. ‘Yes, also, if she cuts herself the bleeding takes a long time to stop.’ She knew that clotting agents were produced by the liver, and with a healthy liver they would immediately be dispatched to cause clotting and stop the bleeding. ‘How elevated are the enzyme levels?’ After years of looking up everything Caitlin’s doctors had told her on the Internet, Lynn had accumulated a fair amount of knowledge on the subject. Enough to know when to be worried, but not enough to know what to do about it.
    ‘Well, in a normal healthy liver the enzyme level should be around 45. The lab tests that were done a month ago showed 1,050. But this latest test shows a level of 3,000. Dr Granger is very concerned about this.’
    ‘What is the significance, Ross?’ Her voice came out choked and squeaky. ‘Of the rise?’
    He looked hard at her with compassion showing in his eyes. ‘Her jaundice is worsening, he tells me. As is her encephalopathy. In lay terms, her body is being poisoned by toxins. She’s suffering increasingly from episodesof confusion, is that right?’
    Lynn nodded.
    ‘Drowsiness?’
    ‘Yes, at times.’
    ‘The itching?’
    ‘That’s driving