Читать книгу The Legendary Playboy Surgeon - Алисон Робертс - Страница 7

WHAT on earth was going on here?

As she stepped out of the lift, Dr Kate Graham found herself staring at the expanse of linoleum lining the floor of this hospital corridor. The flecked beige was clearly marked by … tyre tracks?

Very odd.

Not that a lot of hospital equipment didn’t have wheels and it was conceivable that a particularly heavy item—a portable X-ray machine, for example—might have pneumatic tyres on its wheels, but these marks suggested the kind of wheels that belonged to something that needed a roadway to get from A to B.

The track marks were leading towards the children’s ward, which was also Kate’s intended destination, but she would probably have followed them anyway. Any distraction from what was waiting for her down in the bowels of St Patrick’s hospital was welcome. Something that seemed highly inappropriate and might need sorting out was even better. Kate could potentially defuse the horrible tension that had been building in her for some time now by directing it elsewhere.

Whatever idiot had thought it might be OK to bring a motorbike, for heaven’s sake, right into a ward full of seriously sick children? Kate could see the machine now, as she rounded a corner. A gleaming, bright red monstrosity at the end of the corridor, just outside the double doors that she knew led to the wide playroom, which was a space enjoyed by any child deemed well enough.

The playroom was well past the nurses’ station where Kate had been headed to collect some urgent samples for the pathology department but she didn’t even slow down as she passed the doorway. Not that the area was attended at the moment, anyway, because staff members and patients alike were crowded behind the astonishing spectacle of the motorbike and the leather-clad figure beside it, who was at that moment lifting a helmet from his head.

Connor Matthews.

Well, no surprises there. The orthopaedic surgeon who specialised in child cancer cases might be something of a legend here at St Pat’s but he failed to impress Kate. He was … disreputable, that’s what he was. He might fit in just fine when he was in an operating theatre but when that hat and mask came off he looked, quite frankly, unprofessional. He was weeks behind a much-needed haircut for those shaggy, black curls and at least several days behind basic personal grooming such as shaving. If he wasn’t in scrubs, his appearance was even worse. Jeans with badly frayed hems. Black T-shirts under a leather jacket. Cowboy boots!

Worse than his physical appearance, though, Connor Matthews broke rules. All sorts of rules, and many of them were far less superficial than a dress code. He was renowned for not following established protocols and he seemed to enjoy being in places he wasn’t supposed to be. Good grief, last week he’d not only delivered a pathology sample to her department in person, in order to queue-jump, he’d hung around and peered through microscopes himself until a diagnosis had been made. If she’d been in the laboratory when he’d turned up he wouldn’t have got away with it just by flashing that admittedly charming smile.

Was that how he’d engineered the appalling demonstration of rule flouting that was going on here now? The paediatric nursing staff had probably melted under the onslaught of his careless charm, the way the lab technicians had last week. They were certainly bedazzled right now. Nobody had noticed Kate’s arrival and they weren’t making room for her to get any closer to the centre of attention. Everybody was riveted by what was happening in front of them.

Connor Matthews was not a small man. As he sank to his haunches in front of a small, pyjama-clad boy, the leather of his pants strained across muscular thighs and the rivets on the back of the biker’s jacket were put under considerable stress as it stretched taut across his broad, strong shoulders. Kate could almost hear a collective, wistful sigh from all the women present.

Connor was oblivious to her glare, of course. He had the motorbike helmet cradled in hands that looked too big to be capable of the delicate skills she knew he displayed in Theatre. She’d also heard how good he was with children too and that was more believable, given the way he was talking quietly to the boy as though they were the only two people in existence. And then he eased the oversized helmet onto the boy’s head, got to his feet and lifted the child onto the seat of the motorbike with a movement that was careful enough not to compromise a tangle of IV lines and gentle enough to elicit an audible sigh from the women this time. The boy’s mother was holding the IV pole steady with one hand. She was pressing the fingertips of her other hand to her face to try and stem her tears as Connor showed the boy how to hold the controls.

And then he did the unthinkable. He reached out and turned a key and the engine of the motorbike roared into life, emitting a puff of black smoke from the wide, shiny silver exhaust pipe. There were children in here suffering from major respiratory illnesses, for heaven’s sake. Asthma, cystic fibrosis, compromised immune systems and …

And everybody around her was smiling and clapping. One of the nurses was taking photographs. Kate stood, rigid with indignation as the show broke up shortly thereafter. The engine of the motorbike was switched off. The small boy relinquished the helmet and was gathered up by his mother and taken away. Staff members remembered urgent tasks and dispersed in different directions and the other children were wheeled, led or carried back to where they were supposed to be, many of them craning their necks and sending longing glances back to where the excitement had been happening.

