Sacrifice

by Sharon Bolton

  I must have been about six metres away from the sheds when there came a terrifying explosion of sound: the manic barking of several large dogs. I dropped to the ground, curling instinctively into the tightest ball I could manage, tucking my hands into my chest.

  The barking grew in intensity, claws scratched against wood, animals yelped, hurting each other in their urgency to reach me, to be the first to tear me apart.

  Nothing happened: I didn’t hear the pounding of large paws, jagged teeth didn’t clamp down on to my flesh. But the cacophonous din continued, the dogs getting more and more furious with themselves, with me, with the situation. With a relief that almost made me pass out, I realized they couldn’t reach me. They were locked up.

  I forced myself to uncurl and start crawling. I went back the way I’d come, back towards the common room and kitchen. As my scent faded, the dogs began to calm. After a few more seconds I heard a male voice talking to them, soothing them.

  The television in the common room was turned on and several of the men were gathered around it, watching with interest. With any luck it might distract them for a while. Also, whilst my recent encounter with the canine world had left me shaking violently, I realized the presence of dogs was good news; just so long as they remained locked up. If guard dogs provided the island’s security, they might rely less on devices like alarms and cameras. Of course, once the dogs were loose, my life expectancy stood at around ten minutes.

  The kitchen was empty, the smoker’s window still open.

  It was a stupid, ridiculous risk to even think about taking with most of the clinic’s staff in the next room. Far better to creep back across the island, climb on to my boat and sail to Unst; try and convince Helen to come back here sooner than planned, to take Tronal by surprise. That way, I might just be alive when the sun came up. But would Dana?

  Glancing round, I saw a tall bush and ran for it. Behind it, I unhooked my backpack and pulled off my waterproofs. Underneath were the scrubs I’d been wearing all day. I pulled a cap on to my head and tucked my hair up inside it. Seen quickly and at a distance, it was just possible I wouldn’t set alarm bells ringing. I ran forward, paused to check the kitchen was still empty and climbed in.

  The volume of the TV next door was turned up loud and I was pretty certain no one had heard me come in. I clambered over a steel worktop, dropped to the floor and listened hard: nothing but the low chanting of a sports crowd on the TV and an occasional expletive from the next room. I leaned over and pulled the window down until it was almost but not quite closed. With luck, anyone glancing at it would think it shut and locked. I crossed the kitchen and gently opened the door. The corridor was empty and I set off left, away from the common room. Looking up, I could see cameras tucked away in the corner between wall and ceiling. I just had to hope they weren’t being monitored.

  I walked slowly, silently, alert every second for the slightest noise that would tell me someone was approaching. Along the wall on my right-hand side were occasional windows showing a dim view of the internal courtyard. Across the courtyard was another lit and windowed corridor. It would not be easy to remain unseen. From the outside, the building had looked old, but once inside I didn’t think it could be. It was just too regular, too clean and modern in its construction, the windows large and frequent. On my left were rooms. Most had closed doors, one with light shining under that I passed by quickly. Two had open doors and I glanced inside. The first was an office: desk, computer terminal, glass-fronted bookcase; the second was some sort of meeting room.

  I came to the end of the corridor and found a door to my right leading out into the courtyard. On my left were the steel double doors of a large lift and a flight of stairs. I started to climb.

  Seven steps up and the stairs made a 180-degree turn. There was a fire-door at the top. I opened it and glanced through. The corridor was narrow and windowless. Dim spotlights were evenly spaced along the low ceiling. I counted six doors along my right-hand side. Each had a small shuttered window. I slid back the first shutter.

  The room beyond was dark but I could make out a narrow, hospital-style bed with tubular framing and a pale-coloured cabinet by its side. Also an easy chair and a small TV, mounted on the wall. Someone lay in the bed but the covers were pulled up high and I had no way of telling whether the someone was young or old, male or female, dead or alive.

