He clattered into the hall. Sieverance stood there, half dressed, his shirt open at the neck. In his arms he held Delphine, pale and moaning, bundled up in a blanket.

'Thank God you're here, Doctor,' Sieverance said. 'A ghastly accident, ghastly.'

Delphine was laid on a wooden gurney and Carriscant went through the motions of peering into her eyes, feeling her brow, checking her pulse. She was pale and feverish from the cordite he had given her to swallow. In a low, faltering voice Sieverance explained how she had risen from her bed in the night and then, minutes later, he had heard her calling for him from the bathroom, where he found her lying on the floor.

'In a pool of blood. Blood everywhere. From inside her.'

'Take her to the theatre,' Carriscant ordered the porters. The trolley was wheeled away and the two men followed behind as she was propelled rapidly down dim corridors towards Carriscant's operating theatre.

'She kept saying, "Get me to Dr Carriscant. Dr Carriscant",' Sieverance said. 'But of course neither of us knew where you lived. So I called in here to get your address. I couldn't believe it when the nurse said you were working late.'

'I was just about to leave. Did your wife say anything more?' Carriscant looked grim, as if he suspected the worse. Everything was proceeding very satisfactorily.

'Terrible pains in her stomach, she said. With the child-'

'I'm sure that's – We'll have to see, Colonel. We'll do our best.'

They arrived at the theatre and Delphine, moaning faintly, moving in discomfort, was lifted out on to the operating table. The two porters stepped back waiting for instructions. Carriscant gave Delphine an injection of a weak saline solution. Miraculously, it seemed to ease the pain. He told the porters to wait with her and led Sieverance back to his consulting rooms where he sat the distraught man down and poured him a glass of rum, into which he covertly tipped a few drops of syrup of chloral hydrate. Sieverance gulped it down.

'I'll be back as soon as we know what's wrong,' he said.

Sieverance looked at him, terrified, trusting. It's so easy to inspire that trust, Carriscant though. How they want to trust us! And he knew it was because of that trust that he was going to succeed this night. Carriscant handed him the rum bottle and told him to drink his fill.

Back in the theatre Carriscant dismissed the porters.

He waited a few seconds after they had gone before talking. He touched her arm and she opened her eyes.

'Perfect,' he said. 'Perfect.'

Carriscant shook Sieverance awake. His eyes were heavy, his lips were slack. He could barely concentrate from the chloral. Carriscant crouched by his chair, his face set, serious. He was wearing his operating gown.

'We cannot save the child,' he said. 'But we must operate for the sake of the mother.'

'Oh God…' Sieverance wiped drool from his chin as his dull brain tried to take this in. 'I can't, I can't… ' He shook his head, and tears began to roll from his eyes.

'Stay here,' Carriscant said. 'Sleep. It's going to be a long night. I'll call you as soon as we know.'

He clutched Delphine's hand in his, squeezing it, looking into her eyes.

'An hour or two, that's all.'

'You will look after me.'

'When the sun comes up we'll be putting out to sea.'

She smiled at him. 'Let's go.'

Gently, he put the gauze mask over her face and let the chloroform drip from the bottle.

Carriscant threw open the lid of the coffer and scooped a long hollow in the ice. He lifted Delphine's unconscious body off the gurney and laid her down in the shallow depression, then pushed and packed the ice chips back over her body until she was almost covered. He pushed up the sleeve of her nightgown and slipped a thermometer into her armpit. This was one area of the whole operation where he had some real concern: he wanted her numbed with cold, literally chilled back to the bone, but not so cold as it could do damage to her bodily systems. He actually had no idea just how far he could safely let her temperature drop, but when it came to shamming death he knew that a body lacking any vestige of human warmth would do the job far more efficiently than one still flushed with heat. He hoped that his instinct would tell him if matters were becoming critical.

He sat patiently beside her as she chilled down, from time to time dripping more chloroform on the gauze mask. He took her pulse regularly. She was already pale from the cordite she had eaten, and the penetrating cold began to make her look quite bloodless as all colour drained from her face and her lips. Her hands felt stiff and lifeless, her flesh seemed to take on the consistency of clay. When her temperature had fallen several degrees below normal and the chill and pallor about her were unignorably worrying he lifted her out of her ice bed and wheeled her back through to the theatre. He laid her on the table and placed a cane blanket cradle over her midriff before draping it with one of the operating cloths in such a way that none of the material touched her chest. There was absolutely no visible movement of her shallow breathing. He dosed her once more with chloroform and then scattered blood-soaked swabs on the floor below the operating table and in receptacles on the instrument trays. He set the steam sterilisers going and switched on the arc lights above the table. He smeared blood from a bottle on his gown and dripped a few strategic drops on his hands and forearms. In the blazing lights she lay completely inert, her face blanched almost to blue. He removed the gauze mask and tilted her head so that her mouth was slackly open. He tucked two chips of ice into her cheeks. Then he covered her face with the end of the operating cloth. Glancing round the theatre he saw it bore all the signs of a hasty and emergency operation. Only one further detail was missing. He returned to the morgue and raised the heavy lid on another coffer. Digging into the ice chips he removed the tiny body of the five-month-old foetus and took it through to the theatre. He laid it on a wheeled trolley next to the table and washed it with blood before covering it with a cloth. It was not much bigger than his two cupped hands. Its tiny clenched pug face was frozen in what looked like a rictus of terrible rage. This was his last resort.

It was clear that Sieverance expected the worst even in his fuddled, drugged state. He saw the blood smears on Carriscant's gown and the awful severity of his expression. Carriscant could see the man's gorge rise and how his hand went to his throat as he swallowed desperately.

'I'm so sorry,' Carriscant said. 'There was nothing we could do.'

Sieverance tried to be brave – he was a soldier after all, Carriscant reasoned, accustomed to sudden death – but his eyes were moist with tears and there was a tremolo in his voice as he asked if he could see her. As they walked through to the theatre he took great shuddering breaths of air, one hand persistently massaging his face.

Bowed before the shrouded body on the table with its grim detritus – the swabs, the blood, the brilliant knives, the smell – he swayed as if he might fall. Carriscant steadied him and pulled back the corner of the sheet.

He gave a low moan and stumbled. Carriscant caught him and gripped his arm. She does indeed look dead, he thought, a moment's worry overtaking him, so white, so still. Sieverance leant over her, muttering her name. He kissed her forehead and recoiled as if he had been burned. His fingers touched his lips.

'Jesus God,' he said, shocked. 'God help me… ' He looked emptily at Carriscant. 'She's so cold… already… ' He turned away. 'The baby?'

'A girl.'

'Is she here?'

Carriscant showed him the covered foetus in the tray. Sieverance paused before the tiny lump, no bigger than a bread roll beneath a napkin. He lifted the cloth and flinched violently, his whole body bucked. He let the cloth drop and gave a throaty, agonised cry, half moan, half retch. He slowly began to sink to his knees, at which point Carriscant moved forward and caught him by the shoulders, lifting him up, saying, 'Here, come now, come away now, don't torment yourself, come with me.'