Only Connor remained. He hung the helmet over a handlebar by its chinstrap and kicked the stand up. With a movement that made the heavy machine look weightless, he turned it and began to wheel it back down the corridor, leaving a new set of track marks on the floor. The young girl with a mop and bucket and the uniform of the cleaning staff merely smiled shyly as he went past, ducking her head with pleasure as he made some apologetic comment about the mess. He looked up then in the direction he was travelling and that was when he saw Kate. A curiously guarded expression came over his features as he closed the distance between them.

Busted!

By no less than Princess Prim and Proper from Pathology.

The alliteration was pleasing enough to tease a quirk of his lips but Connor wasn’t about to allow a real smile to form. Partly because he knew he could be in for some serious flak if some the rule-makers around here heard about this morning’s stunt but it was more because he was facing someone who clearly didn’t have the compassion to have been as moved by what had just occurred as everyone else was.

The lump in his own throat was only just beginning to melt now and it was being replaced by another kind of constriction. One that had its roots in much darker emotions. The kind he’d grown up with. Feelings of sadness and frustration and … failure.

Attack might be the best form of defence.

Connor smiled. Always a good diversionary tactic. He raised his eyebrows as well, to suggest a pleasant surprise.

‘Kate, isn’t it? Fancy meeting you here.’

The subtext wasn’t very subtle. This was his patch. With the kids that deserved all the help they could get and their families who needed it just as desperately. This woman with her palpable air of disapproval belonged in the basement of St Pat’s. Along with her test tubes and microscopes and the bodies of those unfortunate enough not to make it out of hospital.

She didn’t smile back. No surprises there.

‘Not everyone delivers urgent samples to the pathology department in person,’ she said.

Her subtext wasn’t exactly subtle either. Connor met her glare steadily.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘you find yourself in a situation that requires a bit of lateral thinking. Going the proverbial extra mile, if you like.’

His gaze travelled slowly over Kate. Her hair was glossy and black and had the potential to be attractive but it was scraped back into the tightest ponytail ever with its length braided into a very solid-looking rope. Her eyelashes were visible, despite the thick rims of her glasses, and they were also thick and black. God given, no doubt, because Connor couldn’t see any evidence of make-up being applied.

There were sensible, flat shoes on the other end of her body and, in between, he could see a small amount of a plain, straight skirt. She wore a white coat, for heaven’s sake. Who did that these days? And even the people who felt the need to advertise some kind of clinical status would never, ever be uncool enough to button it up like that.

When he lifted his gaze to her face again, he found Kate staring back at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. He suppressed a sigh.

‘No, I don’t suppose you would ever feel like doing that, would you?’

‘If you mean I wouldn’t feel like bringing a motorbike indoors and puffing poisonous exhaust fumes around a whole lot of sick children, you’d be right. I can’t believe that you thought it was—’

Her outraged admonition was interrupted by someone hurrying towards them.

It was the mother of the little boy from the back of the bike. She’d courageously managed to hold back her tears earlier but they were flowing freely now.

‘Thank you,’ she said, her words choked.

‘Hey …’ Connor held the weight of the bike with one hand, using his other arm to draw the woman close as she wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘It was nothing, Jeannie.’

Jeannie gave an enormous sniff. ‘I have to get back. It … it won’t be long now.’

‘I know.’ The lump was back in Connor’s throat. He needed to find a space by himself for a few minutes. Preferably with a bit of speed involved. Maybe he’d take the bike for a quick spin on the motorway.

Jeannie stood still for a moment, taking a huge gulp of air to steady herself. ‘I just had to say thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Liam … went to sleep with the biggest smile on his face.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘I don’t think he was even aware of any pain when he was sitting on your bike. The photos are … are …’

‘Something you’ll treasure.’ Connor had to swallow hard. ‘Go and be with Liam, Jeannie. He needs his mum.’

Her face crumpled again as she turned away. Connor had to take a very deep, slow breath because he was suddenly aware that Kate was still there and that she’d heard every word of that emotional exchange. Surely she couldn’t have missed the undercurrent? The reason why Connor had been prepared to break so many rules here?

She hadn’t. He could see it in her face, which had gone a shade paler. And in the way her eyes seemed to have grown a lot bigger. He hadn’t noticed how blue they were before.

‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ she stammered awkwardly.

‘Don’t say anything, then,’ Connor advised wearily. He had to get away. If he was going to cry, it had to be out on the motorway where the moisture could be attributed to the wind getting in his eyes.

He got the motorbike moving again with a jerk. Kate was still standing there, opening and closing her mouth as though she really wanted to say something but couldn’t think what. She looked like a stranded fish.