  I moved on to the next window. Same set-up. Except this time, as I watched, the figure in the bed moved, turning over and stretching before settling down again.

  The next room was empty; so was the fourth.

  There was light in the fifth room. A woman sat in the armchair, reading a magazine. She looked up and we made eye contact. Then she dropped her magazine, put both hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She was wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. She was pregnant.

  She came towards the door. Every nerve ending I had was on fire, but I knew if I ran now the game would be up. She opened the door and tilted her head slightly to one side.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  All I could do was stare back. Creases appeared on her forehead and her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Sorry,’ I managed. ‘Long day, four hours in theatre, brain not really functioning any more. How are you feeling?’

  She relaxed and stepped back, inviting me into her room. I went in, closing the door behind me and making sure the window shutter was pulled across.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘Bit nervous. Mr Mortensen said he would give me something to help me sleep but I guess he’s been busy.’ She leaned back against the bed. ‘We’re still OK for tomorrow, aren’t we?’

  I forced myself to smile at her. ‘Haven’t heard anything to the contrary.’

  ‘Thank Christ. I just want to get it over with now. I really need to get back to work.’

  A termination. Dana had told me the clinic carried them out. This woman, at least, was here voluntarily.

  ‘Have I seen you before?’ she was asking me.

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t think so. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Five days now. I really need to get home. I thought it would just take twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I’ve been away for a week,’ I said. ‘Just back on duty this afternoon. I haven’t managed to look at your notes yet. Have there been complications?’

  She sighed and pushed herself up so that she was sitting on the bed. ‘Just about everything you can think of. Blood pressure sky-high, apparently, although it’s never been a problem in the past. Sugar and protein in my urine. Traces of a viral infection in my blood, although why that should stop you going ahead is beyond me.’

  It was beyond me too. It all sounded like complete nonsense. Something was starting to feel very wrong. I glanced at the notes pinned to the foot of her bed, found her name.

  ‘Emma, can I have a quick look at your tummy?’

  She lay back on the bed and pulled her dressing gown open. She was a striking-looking woman: probably in her late twenties, tall with vivid blonde hair showing just a fraction of dark roots. Her eyes were large and light brown in colour, her lips plump and very red, her teeth white and perfect.

  I started to press my hands very gently on her abdomen. Immediately something kicked back. I glanced up at Emma but her face had tightened. She wouldn’t make eye contact.

  ‘What do you do for a living, Emma?’ I asked her, as my hands travelled upwards.

  She smiled. ‘I’m an actress,’ she said, with the air of someone who’d waited a long time to say those words and who hadn’t quite got used to the thrill of doing so. ‘I’ve just got a lead in the West End.’ She named a musical I’d vaguely heard of. ‘My understudy has been filling in but if I’m not back soon they might give her the job permanently.’

  I finished my examination and thanked her. I was far from happy. I went back to the foot of the bed and picked up her notes again. On the second page I found what I was looking for. LMP: 3 November 2006. I stared at the tubular f
rame of the bedpost while I tried to do the calculation in my head. Then I flicked through the rest of the notes. I looked up. Emma was sitting up now and had been watching me. Her eyes looked cautious, her lips set straight.

  ‘Emma, it says here your last menstrual period was on the third of November. Does that sound about right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Which would make you . . . about twenty-seven, twenty-eight weeks?’

  She nodded again, more slowly. For a second, all I could do was stare at her. Then I went back to her notes, checking and re-checking everything I found there. She started to push herself forward on the bed.

  ‘Don’t tell me now this is going to be a problem. I’ve been promised—’

  ‘No, no . . .’ I held up both hands. ‘Please don’t be concerned. As I said, I’m just catching up. I’ll let you get some rest now.’

  I glanced at her notes once more and then moved towards the door. She sat on the bed, watching me the way a cat watches someone moving around a room. At the door I stopped and turned.

  ‘How did you hear about Tronal, Emma? If you work in the West End you must live in London. You’ve come a long way.’

