Maggie Kingsley – The Consultant's Italian Knight (страница 8)

‘Mario…’ She came to a halt as the door of her office opened, and Terri’s head appeared. ‘Problem?’ she asked, and the sister shook her head.

‘I just wanted to tell you—in case you were concerned by the thud earlier—that it was nothing to worry about. Colin had a crasher in cubicle 6.’

‘Thanks, Terri,’ Kate replied and the sister’s head disappeared again, but not before she had glanced from Mario to Kate, then back again, with patent curiosity.

‘It’s amazing how often it’s not the patient who faints,’ Mario observed once they were alone again, ‘but the person who brought them in.’

‘How do you know that a crasher is somebody who’s fainted?’ Kate asked curiously. ‘Come to think of it,’ she added. ‘How do you know about August being the worst time to come into hospital if you’re a patient?’

‘Because I originally qualified as a doctor, but I found the hours a real killer.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she said, not bothering to hide her disbelief, ‘and a policeman works nine to five, with every weekend off. Why did you give it up?’

He raked his fingers through his too-long black hair, and smiled a little ruefully.

‘It was a mistake for me to go into medicine in the first place. My parents were both doctors, you see, and though they didn’t pressurise me into following in their footsteps I suppose I just sort of assumed I would. I became an A and E doctor—was eventually promoted to specialist registrar—but when I hit thirty…’ He shook his head. ‘I realised it wasn’t for me.’

‘But why?’ she asked, bewildered.

‘I’d spent six years treating car crash victims, victims of domestic abuse, neglected children, people completely spaced out on drugs, and I thought…’ He frowned, as though groping for the right words. ‘Setting broken bones, patching up injuries…I wanted to stop the broken bones from happening, nail the idiots who drove at 100 miles per hour in a 40 mile zone, collar the drug pushers who offered hits for fifty pence a time to ensnare the unwary, the unhappy, the desperate.’

‘You wanted to make the streets a safer place for all of us.’ She smiled, and abruptly he got to his feet.

‘Something like that,’ he muttered. ‘And now I must go. I’ve taken up more than enough of your time.’

He had, but now that he was going, she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted to ask him why he’d chosen the drugs squad rather than any of the other police specialisations, to persuade him to tell her more about himself, and that, she thought wryly, was more than enough reason to push him out the door.

‘Will I have to appear in court?’ she asked as she followed him out of her office and down the corridor. ‘I mean, if you catch Duncan Hamilton’s fixer, will I be needed as a witness?’

‘I doubt it,’ he said, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

Which was odd, she realised, because she was normally all too aware of his blue eyes burning into her.

‘Mario—’

‘There you are, Kate!’ Paul exclaimed, coming out of the treatment room clutching a clipboard. ‘Terri said you were talking to an old friend…’ The specialist registrar’s eyes took in Mario’s creased leather jacket, faded denims and beat-up trainers, and his lip curled slightly. ‘So I thought I’d better remind you—in case you’d forgotten—that you’re due at an M and M meeting in fifteen minutes.’

Of course she hadn’t forgotten, she thought acidly. She wished she could. Morbidity and mortality conferences were a necessary evil after a patient died, but all too often the conferences became an occasion to embarrass the consultant in charge, and she was all too aware that there were more than enough people at the General longing to see her fall flat on her face.

‘That was very thoughtful of you, Paul,’ she replied as evenly as she could. ‘Is everything OK in the treatment room?’

‘Naturally,’ he said airily. ‘We had a gomer in cubicle 2 earlier but I turfed him.’

A gomer. A and E shorthand for Get Out of My Emergency Room. A derogatory term applied to a geriatric patient who had multiple complicated medical problems rather than one acute one. Kate had never liked the term, and she liked it even less today.

‘Don’t forget you’ll be old yourself one day, Paul,’ she said, and saw the specialist registrar’s lips clamp down hard on the retort she sensed he was itching to make.

‘I see what you mean,’ Mario observed as Paul hurried away in answer to his bleeper. ‘I don’t like him, either.’

Professional courtesy told her she should immediately spring to her specialist registrar’s defence, but she was all out of courtesy today.

