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like in here sometimes, we allow relatives as much contact as possible. That boy that came in the other day—you know, the spinal injury? His parents have barely left his bedside. I think his sister and girlfriend have been in, too, but it’s impossible to keep track of everybody in a unit as big as this.’

      Joel ran a distracted hand through his hair. ‘I know … it’s hard to tell people to stay away when it could be the last time they see the patient.’ His hand fell to his side. ‘Has Mrs Lowe’s husband been informed?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘What was his reaction?’

      ‘Apparently pretty cold and dismissive about it,’ Brian said. ‘Quite frankly, I don’t think he’d care if someone pulled the plug on his wife.’

      Joel frowned. ‘Was he in the unit at any time during the night?’

      ‘I’m not sure, I’d have to check with the nursing staff. Do you think he did this?’

      ‘It’d be a pretty stupid thing to do under the circumstances,’ Joel said. ‘The finger of blame would point straight at him.’

      ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. But he must be extremely cheesed off about it all the same. The kid isn’t doing so well. Mr Lowe will probably lose it if his son doesn’t recover or if he’s left permanently brain-damaged.’

      ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be permanent,’ Joel said, at the same time as his phone rang.

      ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Brian said and made his way out.

      ‘Joel, it’s Patrick Naylor here,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘What the hell is going on in the unit? I just had a call from Switchboard that the press and the police are crawling all over the place.’

      ‘There’s been an incident in ICTU with a patient,’ Joel explained, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers to release the tension he could feel building behind his eyes. ‘It’s under control now but the press will expect a statement from one of us—if it’s me, I want you to clear it before I make it. You’d better come in and I’ll fill you in with the details.’

      ‘For God’s sake, man, it’s four a.m.!’ the CEO said. ‘Can’t it wait until morning? I normally don’t get in till eight-thirty.’

      Joel dropped his hand and rolled his eyes, actively forcing himself to remain polite. ‘If that’s what you’d prefer.’

      ‘Good. I’ll see you in my office at eight-thirty. And get Security to get rid of the press. I don’t want to be harassed by journalists getting from my car to the lifts.’

      ‘Fine, but if it’s going to be eight-thirty I can’t be held responsible for whatever unenlightened speculation appears on the front of the Melbourne papers,’ Joel said, but the CEO had already hung up.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘DID you hear what happened last night in ICTU?’ Margaret Hoffman, the anaesthetic registrar, said the next morning as she came into the main operating theatre change room where Allegra was changing for the first case on Harry Upton’s long list.

      ‘No, I came straight up here. I’m doing my round later. What happened?’

      ‘Someone tried to kill Kate Lowe.’

      ‘What?’ Allegra’s eyes went wide. ‘How?’

      ‘They tampered with the ventilator, cut and switched nitrous and oxygen gas lines into her ventilator.’

      ‘That’s incredible! Have they caught the person responsible?’

      ‘No, but I bet it was the father,’ Margaret said.

      ‘It could have been anyone,’ Allegra said, not sure why she was springing to Keith Lowe’s defence. ‘It might have even been a member of staff.’

      Margaret frowned as she tightened the waist ties on her scrub trousers. ‘But if it was a staff member, they would have known how the alarm system worked and circumvented it. That woman would be dead by now and I know a few people who would be glad of it.’

      ‘Come on, Margaret, that’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? The police haven’t even established whether it was an attempted murder-suicide.’

      Margaret handed her the newspaper from inside her locker. ‘Haven’t you read this morning’s paper?’

      Allegra unfolded it and looked down at the front-page story, her stomach sinking in alarm. There was a fairly recent picture of Kate and Tommy and below, the stark black headlines couldn’t have been more condemning of the mother’s motives.

      ‘She’s as guilty as all get-out,’ Margaret said. ‘Look at her. She looks the type, all dowdy and depressed. The inside story is the husband asked for a divorce and it sent her crazy. She didn’t want to give up custody of the little boy so decided to take matters into her own hands.’

      Allegra refolded the paper and handed it back. ‘She’s still entitled to a fair trial.’

      ‘Yeah, right, where she gets some hot-shot lawyer to get her to plead temporary insanity and she gets off scot-free,’ Margaret said in a scathing tone. ‘What’s fair about that? How does that help that poor little kid hooked up on that ventilator?’

      ‘What would help both Tommy and his mother would be the staff getting on with their job of taking care of their recovery instead of gossiping and speculating about them,’ Allegra said.

      ‘Surely you don’t think she’s innocent, do you?’ Margaret asked. ‘How can she be when she was high on drugs and drink? She was driving the car, remember, no one else.’

      ‘I know …’ Allegra sighed as she stepped out of her skirt. ‘But I just can’t get my head around the idea of someone trying to kill their own child, not unless they were actually not in their right mind.’

      ‘I feel sorry for the husband,’ Margaret said. ‘It said in the paper how he’d done everything he could to try and save the marriage.’

      Allegra frowned as she tied her hair with a bandana. ‘And yet the paper said he asked for a divorce.’

      ‘Well, everyone has their limits,’ Margaret said. ‘Maybe he’d finally had enough and found someone else. That’s the trend, isn’t it? Trade in the old wife for an updated version?’

      Allegra turned to face her, a contemplative expression beginning to settle on her features. ‘Or get rid of the old wife.’

      Margaret’s mouth dropped open. ‘But how would he have done it? When it happened he was in Melbourne. He’s got an iron-clad alibi.’ She folded her arms across her chest and added, ‘Now who is doing the speculating?’

      ‘You’re right,’ Allegra said with a rueful twist to her mouth. ‘We’d better leave this stuff to the professionals while we get on with what we’re trained to do. Is Harry here yet? I want to get on with the list so I can do some preliminary work on Tommy and his mother.’

      ‘So you’ve managed to convince the new director, have you?’

      ‘I wouldn’t go as far as using the word “convince”,’ Allegra said. ‘He has a lot of reservations. And this latest drama is not going to help things. Everyone will be as edgy as all get-out around there. But unless Kate or Tommy wake up, we’re never going to know what happened—the truth might never come out. Maybe a murderer will walk free. As I see it, my project is now doubly important.’

      ‘But what if the truth is she did try to kill her son and herself? How is the little boy going to cope with that?’

      Allegra sighed as she reached for her theatre clogs. ‘How does anyone cope with the truth? It hurts for a while but somehow you have to pick yourself up and get on with life. Kids are amazingly resilient and incredibly forgiving.’

      ‘I

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