  She nodded slowly, still wary of me. ‘I’ll say,’ she agreed. ‘I went to a clinic in London. They said they couldn’t help me, but they had some leaflets.’

  ‘Leaflets about Tronal?’

  A small shake of the head. ‘Tronal wasn’t mentioned. I had no idea I’d have to come to Shetland. The leaflet said something about advice and counselling for pregnant women in their second and third trimesters. There was a phone number.’

  ‘And you called it?’ Somewhere in the building a sound rang out. I tried not to let Emma see me stiffen.

  ‘I didn’t have anything to lose. I met a doctor in a room just off Harley Street. He referred me here.’

  I had to move on. I forced a smile at Emma and looked at my watch. ‘I’ll be seeing Mr Mortensen in about an hour,’ I said. ‘I can check with him then about giving you something to help you sleep. Will you be OK till then?’

  She nodded and seemed to relax a little. I gave her a last smile and left the room. With luck, she’d wait an hour before following up on my promise. I had an hour. At best.

  Back in the corridor I leaned against the wall, needing a moment to get my breath, to clear my head.

  Like most obstetricians, I’m trained to carry out terminations and since being on Shetland I’d performed three. I don’t enjoy it, don’t particularly approve of it as a general rule, but I respect the law of the land and a woman’s right to be the ultimate determiner of what happens to her own body.

  Under no circumstances, though, would I have agreed to carry out Emma’s termination.

  Compared to the rest of Europe, the UK’s laws on abortion are fairly relaxed; too relaxed, many would argue. Here, up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, an abortion can be legally carried out providing that two doctors agree the risk to a woman’s health (or the risk to her children’s health) will be greater if she continues with the pregnancy than if she ends it. This usually amounts to doctors supporting a woman’s decision to terminate and has become known as ‘social abortion’, a practice many deplore.

  After the twenty-fourth week, termination is only permitted if there’s medical evidence that the woman’s life or health would be seriously threatened by continuing with the pregnancy, or if the child is expected to be born severely handicapped. Looking carefully through Emma’s notes, I’d found no valid reason why the procedure was being carried out so late. Nothing in her notes suggested either a serious deformity in the foetus or a significant threat to Emma’s own life. The pregnancy was normal; inconvenient, obviously, but otherwise quite normal.

  I wondered how much Emma had paid for her illegal operation, why on earth they’d kept her here for five days on ridiculous pretences instead of performing the operation straight away and how many other desperate women arrived here every year, seeking a procedure unavailable to them anywhere else in Europe.

  I moved on. I pulled the next window back an inch and looked through. This time the woman inside was sitting up in bed watching television. The woman (no – girl – she couldn’t have been more than sixteen) looked pregnant too, although it was impossible to be sure. If I had time to watch her, she’d undoubtedly give herself away. Pregnant women instinctively adapt both their usual pattern of movement and their posture in order to protect the growing foetus. Sooner or later, she’d rest her hands on her abdomen, raise herself up without putting pressure on stomach muscles, rub her back gently. I moved on and turned the corner.

  I passed six rooms, all of them empty, and turned another corner. The first room on the next corridor was empty. The bed was bare, pillows without pillow-cases piled up, a folded yellow blanket but no sheets. The next room was a twin of the first.

  The third was empty but looked ready to receive a patient. I stepped inside. The bed was neatly made. White towels were folded on the armchair. A flower-patterned nightdress – clean, perfectly ironed and folded – lay at the foot of the bed. On the walls hung several prints of wild flowers. It looked exactly like a neat, clean, comfortable room in an exclusive private hospital. Except for the four metal shackles chained to each corner of the bed.

  I backed out and pulled the door towards me, careful to leave it slightly ajar, exactly as I’d found it. As I’d discovered two days ago, the death rate among young Shetland females peaked every three years. The last peak had occurred in 2004, the year Melissa and Kirsten were believed to have died. It was now May 2007, three years later.

