Free Alchemist by Peter James Page A

time, and dialled the doctor. Eight and a half months: she wasn’t due for another fortnight but she had been so ill with the rash, nausea, headaches. And no one had been able to do anything. They were scared to give her painkillers in case they harmed the baby. And they didn’t know what was wrong. A virus, they said. Unidentified viruses do sometimes strike, Dr Humphreys had explained. The phone rang, then gave way to a bland cold voice at the other end.
    â€˜Dr Humphreys, please,’ gasped Alan.
    â€˜Dr Humphreys is not on call tonight. I can page Dr Anselm for you.’
    â€˜It’s an emergency!’
    â€˜I don’t know how quickly I can get him. If you’re very worried, you had better call an –’
    The rest of her sentence was drowned by a horrendous scream from his wife. ‘Doooo something! Alan, quick! please do –’ Her voice dissolved into a choking gargle.
    He turned and the wrench around his chest tightened. ‘No, God, no. Sarah!’ Blood was spewing from his wife’s mouth, spattering the pillow. He depressed the phone cradle with his hand and dialled ‘999’. Pressed his free hand to her clammy forehead. ‘Be OK, going to be OK, going to be fine.’ It was just like she was plugged into an electrical socket, shimmying, pulsing, then contorting.
    Alan Johnson stood watching his wife stretched out on the metal table in the cramped Casualty resuscitation room, surrounded by emergency paraphernalia and figures in green surgical scrubs – attaching lines, hooking up tubes, adjusting monitors.
    He had married relatively late, at thirty-seven, largely due to his shyness with the opposite sex. A slightly built man of old-fashionedvalues, he worked as a junior accountant in an engineering firm and had met Sarah at Bible study at their local church. She was a quiet, gentle girl, who had worked as a book-keeper with a pharmaceutical research laboratory until five months into her pregnancy when she’d become too unwell. She had a straight bob of light brown hair which she normally kept immaculately neat, and which was in keeping with her shy demeanour. Her screams were as out of character as the tangled hair matted and plastered to her face. His heart heaved as he watched a nurse standing over her, holding an oxygen mask to her face; they had tried to get an endotracheal tube down but all her muscles had gone into spasm, rejecting everything, as if her body was trying with every ounce of remaining strength to expel the baby.
    He squeezed his wife’s cold, sticky hand, but there was no response. He tried again, looked pleadingly at her eyes for some sign but they were closed. He stared wildly around the room: at the anaesthetist who was busy changing a bag on to a drip stand; at the obstetrician who was bleary-eyed from being dragged out of bed at three in the morning.
    â€˜Is she going to be all right?’
    Experienced grey eyes stared back at him from above the mask. The voice was deep and soft, with a reassuring tone to it, but could offer little to go on now. A finger pointed to the jagged orange graph-line on the foetal heart-trace monitor. ‘Mr Johnson, that’s showing us the baby is hyperactive, with prolonged episodes of bradycardia. The heart rate is consistently below eighty, and the baby is suffering severe foetal distress.’ A hesitation. ‘We’re going to have to do a Caesarean if we want to try to save the baby, but there’s a real possibility your wife might not survive the anaesthetic; she’s extremely weak. I’m afraid you are going to have to make the decision.’
    â€˜Decision?’ Alan Johnson echoed, barely comprehending. He questioned the obstetrician’s calm eyes, and his voice began trembling. ‘Wh-what d-do you – you advise?’
    The obstetrician broke it to him as gently as he could. ‘Mr Johnson, I don’t think your wife has any chance of surviving