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Back Going Under Save as PDF
Chapters (70)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I BIRTH
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. PART II LIFE
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. TWENTY-NINE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. PART III DEATH
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. FIFTY-FIVE
  63. FIFTY-SIX
  64. FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. FIFTY-NINE
  67. SIXTY
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thoughts are interrupted by my phone ringing again. This time it is the Shark. I bury my questions with no answers, remind myself they’re questions I shouldn’t even be asking and, pulling off my scrub cap, walk up to the ward.

None of this will matter tomorrow. This time tomorrow I’ll be on a plane to the other side of the planet, and the Joker and Jack Prince and his yacht on Sydney Harbour will be far, far away.

TWENTY-SIX

twenty-six

It’s early afternoon when the plane lands in Copenhagen. Despite taking a concoction of sedatives kindly prescribed by Max, I’m wide awake and desperate to escape my economy window-seat prison.

One day soon, I think as I nearly cop an elbow in the head from the woman sitting next to me, I’ll have to fly business class. Which means I’ll be commencing work as a female escort, considering my job as a doctor isn’t providing me with the funds to do so.

‘Welcome to Denmark,’ the flight attendant offers in perfect English as we slow to a stop on the tarmac. ‘It’s nineteen degrees with light winds.’

I rub my eyes and remind myself that this trip is my chance for a mental recharge, as well as a career development opportunity. I wonder if Dr Prince somehow knew that I needed something to help repair my badly dented surgical confidence. Change, as they say, is as good as a holiday. New places, new people, new perspectives.

I disembark, and make it through customs and to the train station underneath the airport with surprising efficiency. I start to feel as if I have stepped into the twilight zone. Everyone is very calm and polite. In my experience, airports are normally stressful and rushed. Not this one.

‘Excuse me, is this the platform for the train to Lund?’ I ask a tall blond (everyone here is tall and blond) standing in front of me. An ancient university town in the south of Sweden, Lund is only half an hour by train from Copenhagen, Wolfgang has told me.

‘It is,’ the blond man says. ‘So you are travelling in Sweden?’

‘I’m attending a conference there,’ I explain. ‘So it’s work, really.’

He smiles. ‘Still, you must see the cathedral. And the bridge. Lund is very beautiful, and so is the journey.’

He’s not wrong, I soon discover.