‘Shit!’ the doctor said, abandoning Martin, who had no idea who the long number on his display belonged to.

‘What’s wrong?’ he called after Elena, who stopped briefly by a swing door leading inside and turned around.

‘Anouk,’ she said. ‘We’ve directed her alarm to your mobile too, Dr Schwartz.’

*

Five minutes later Martin stepped from the steel-cased airlock into Hell’s Kitchen for the third time that day. As he crossed the entrance area of the quarantine station he watched Elena Beck slide her key card through the reader.

As he entered he was expecting another false alarm.

But then he wondered where all the blood had come from.

On Anouk’s bed.

On her body.

Everywhere.

30

‘Jesus Christ Almighty…’

Elena hurried to the bed, in front of which the girl was cowering on the floor, pressing her hand on her blood-soaked forearm. This had been bandaged before the emergency drill; now it lay on the floor like an unwound loo roll.

‘What happened, sweetie? What happened?’ the doctor cried, squatting beside the girl.

Elena was still partially in shock, but Martin had already identified the cause of the injury.

The blood was on the sheets, in Anouk’s face, on her arms, fingers and nightshirt. Martin even found some spots on the polished stainless steel cupboard on the wall beneath the television, which suggested that the blood must have spurted from an artery in a high trajectory.

‘Her artery’s been gashed,’ he said, then asked Elena where the disinfectant and fresh bandages were.

Judging by the colour in Anouk’s face it wasn’t as bad as it looked at first glance. Martin knew from experience that even small amounts of lost blood could create a godawful mess.

‘Her artery?’ Elena said in disbelief, pointing to the bathroom door. She told him a code, whose significance he only realised when he discovered the safe-like cabinet beneath the basin. The supplies were locked away for security.

Besides syringes, infusion needles, tubes, scissors and other items handy for committing suicide, Martin found the disinfectant spray and bandages he was looking for.

He brought them to Elena and watched her lift the child’s chin. Anouk kept her eyes closed. A small white dot stuck to the fluff on her upper lip. Some cotton wool or a bit of tissue.

Martin busily removed the bedclothes and shook them out. Then he lifted the mattress, took off the hygienic cover, but he didn’t find anything here either. No razor blade, no knife, no pencil.

‘You were the last one in here with her,’ Elena said reproachfully, after taking Anouk over to the leather sofa where she examined the girl’s arm. The blood started flowing again when the girl stopped pressing her hand on it, like raindrops spattering from a fir branch, and so Elena immediately applied a tourniquet.

‘Are you suggesting I egged her on when I was alone with her?’ Martin asked in anger.