LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t have a choice. He left.

      By the time Blake reached Casualty, Harriet Walsingham’s heart had decided to behave.

      ‘Though it gave me quite a scare, Doctor,’ she said, sitting up and crossing her ankles primly on the ambulance trolley. ‘I came over all funny, I did.’

      ‘Then you can lie straight down again in case you come over all funny again,’ he told her, pressing her gently back on the pillows and moving his stethoscope into position. ‘What exactly happened?’

      ‘She was out cold on the kitchen floor,’ one of the ambulance officers told him, and Blake looked a question at the younger of the two men. If something was grey, Henry painted it black.

      ‘Bob?’

      ‘She wasn’t unconscious,’ Bob told him truthfully. ‘She was just gasping like a fish out of water and she’d managed to grab the phone and call us.’

      ‘It’s got to be angina pectoris,’ Henry told him triumphantly. ‘Like I told you when we called. That’s what it’ll be. Won’t it, Doc?

      ‘Possibly.’ Not for the first time Blake thought longingly of big cities and fully trained paramedics. Henry was the local postman and Bob ran the menswear store. For them, a call for the ambulance meant major excitement in otherwise humdrum lives.

      If only they wouldn’t act like would-be doctors, he thought. Half the patients who arrived at the hospital via ambulance had been given an amateur diagnosis on the way, and sometimes it scared the pants off them.

      ‘What’s angina pectoris?’ Luckily, Harriet wasn’t one to let big words scare her. She was just like the ambulance officers—seemingly grateful for such an interesting event to disrupt her mundane existence. She gave a delicious shiver. ‘Is it dangerous?’ She really was feeling better.

      ‘It’s when your heart muscle is starved for oxygen,’ Blake told her. ‘But by itself it’s not dangerous. Shush for a minute while I listen.’

      They all shushed. For about ten seconds. Then…

      ‘Can I have our new Dr McKenzie look after me?’ Harriet enquired. ‘No offence, Dr Blake, but I’ve always fancied a lady doctor, and she sounds lovely. I remember her when she was a teenager. She was such a sweet little thing, but so quiet.’

      Our new Dr McKenzie… ‘How did you know about Nell?’

      ‘It’s all over town,’ Harriet told him. ‘It’s so exciting. Lorna is on the hospital board and she told me in strictest confidence. She said no one was allowed to say anything until today because they wanted to surprise you. You must be so pleased. Isn’t it the best Christmas present?’

      He took a deep breath. Was the whole town in on this? ‘Harriet, be quiet.’

      ‘But it is exciting.’

      ‘I’ll sedate you if you don’t shut up,’ he told her. Angina might be a minor problem, but it could also be a symptom of something major. ‘Let’s get you admitted and get an ECG done.’ He glanced up at the ambulancemen. ‘Thanks, boys.’

      ‘Think nothing of it.’ The men moved reluctantly off and then stopped. There was clearly something bothering them. ‘How are we going to get to meet our new doctor, then?’ Bob asked. He hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t there be some sort of function to welcome her back? So she can get to know people like us? Except for her grandma’s funeral it’s been over ten years since she was home. We’d hardly recognise her.’

      ‘She’s only here for four weeks.’

      Bob shook his head. ‘Lorna says it might be for longer. If the town’s nice to her—for a change—and if she settles here after the bub’s born, then she might stay.’

      ‘And if she likes you, Dr Blake.’ Harriet giggled. ‘Not that she couldn’t.’

      Blake took a deep breath. This was getting out of hand. A welcome party? ‘We’re hardly likely to find any comers for a welcome party in the weeks before Christmas.’

      ‘But it’s Nell McKenzie,’ Bob said, as if that made everything different.

      ‘You’ll have to explain.’

      ‘The town feels bad about Nell McKenzie,’ Harriet told him. ‘And in a way maybe we should. No one ever did anything.’

      ‘We couldn’t,’ Henry retorted. ‘We weren’t allowed to.’

      ‘No, but she was such a little thing. And they were so awful.’

      ‘Who were so awful?’

      ‘Her grandparents, of course.’ Then Harriet clutched her chest and her colour faded. ‘Ooh… I think it’s starting again.’

      ‘Let’s get you through to Intensive Care,’ Blake snapped, annoyed with himself for being diverted. He motioned to the nurse at the head of the trolley. ‘Now.’

      Blake refused point-blank to think about Nell for the rest of the evening. Not once. Or not once very much.

      Harriet refused to be transferred to Blairglen. Well, why should she leave Sandy Ridge? She was sure Dr Blake would look after her beautifully, just as well as any of the clever doctors at Blairglen, and she thought she was paying Blake a compliment by staying put.

      As did all the locals. They refused to take themselves to the major hospital, supremely confident that Dr Blake would look after them.

      Dr Blake and whose army? he thought wearily for what must be the thousandth time since he’d taken over here.

      But… ‘We don’t need another doctor,’ he found himself telling Grace Mayne as he finally had a cup of tea with the old fisherwoman. Grace’s husband had died just a couple of months ago and she was desperately lonely. Her only son had drowned when he’d been little more than a teenager, and now she had no one.

      Blake had liked Grace at first sight. She was tough, wiry, belligerent, and as huge-hearted a woman as he’d ever met. The weeks since her husband’s death had cast her into deep depression, so Blake had found himself dropping in frequently—just to see her. Tonight the last thing he wanted was to socialise, but he forced himself to pause, take a seat at the old lady’s kitchen table and accept her hospitality.

      The alternative might be worse, he thought. He’d watched Grace’s face as they’d buried her husband, and he found himself increasingly concerned as to her welfare. There’d been one tragedy after another in the old lady’s life. This last death had left her feeling desolate—so desolate that he wondered how she could keep going. He watched her take her fishing boat out through the heads, and each time he saw the little boat make the run he wondered whether she’d come back.

      And if she didn’t, he’d feel dreadful. So he made time to call and chat, even though a million other things were pressing. Tonight the most obvious thing to talk about was Nell. After all, the rest of the town was talking about her. Why not Blake?

      And Grace was definitely interested. ‘Nell McKenzie…’ The woman’s sea-bleached eyes narrowed. ‘You mean the lass who was brought up here with Doc and Mrs McKenzie?’

      ‘That’s the one.’

      ‘I remember when Nell left for university,’ she said slowly. ‘Haven’t seen her since.’

      ‘No one has. But it seems she wants to come back here to live.’

      Grace thought it through and shook her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t know why. The town made life miserable for her.’

      ‘Did it?’ Blake was pleased. He’d caused a spark of interest, which was more than the old lady had shown for a long time.

      ‘Yeah. Or her grandparents did and we didn’t object.’ Grace stared reflectively into her nearly empty teacup and, to Blake’s astonishment, something

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