And she was still giving off a disapproving vibe. Maybe she still intended to do something about his misdemeanour. Connor felt sandwiched between the constraints of the establishment she represented, with its inability to do enough for someone like Liam, and the weight of grief he could feel emanating from that private room down the end of the ward where a mother would be cradling her dying child.

He had to push back against one of those barriers or he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

‘You know what?’ Connor shook his head. ‘You need to get a life. You’re about as buttoned up as that ridiculous coat you’re wearing.’

Her coat?

What was wrong with her coat?

Kate collected the samples that needed urgent testing to see whether a two-year-old girl had meningitis. The nurse who handed them over had clearly been crying very recently. Other staff members were huddled at the central station, clutching handfuls of tissues. One took a sheet of paper emerging from the printer in the corner and held it up. Someone else stifled a sob.

Kate craned her neck a little to see what they were looking at. It was a large copy of a photograph. A small boy, his head almost obscured by the oversized helmet he was wearing so that what jumped out at the viewer was his grin. And what a grin. Bright enough to make anything else in the image irrelevant, even the tangle of IV lines that were coming from the central line just under his collar bone.

She turned and walked away with something close to panic nipping at her heels. The emotions were so raw here but what was she hurrying towards? Something even worse?

Arriving at the pathology department, Kate delivered the samples.

‘Do them immediately,’ she instructed. ‘Phone through the results but make sure a hard copy goes straight to the ward.’ She eyed an empty slot at the bench. ‘Maybe I should do it myself.’

‘They’re waiting for you downstairs.’ The lab technician’s grimace conveyed sympathy. They all knew what was waiting for Kate this afternoon. What they didn’t know was how unbearably difficult it was going to be.

‘I don’t think I can do it.’

The head of the pathology department, Lewis Blackman, said nothing for a moment. He gestured for Kate to sit down in the small, windowless office.

In his early sixties, Lewis was a quiet man. Overweight, silver-haired and thoughtful.

‘Remind me why you chose pathology as a specialty, Kate?’

Oh … Lord … was he going to tell her she wasn’t suitable? Everybody expected her to take over as HOD when Lewis retired in a few years. She expected it herself but how could she if she couldn’t handle the downside of what this job entailed?

Lewis was waiting patiently for a response. Kate’s thoughts travelled back in time. To when she’d been a nurse and had hated the frustration of being on the sidelines. Being treated as a lesser being by those who got to make the diagnoses and then treat the patients. She thought of how hard she’d struggled to support herself by doing killer night shifts while she’d put herself through medical school. Then she remembered what it had been like being a junior doctor. She’d probably had more respect than others, being a little older and more experienced in the world of medicine, but she’d still felt as though she was on the outside somehow.

‘I saw pathology as being the lynchpin in almost every critical case. Every doctor, no matter how skilled they are, can’t do their job unless they know what they’re dealing with. Sometimes they’re holding their breath for what we can tell them, like when they’re in Theatre, waiting for the result of a tumour analysis.’

Unbidden, her thoughts flashed up an image of Connor Matthews. Not in Theatre, with his scalpel poised waiting for word from the pathology department, though. Oh, no, she could picture him dressed in his leathers. Dark and disreputable and prepared to break any rule in the book to grant a wish for a dying child.

She sucked in a slightly ragged breath.

Lewis was nodding. ‘True enough. But you could stay in a laboratory to do all that. You could avoid being anywhere near the morgue and you’d never have to do an autopsy.’ Kate ‘s heart took a dive. ‘But that can be the most exciting part of this job. Finding out what went wrong … so … so it doesn’t happen again. It can be like putting together the most challenging jigsaw puzzle in the world. Finding the piece that maybe nobody even knew was missing.’

Lewis smiled, nodding. ‘Satisfying, isn’t it?’ He eyed Kate. ‘You do the neatest, most thorough autopsies I’ve ever seen and I’m including my own. You could have been a brilliant surgeon, you know.’

‘I’m happy where I am. I have my life exactly the way I want it.’

Lewis merely quirked an eyebrow. What was he thinking? That she was thirty-five years old and single? That she lived alone and had a passion for things in test tubes or on microscope slides or, worse, for dead bodies? That she was a freak? Someone to be pitied?

‘You need challenges, though, don’t you? Something to keep that sharp mind of yours intrigued? Isn’t that why you want to take over the forensic specialty?’

Kate had to nod but her teeth were worrying away at her bottom lip as she did so.

