Chapters (70)
- COVER PAGE
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- DEDICATION
- PROLOGUE
- PART I BIRTH
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- PART II LIFE
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- PART III DEATH
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wake the following morning with no memory of having fallen asleep. When I reach for my phone I find fifteen missed calls from my parents and seven messages from Max.
How was the flight?
Are you there yet?
Are the Scandinavian men hot?
Are you alive?
Your parents called me.
Your parents are going to call the police.
ARE YOU ALIVE?
I spend ten minutes being yelled at by my mother for not having called sooner, text Max to assure him that I am still in the land of the living, then hastily shower and dress and, grabbing my folder of papers, run down to the hotel lobby.
The girl behind the desk promises me that the hospital is easy to find. To my relief the rain has stopped, so I take her word for it and make my way through the streets of Lund.
The town is beautiful, like something from a fairy tale. I’m so taken with the old architecture and the narrow streets that when the hospital comes into view I’m momentarily disappointed. Hospitals, even in fairy tales, look pretty much like any other hospital. And, I discover, have a similarly confusing layout.
Standing in the foyer, I re-read Wolfgang’s email: Meet me at 8 am on level 5. It’s the surgical floor.
I look around. The hospital is huge. There are blocks of lifts to different wings and floors all over the place. Hmm.
I approach the information desk and say, ‘I have a meeting with Dr Wolfgang Dietrich on level five. Can you direct me, please?’
She turns and speaks quickly in Swedish to a man beside her.
‘Come with me,’ the man says. He leads me around the corner and up a flight of stairs to another set of lifts. He swipes his card and presses the button for the fifth floor. ‘You’ll need a code to get through the door when you get up there, but I don’t have it,’ he says apologetically. ‘Maybe if you bang on the door someone will hear you.’
‘Wait …’ I don’t think this sounds like a particularly good plan, but the lift doors are already closing.
They open again on level five, and I find myself facing two huge closed doors. There’s no one in sight.
I sigh. I try knocking, which achieves nothing. Then I see an intercom. I press the button a few times, again with no result. I’m just about to get in the lift and go back to information when the doors miraculously open and an attractive older man in white scrubs steps towards me.
‘Thank God!’ I exclaim. ‘Thank God you appeared! Can you let me in, please?’
He looks at me. ‘Ah, do you work here?’