‘Even if he’s fine physically, he’ll never recover emotionally. This. Is. Wrong. Lucy, please. We need to take Ryan home. Tell Melissa what you’ve done. Tell the police you aren’t in your right mind. Explain about Catherine. How the stress of Hailey and now Kieron has pushed you past your limits.’

‘Hush little baby,’ Lucy sings. Aidan starts to cry. ‘A woman was singing that in the hospital last time Kieron was in,’ Lucy says when she’s finished the song. ‘It broke my heart.’ Lucy begins to sob. ‘Aidan, I am broken. Kieron is broken. But we can fix him. Please.’ As quickly as she softened, she turns stone hard. ‘It’s all right for you. If Kieron dies you will still have two sons. Two children. I’ll have one and I should have three. Three.’ She is crying harder now.

‘Even if I agree to this, which I don’t, it’s impossible. You can’t carry out surgery here.’

‘I’ve got everything I need and I’ve scrubbed everything multiple times. It’s as sterile as it was when it was in use as a theatre. It’s safe. I’ve thought of it all. Everything.’ She strokes Kieron’s face gently and plants a kiss on his forehead. ‘I did it all for you,’ she whispers.

The tenderness in her gesture causes Aiden to falter until he catches sight of Ryan again. This may be all for Kieron, but that doesn’t make it right.

‘You can’t possibly perform a transplant on your own. Without a team. It would be crazy.’

‘At weekends, with a skeleton staff, I’ve carried out a transplant with only four other people assisting.’

‘That’s still three more than you have now.’

‘Not true. Agnes is on her way. She’s going to help.’

‘Agnes?’ Aidan struggles to place her. ‘The nurse who was struck off?’

‘Yes. Because she has lost a child. She knows. She wants to help.’

‘This is illegal! I can’t believe… how much did you offer her?’

‘Ten thousand. She isn’t working and can’t pay her mortgage, but it isn’t about the money, for her. It’s about saving a child’s life.’

‘Oh, Lucy.’ His wife is breaking his heart. ‘You’re a brilliant surgeon and I don’t doubt Agnes was a fantastic theatre nurse before she was grieving but… I’m a vet…’

‘The anaesthetic is the same. Propofol. Exactly the same. Please. You could anaesthetize. You know how much I love Kieron. I wouldn’t suggest this if I wasn’t confident I could operate with minimal risk.’

Minimal risk is still too much.

‘It is… wrong.’

‘Children getting sick is wrong, Aidan. Children dying is wrong.’

‘Two—’

‘Don’t you dare tell me two wrongs don’t make a right. I can promise you that Ryan will be fine. I promise.’

‘Both boys could die.’

‘They won’t.’