‘Coroners’ cases are often about an unexplained death that has a medical cause or trauma that’s come from an accident, but some of the most important cases are crime related and the detail we can give can make a difference to whether the perpetrator of a crime is punished. Our report can be essential for making sure a murderer or rapist or child abuser can’t do any more harm out there.’

Kate was still nodding. She knew that. She had also had a taste of the kind of excitement that came from unravelling the totally unexpected. Of not knowing what could come through the door, disguised in the heavy latex of a body bag. Sometimes the victims came directly from the scene of the crime. Often, though, they made it to hospital and lived for a short time. Occasionally, there was the added trauma of someone having to make the decision to turn off life support. Like today’s case.

Lewis was looking somewhere over the top of Kate’s head now. ‘You’re a clever woman, Kate. Do you know, it took me over a year to realise that you were actively avoiding any case that involved young children? You always had such a good reason for not being available but eventually I began to see the pattern and when you took the first sick day I’d ever known you to have, I understood what was going on. At least, I understood what. I have no idea why.’

He paused for moment as he met her gaze. ‘Is it something you want to talk about?’

Kate shook her head. Lewis nodded his, slowly, as if he hadn’t expected any other response.

‘The most vulnerable people out there are children,’ he said quietly. ‘Especially babies. It breaks my heart to have to deal with them in there.’ His hand waved in the direction of the adjacent morgue with its stainless-steel benches and buckets and the grim tools of this part of their trade.

‘But someone has to,’ Lewis continued. ‘And whether it’s medical or forensic, it has to be done. I’ve given you as long as I can to get used to the idea. I can be with you today if it would help, but this has to be make or break, Kate. If it’s something you can’t face then now’s the time to decide. If you can’t, that’s absolutely fine, but we’ll have to rethink the direction your career is taking.’

She’d known it was coming. She’d been stepping closer to the edge of the precipice for a long time. She had steeled herself for this day and she’d thought she was ready. Right up until she’d seen that desperate sadness in the depths of Connor Matthews’ already dark eyes. Until she’d felt the touch of emotions so painful they were impossible to block completely.

But if she stepped back from the edge, where would she go?

She would be trapped in a prison of her own making. Lewis was right. She had to have challenge. Something that gave real meaning to her life. Kate could almost feel the frustration now. See herself circling some vast laboratory, hemmed in by test tubes and specimen jars and thin glass slides. Ranks and ranks of them that looked like prison bars all of a sudden.

‘I’ll do it,’ she whispered.

‘Want me to stay?’

Kate raised her gaze to meet the concern in Lewis’s eyes directly. He was offering her a lifeline. A rope so that she could abseil down the precipice instead of stepping into the void alone.

‘Thanks, but I think it’s best if I do it by myself.’

She did do it.

By herself.

Hours later, Kate was driving herself home and she had never been so exhausted. Physically and emotionally. Her head was still full of it.

The procrastination before she’d entered the morgue. Reading the clinical notes on Peyton, the week-old baby girl who was waiting for her.

The cerebral scan demonstrates no apparent blood flow, indicative of brain death. While there could have been some residual brain-stem function and life could have been prolonged with mechanical ventilation, there would have been no recovery …

The wobble in her voice when she’d started her dictation.

… a full-term infant with no apparent external abnormalities …

The microscopic appearance of the slides made from tiny slivers of brain tissue.

The ends of the axons show shortening consistent with having been sheared off by violent shaking or rotational injury.

Clinical notes or dictation that had the undercurrent of such draining emotional involvement. Peyton’s mother was only seventeen and she’d hidden the pregnancy for as long as she could. Long enough to take termination out of the equation as a possibility. She lived with a large, dysfunctional extended family and nobody was talking now. Who had shaken this tiny baby and caused the fatal injuries? What kind of unbearable stress had been going on? It was so easy to judge in cases like this but Kate knew, more than most people, the damage that stress could cause.

She didn’t want to think about it. Not on a personal level. Because if she did, she would remember the pain of losing a tiny person that she could have loved so much. That could have loved her.

She didn’t have to think about it. She was heading towards her sanctuary. Her beautiful home where she could play the music she loved and cook the food that she was so good at creating, and she could even have a glass of wine tonight because she’d certainly earned it. She could soak in the peace and comfort of the world she’d created and it would heal her soul because she would be able to tap into the strength she knew she had.

Kate turned down the long driveway, overhung by the huge oak trees that made a leafy tunnel in summer. Her lovely old house nestled at the end of the driveway with its antique lion’s head knocker on the heavy wooden front door. There were brick steps leading from the crushed shell pathway and …

And on the top of the steps something large and human that launched itself towards Kate as she rounded the corner of the house from the garage.

‘Kate! Oh … thank God … I’ve been waiting for you for ever.’