‘He’s a complete prat,’ she said, and Mario laughed.

‘Good luck with the D and D.’ His smile widened as he saw her confusion. ‘In my med days, M and M conferences were also known as death and doughnut affairs if they laid on refreshments.’

She let out a gurgle of laughter. ‘I must remember that.’

‘See that you do, and don’t let the top brass grind you down.’ He held out his hand. ‘I might see you again, Kate Kennedy, and I might not. If I don’t, it’s been nice meeting you. ’

It had certainly been different, she thought, as she shook his hand then dropped it quickly when she felt a warm tingle of sensation race up her arm, but it was better if she never saw him

again. Her work was exhausting enough without added complications, and if Mario Volante was married then he was strictly off limits as far as she was concerned.

And if he’s single? her mind whispered as she watched him walk away.

He was still most definitely off limits, she told herself firmly.

‘Have those bozos in Admin ever tried to save the life of a body-packer?’ Terri asked, incensed, when Kate returned from her conference, stressed out and exhausted. ‘Do they have any idea of the complications, the difficulties—’

‘They play it as they see it, Terri,’ Kate interrupted wearily, ‘so let’s just forget it, OK?’

And the sister said no more, but throughout the rest of their long and tiring shift Kate heard her muttering under her breath.

She wanted to mutter, too, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Duncan Hamilton had died whilst under her care and, though nobody in Admin had come right out and said it, she knew there was always going to be the underlying implication that he might have lived if somebody else had been treating him.

‘Would you like a lift home?’ Terri asked when their shift finally ended.

‘Thanks, but I’d prefer to walk,’ Kate replied. ‘It might clear my head.’

‘You’re sure?’ Terri said uncertainly, and Kate forced a chirpy smile to her face.

‘Of course I’m sure. It’s a lovely evening, and I could do with some fresh air.’

She could, too, Kate thought, as she hitched her shoulder bag onto her shoulder, and left the hospital. It had been a long day, and an extremely tiring one. The kind of day when she wondered if it was worth it. The endless paperwork, the drunken abusive patients who almost never died, whereas the nice people, the kind people, all too often did. And then she remembered the little girl she had treated this afternoon. Her mother had been so certain her daughter had meningitis, and the look of relief and gratitude on her face when Kate had been able to tell her that the rash was simply an allergy had been worth more than winning the lottery.

It was all worth it, she decided, breathing in deeply and savouring the late evening sunshine as she stepped off the pavement to get past the scaffolding that had been erected round the Edwardian building on the corner of the street. Everyone had days when they wondered whether they’d made the correct career choice. Everyone had moments when they wondered whether this was all there was to life. OK, so maybe today she’d had a bad day, but every job had its bad days.

Though maybe not quite as unremittingly awful as this one was turning out to be, she thought, as she felt someone’s hands slam into her back and the next thing she knew she was lying face down in the road.

Mugger, was her first thought, but, as she turned, ready to hit out with her feet and fists at her assailant, she saw to her amazement that Mario Volante was kneeling on the ground behind her, covered in dust, and the shattered remnants of a baluster were lying in the road not six feet from where she’d been standing.

‘Are you all right?’ he said, getting to his feet quickly. ‘Did any of that masonry hit you?’

‘I’m fine,’ she gasped. ‘Bit winded, that’s all.’ She squinted up at the building from which the baluster had fallen. ‘No wonder they’ve got all that scaffolding up. That place is literally falling to bits.’

‘Kate—’

‘Oh, hell, would you look at my skirt?’ she continued in dismay as she got unsteadily to her feet. ‘I’ll never be able to mend it, and I only bought it six—’

‘Forget about your skirt,’ he interrupted. ‘Did you notice anybody hanging about before the baluster fell?’

‘Did I notice…?’ Her mouth fell open. ‘You think somebody deliberately pushed that baluster, don’t you? Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mario. The building is simply unsafe, and I was unlucky enough to be walking past it when a bit fell off.’

‘Maybe. ’

‘Are all policemen this suspicious?’ she demanded. ‘Or are you just especially paranoid?’