He pulled an apologetic face and held up his phone. “Sorry, I’ll explain tonight. I’ll come and get you at a quarter to seven.” He gave her a quick kiss and hurried away.

Only when he had almost reached his car did he realize that he had just ditched them all in town with no means of transport. He could only hope that Floris and Sara would be obliging enough to split a taxi with Naomi.

9

9

“Are you feeling any better after this morning?” Anouk was standing next to a sleeping patient and nimbly rolling up a length of IV tubing.

“Yeah. It was so weird, though. Never happened to me before.”

“Maybe you should get some tests done? People don’t just faint for no reason.”

“I’ve been very stressed lately.” She rubbed her wrist over her nose.

“Who hasn’t been, right?” Anouk hesitated. “Will you be joining us for lunch?”

“Er, no, thank you. I have other plans.” That wasn’t true, but she didn’t want to run into Marjan again today. She would rather lock herself in the restroom.

Helen took over a bed from one of her colleagues and began to check the patient’s data.

The man had small light-blue eyes and gave her a searching look. “This is really scary for me. I’ve never been in a hospital before—not even as a visitor—and now I’m about to have an operation.”

“Did the doctor explain what he was going to do?”

He nodded.

“Exploratory knee surgery is genuinely a very minor procedure. One or two quick snips and then you’ll be back up and running.”

“I doubt I’ll be doing any running,” he remarked.

She grinned. “In a manner of speaking, anyway. Let me just put in a drip for you.”

As she worked, she felt her own anxiety gradually subside. It was over: the last packages had disappeared into two brand-new containers that she had found in the other waste room, one floor up from the old one.

Marjan could say what she liked now—it was her word against Helen’s. It’s over. It’s in the past.

All gone.

“Goodness, don’t you look happy today?”

“Oh really?”

“You look like you’ve been on a wonderful date.” Saskia stopped for a moment, a clipboard in her hand. She was one of the younger surgical assistants.

“Maybe in my dreams. I haven’t been on a real date in eighteen years.”

“Too busy spending your evenings on the sofa next to Mr. Right? Doesn’t sound very exciting.”

“I have a very boring life,” she joked.

Saskia walked on, chuckling to herself.

10

10

Ralf walked through the entrance to the apartment block, sprinted up the concrete staircase two steps at a time, and briefly pushed the bell. He looked around nervously, pulling up the collar of his jacket.