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back from wherever you were to be confronted with a funeral.’

      Jenny had hardly been listening, but she raised her head a little. ‘Who?’ The tear-filled, green eyes stared at Sonia, who shifted in her seat a little.

      ‘Dr Trentham—he’s the new surgical attachment, replacing Dr Marlow. He didn’t think it wise to disrupt your holiday, and I agreed with him. He was right, Jenny. You needed the holiday. Everyone knew how hard you’d been working. What was the point of dragging you back?’

      Sorrow, guilt and rage combined to form an icy hand which clutched at her chest. ‘This—Dr Trentham,’ she spat the name out as if it had a bad taste. ‘He had no right to make a decision like that, and I’m surprised that you allowed him to, Sonia.’

      ‘I wanted to do the right thing—and what he said seemed eminently reasonable at the time. I know you’re upset——’

      ‘How has Judy taken it?’ she interrupted in a small voice which seemed to come from a long way away.

      Sonia looked as if she was about to wring her hands. ‘Judy has left, Jenny. She’s gone.’

      Jenny looked blank. ‘Gone? What do you mean—gone?’

      ‘She’s left. She left when Dr Trentham joined. I think she found all the changes too much. She was only a couple of years off retirement, and I think that——’

      Uncharacteristically, Jenny interrupted her nursing officer again, but Sonia Walker could see that the normally cool and efficient ward sister was in a state of shock.

      ‘Let me get this right.’ She spoke very slowly, as if checking her statement’s veracity while she uttered it. ‘Not only has this new doctor effectively prevented me from attending Harry’s funeral, but he has also made Staff Nurse Collins leave—after twenty years of loyal service?’

      Sonia raised her eyebrows a little. ‘I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that. . . Listen, I can arrange for cover for your ward for today. Why don’t you go home and rest? It’s all been a terrible shock for you.’

      Jenny had stood up, like an automaton, her eyes unseeing. Sonia sprang to her feet.

      ‘Jenny—Jenny, dear! Let me get someone to take you home.’

      With a huge effort of will, Jenny shook her head. ‘No, honestly. I must get back to the ward; there must be so much to be done. And I want to speak to this—this Trentham man.’

      ‘Jenny—you won’t do anything foolish, will you? He acted in your best interests——’

      ‘He doesn’t even know me,’ Jenny pointed out coldly.

      ‘Yes, I know, but——’ her anxious expression returned ‘—Jenny, I couldn’t bear to lose you as well.’

      Jenny managed a small glimmer of a smile, and shook her head emphatically. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Sonia. I’m not going anywhere.’

      Sonia appeared gratified by this. ‘And you’re sure you’re up to a late duty?’

      ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Jenny with more conviction than she felt. But she could think of nothing worse than retracing her steps to her small cottage, to sit alone and in silence while her mind tried to grasp the enormity of what had happened—that Harry Marlow was dead, and that Judy Collins had been driven away by his replacement. She felt as if all the carefully arranged order and calm of her life was slipping into utter chaos and disarray. She felt like a holidaymaker who saw glorious sand beckoning, and then stood in fear as she realised that it was quicksand.

      She clip-clopped her way back to the ward in her neat, shiny black shoes, her slim legs in the sheer black tights. She held her head high, her neck long and elegant, the frilly cap perched neatly on top of the thick, glossy hair and she was oblivious to the admiring glances cast at her by an elderly woman who was visiting her husband.

      Inside, however, she felt far from serene, and as she approached Rose Ward she hesitated very slightly. Should she have Dr Trentham bleeped and confront him now? Or better to wait until her anger had subsided and she was more in control of her feelings? And besides, wasn’t unity the most important thing at the moment? She must gather her staff around her now, show all the girls that she was still in charge, that things were going to be all right, and that they could slip back into their trusted and familiar pattern.

      She would carry on as normal. She would take a report from the agency staff nurse and then send the morning staff to lunch. She would wait until they returned before giving a full report to the three staff who would be with her this evening, and in the meantime she would go round and see all the patients, check the progress of the ones she knew, and acquaint herself thoroughly with any new ones. And she would give Mrs Jessop her bag of oranges.

      She could hear the murmur of voices as she approached her office, and as she drew nearer she could hear that one was most definitely masculine—gravelly and deep—a voice which stirred a vague memory. She stood in the open doorway of her office, watching for a moment. The agency staff nurse was being shown a chart by a man who was obviously a doctor, since he wore a white coat, and Jenny could see the clutter of a bleeper and a stethoscope protruding from one pocket.

      All she had time to notice was how wide and powerful his shoulders looked, how tall and just how much bigger he seemed than the sprightly Dr Marlow. Her lip curled very slightly as she observed the dark hair which curled untidily on to the collar of his white coat.

      She drew in a deep breath. She wanted her words to him to be biting, and cutting—she could never remember feeling such a raw kind of anger towards someone she didn’t even know. They must have heard her, for they both turned round, the pale staff nurse giving her a kind of non-committal smile again.

      And it took some moments for it to register why her heart was thudding away like some primitive drum, why anger and scorn had metamorphosed into total shock.

      For no wonder that the deep voice had stirred a memory, because this was no stranger. Nut-brown eyes and untidy hair. The legs were no longer encased in tight fading denim—they now wore dark cords, and these, together with the snowy-white coat he wore, had the effect of making him seem almost presentable.

      Her shock was so great that she was unable to tell from his face just what his own reaction to seeing her again was.

      Stupidly, she recalled his suggestive comment about stockings, and that became the final straw. The gamut of shocks which she’d had in quick succession since she’d come to work that day proved too much.

      She was a fit, healthy young woman, but she knew what was about to happen to her. The strange rushing and hissing sound in her ears; the blurring and retreating of the shapes which stood before her. It had happened to her only once before in her life, and she had been fourteen then.

      As her eyes stared at Leo Trentham’s name-badge, she felt her knees buckle beneath her, and, slipping to the cold floor, she fainted.

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