As many as forty people would be involved before the operation was completed, and at this stage there were still a great many unknowns. The spate of calls and e-mails she had just finished had told Senior Nursing Sister Cook that the helicopter’s ETA was approximately ten minutes from now. The push of another button on her phone confirmed that the heart should be here in a further fifteen to twenty minutes after landing.

The Heart Transplant Coordinator checked her watch. A little over an hour and twenty minutes would have elapsed from the time that the first surgeon had harvested the organ from the donor and transferred it to its special transportation container for its arrival at Harefield. Not bad, all things considered. This was not strictly the best way of dealing with organ movement, but no mobile life-support system had been available to move the donor complete, so the heart had been harvested in situ and the organ moved to London. The team had performed with punctilious dedication, as always. People knock the NHS, Jane thought, not for the first time, but where else in the world would you get all of this on the health service?

Being a Sunday, the anticipated twenty minutes around Heathrow airport shrank to less than fifteen. “Very nearly perfect,” was the team leader, Senior Cardiac Surgeon Mr. Amel Azziz’s, only comment as he checked out the organ and test results. “Not at all bad,” he had added with a satisfied countenance. “God,” as he was known among the staff in private conversation, had pronounced in his laconic manner that he was in his heaven, and all was right with the world. Jane knew that Lucy King would be safe in his hands.

“Tissue matches, blood types all look significantly better than we have a right to ask. I presume everything is in place, so I can go and scrub up.” He looked at Jane over the rim of his half-glasses, and she was pleased to have pleased him. “Unless you have a problem that I should know about?”

“Not at all. Everything is in order, sir.” The epithet was only half teasing. She had long ago earned the right to call him by his given name, but she liked “sir,” or “himself” when she was talking about him affectionately to others.