  Three more rooms. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was inside. The handle of the next room moved under my fingers and the door opened. A small bedside lamp gave just enough light.

  The woman on the bed looked around twenty. She had dark-brown hair and thick dark eyelashes, the willowy slenderness of the very young and perfect white skin. She lay as if sleeping, breathing deeply and evenly, but flat on her back, her legs straight and close together, her arms by her side. People rarely sleep naturally in such a posture and I guessed she’d been sedated. The blanket over her lay taut across her stomach. I wandered to the foot of the bed but there were no notes, just a single name: Freya. There were shackles on her bed but they hung loose, reaching nearly to the floor. I tiptoed out.

  The woman in the fifth room looked older, but like the girl in the previous room she lay in an unnaturally still state of sleep on the narrow bed. Her name was Odel and her feet, though not her arms, were manacled. Odel? Freya? Who were these two women? How had they arrived here? Did they have families somewhere, grieving for them, believing them dead? I wondered if I’d seen either of them before, whether they’d passed through the hospital. Neither looked familiar. Neither showed any sign of being already pregnant. I wondered where they’d been that day, during Helen’s visit. Where they’d be hidden when she returned tomorrow.

  I pushed open the last door, noticing, as I did so, the pyjamas folded neatly on the armchair. They were white linen, with an embroidered scallop pattern around the collar, cuffs and ankles. They were laundered, pristine, showing no trace of the blood that had turned them a soft pink the last time I’d seen them. I turned to the bed, knowing that I’d stopped breathing but seemingly unable to start again. Someone lay in it. I walked over and stared down at the face on the pillow. I know that I cried out: part yelp, part sob. In spite of everything I’d been through, in spite of the immense danger I was still in, such a wave of joy hit me that it was all I could do not to dance round the room, punching the air and yelling. I forced myself to be calm and reached under the covers.

  Two days ago I’d arrived at Dana’s house, exhausted and scared, already dreading that something terrible had happened to her. I would have been putty in the hands of a skilled hypnotist. Planting ideas in my head – ideas already there in a half-formed state – must have been child’s play for Andy Dunn. I couldn’t believe how arrogantly stupid I’d been not to think of it
before.

  The wrist I held had been dressed with fine white bandages. I leaned over and found the other. Just the same. I was glad I hadn’t imagined the ugly, bleeding gashes I’d seen in Dana’s bathroom. Her wrists had been cut, but probably only superficially. She would have lost blood, but not so much it couldn’t be replaced once she arrived on Tronal. I hadn’t felt a pulse in Dana’s bathroom – whatever drug she’d been given had made her peripheral pulse undetectable. But I could feel one – strong and regular – now.

  As I’d sat trembling and close to fainting in Andy Dunn’s car, I’d heard the sirens of an ambulance approaching. Dunn had driven me straight to the hospital and I’d assumed the ambulance was following with Dana. But it wasn’t. Instead, Dana had been brought here. For what? To be part of this summer’s breeding programme?

  I bent down. ‘Dana. Can you hear me? It’s Tora. Dana, can you wake up?’

  I stroked her forehead, risked giving her shoulders a shake.

  Nothing, not even a flicker. This was not a normal sleep.

  A door slammed and footsteps were coming down the corridor. Voices were talking, softly but urgently. I had seconds. I looked at the narrow, upright cupboard. Wasn’t sure I’d fit inside. The bathroom. I crossed the room and pulled open the door.

  There was a lavatory, wash-basin and shower cubicle. No window. I pulled open the door of the cubicle, jumped in and crouched down. If someone entered the room, they couldn’t help but see me. I would just have to hope. Maybe they weren’t even heading for Dana’s room. Maybe my luck would hold a bit longer.

  The footsteps stopped. The door to Dana’s room opened, the draught it caused blew the bathroom door open another inch. For a moment there was silence. Then . . .

  ‘What do you think?’ asked a voice that sounded remarkably like that of my father-in-law. I realized my luck had run out.