‘We had a row. It was vicious. He accused me of loving Kieron more than him. He was upset. Out of control. Screaming at me, asking how I’d feel if he went missing like Ryan. You know how angry he’s been since Hailey’s stroke. How he blames me. He’s staged his own disappearance to teach me a lesson.’

‘But the blood—’

‘Was only a smidgen. You know blood loss always looks more severe than it is. He probably pricked his finger with a needle and smeared it against the wall. He thought I’d believe he’d been taken by the same person that took Ryan, but…’ She gestures towards Ryan with one hand.

‘Lucy.’ Aidan doesn’t quite know what to say. Do. He needs to get Ryan out of here, but he’s already consumed by what comes after. The police. The charges.

The thought of Lucy in prison wounds him. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking—’

‘But you do. That’s why you’re here. You opened the parcel of anti-rejection drugs I’ve bought. What did you think I was going to do? What was running through your mind as you came here? Really?’

‘I thought that you’d decided to carry out a living liver transplant, taking a lobe of Connor’s liver to save Kieron.’ It’s sickening saying the words, sickening that she doesn’t deny them, but he knows it is possible. It was something they had discussed as a possibility when they first realized that one day Kieron would need a transplant.

‘Partial liver transplants from a live donor are becoming more common,’ Lucy had told him one night as they’d sat in bed not long after Kieron had been diagnosed. She’d spent sixteen years training as a transplant surgeon and she was one of the best. Aidan often thought it a shame she’d walked away, retrained in orthopaedics after the time it took her to qualify but he understood why she did. Why she felt unable to carry on the life or death operations, not that any surgery was without risk, of course. She idly ran her forefinger down his wrist. ‘Although the first partial transplant was carried out more than a decade ago it’s still not standard practice but when they’re used it’s generally for kids rather than adults so…’

‘Kieron?’ Aidan had felt a smidgen of excitement. He’d tried not to dwell on what would happen when his son reached transplant stage, but it was hard not to allow dark thoughts to creep in. Although he’d be so grateful if Kieron received a new organ, the inevitability of explaining to Kieron that somebody had died which had enabled him to live was something of a heavy weight on his chest. ‘Are they as effective as a full transplant?’