LITMIR.BIZ

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The outlook was dim.

      ‘Well, she’s been given every chance. And she did arrest at the scene, so that’s something, but still it doesn’t look at all good.’ Abby said, her pretty face serious. ‘Poor woman, she’s my age, you know. Hopefully her parents will get here in time.’

      ‘She could make it.’ May said. ‘We did get her back.’

      ‘As what, though?’ Abby said, stopping at a water fountain and filling a small cup with water. ‘We’ve been going for hours, she’s already got a head injury from the accident. I just wonder if we’ve done her any favours. Still…’ She screwed her cup up and tossed it in the bin. ‘At least her family might have a chance to say goodbye.’

      And now May had to tell James.

      The staff all thought he had gone home sick, so he hadn’t been disturbed.

      He was just as she’d left him, sitting at the desk with his head in his hands. He hadn’t even turned on his desk light but the anguish in his face when he looked up to her would stay with May for ever.

      ‘She’s just been moved to ICU.’ May dragged a chair over and sat beside him. ‘She has some fractured ribs and a small hairline fracture to the skull, but…’ James knew the score, but he still needed to hear it. ‘She did make some movement when her temperature came up but Khan was worried she was about to convulse, so he’s keeping her paralysed and intubated for forty-eight hours. She’s had a CT, which shows cerebral swelling, but really…’

      ‘We won’t know for a while,’ James finished for her.

      ‘No, we won’t. But, James…’ She took his hand, because she cared about him, and because he really didn’t need false hope, she made herself say it, ‘It really is minute by minute at the moment. She’s very unstable. Khan’s not optimistic about her chances and neither is Abby. We’re just hoping her parents get here soon. According to the papers in her car she was here in London for an interview. The police just contacted her next of kin—her parents. Apparently they’re on their way.’

      ‘Great!’ There was a bitter note to his voice that May had never heard from James before.

      ‘I’m sorry, James.’ May patted his arm then rubbed it, hating to see him like this. ‘You obviously know her.’

      ‘I haven’t seen her in ten years… I knew something was up, though not with her, of course, but since I got back from the accident…’ His logical, analytical mind just tripped at that point. ‘I knew something was wrong, I knew something wasn’t right—it just doesn’t make sense.’

      ‘It does to me,’ May said. ‘How many times have we had babies brought in a whisper from death because their mums suddenly woke up to check them, or daughter who popped into their dad’s for no real reason only to find him on the floor…’

      ‘I just knew something was wrong.’

      ‘And you were right,’ May said, but she couldn’t hold back any longer, she just had to know who this pale red-haired beauty was. ‘Have you worked with her?’ May asked, frowning because she would recognise most of the doctors who had been through the department and certainly Lorna, with her stunning hair, would have stood out, except May couldn’t recall her at all.

      ‘I knew her from medical school.’

      ‘That’s right—you went to medical school up in Scotland. Was she in your year?’

      James shook his head. ‘No, she was a couple of years below me.’

      Even though he was sitting down he still looked as if he was about to pass out and May knew that Lorna must have been more to him that a fellow student a couple of years his junior. One of the downsides of working in Emergency was when friends or relatives came in unexpectedly, and she’d been on duty when James’s own father had suffered a heart attack, yet still he had held it together that day.

      He wasn’t holding it together now.

      ‘Did you used to go out with her?’ May asked gently.

      ‘A bit more than that.’ James’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘I need to go and see her, before her parents get here.’

      ‘Of course,’ May said. ‘I’ll walk up to ICU with you.’ Only she couldn’t hold back the question that was on her mind any longer. They were just past the canteen and turning left for the lifts when May finally cracked and asked what she wanted to know. Yes, she was curious, but it wasn’t just that that had her probing. She wanted to help James just as she did with any friend or relative of a critically ill patient—and to do that, it would help to know.

      ‘Who is she, James?’

      It took till they were in the lift and heading upwards toward ICU for James to answer.

      ‘She’s my ex-wife.’

      CHAPTER THREE

      MAY HADN’T SEEN that one coming. Oh, she knew they all had pasts but she’d been working with James since he’d come to the department on his emergency rotation as a senior house officer, had known him since he’d been fresh faced out of his internship, yet never once had he mentioned that he was or had been married.

      For James, that walk to ICU was the longest of his life. Stuck in his office these past few hours, he’d almost prepared himself for her death. He had tried not to think of what would be going on in the resuscitation room. He had just thought about her and felt strangely grateful that Lorna was here in London, that he could be with her now if that door opened and May told him they were stopping the resuscitation attempt.

      Yet she’d made it through that, and now he must make it through this.

      It felt strange to buzz the intercom and ask for permission to enter, only not as a doctor this time, to have to wash his hands and sit in a little side room as May spoke with the nursing staff.

      ‘They’re just settling her in.’ May clucked like an old hen when she returned, pouring him a cup of water from the little sink in the relatives’ room. ‘You’ll need to turn off your mobile here, before you go in.’

      He pulled it out, saw that there were eight missed calls and he hadn’t even heard the phone ring.

      Ellie. He glanced at the clock on the wall. He was supposed to have been there hours ago. He turned off his phone and used the one on the table beside him, listening to it ring and her irritated voice when she realised who it was.

      ‘Hi, Ellie.’ He tried to keep his voice vaguely normal. ‘Look, obviously I’m not going to be able to make it tonight.’ He heard her strained sigh and glanced up at May, who was pretending not to listen. ‘No, it’s not work…’ He raked a hand through his hair, took a breath and continued, ‘You know I told you about Lorna…’ His words were met with silence. ‘Well, she’s had an accident. She’s here at the hospital in Intensive Care. There’s no one else here for her yet.’

      He glanced over to May, who must have read the ‘Please Wash Your Hands’ sign about twenty times now.

      ‘No.’ James said, and then ‘No,’ again. ‘Look I’d really rather just deal with this on my own. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

      ‘Ellie.’ James said, when May sat down.

      ‘Your girlfriend?’ May asked, because even though she never usually would, she was here tonight as a friend and colleague and she was also treating him as a relative of a patient, trying to piece it all together so that she could help him best. ‘So she knows about Lorna.’

      ‘I told Ellie about Lorna a couple of months ago. We were starting to get a bit more serious. I thought it was right…’ His voice trailed off.

      ‘You were married to Lorna?’ May checked. ‘For how long?’

      ‘Not even a year.’ He could have stopped there. A year wasn’t long after all and it had been a decade ago.

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