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  She pushed the bag again.

  Marilyn’s chest heaved-and fell.

  The airway was clear. That meant this really was heart and not obstruction caused by swallowing.

  Ally started rolling her, but Paul was with her now, helping. ‘Monitor’s up,’ he told her, and Ally’s eyes flicked to the cabinet where the tiny screen was located.

  The line wasn’t absolutely straight. It was a faint vibration, hardly going above the horizontal, but it was definitely moving.

  Ventricular fibrillation.

  ‘We have a chance,’ she breathed. ‘Paul…’

  He knew what to do. He was a competent nurse, Ally decided, just somehow thrown off course by what had been happening. His hands were already linked as she said his name, and before it was completely uttered he was starting the rhythmic thump of cardiac pulmonary resuscitation. She heard a crack and winced. A rib. No matter. It couldn’t be allowed to matter.

  ‘Breathe for me,’ she snapped to the other nurse.

  ‘But…you’re the masseuse,’ the woman floundered.

  ‘I’m a doctor. Take the bag, damn you.’ Then, as the nurse still didn’t respond, she reached over and slapped her. Not hard, but hard enough to wake her up out of the trance. ‘Move!’

  The woman jolted into action. She didn’t have a choice. She took the bag and started the pushing that would keep oxygen entering Marilyn’s body.

  Ally was fitting electrodes, working around Paul’s hands. Everything she needed was there, thank God. She grabbed the paddles and smeared them with jelly.

  Right.

  She lifted the paddles and placed them just off Marilyn’s chest.

  ‘Back,’ she ordered.

  Paul lifted his hands clear and Ally let the paddles contact Marilyn’s bare skin.

  Her body gave a convulsive heave.

  All eyes went to the monitor.

  Nothing.

  Paul thumped again and the other nurse-Leonie?-went back to bagging air in. They were in rhythm now, doing what they were trained to do.

  ‘Back.’

  The paddles moved into position again.

  Another heave.

  Nothing.

  Again.

  Again.

  Still the heart monitor told them there was hope. It wasn’t the flat line of a completely dead heart. It was still ventricular fibrillation.

  ‘Again!’

  Another heave.

  The line moved.

  Ally was scarcely breathing herself. This so seldom worked. But… The blue line on the monitor was jerking upward. Over and over. Rhythmically.

  ‘We have a beat,’ she whispered.

  It was time to take a deep breath herself. How long since she’d breathed?

  They weren’t out of the woods yet.

  ‘Get that oxygen up to maximum,’ she snapped as Paul started to speak. How long had the brain been starved?

  Marilyn. She stared down at the elderly lady and here came the prayer that seemed to be with her all her working life. Please.

  Please.

  And, as if in answer, a visible shudder through the old lady’s body. Another. And then…

  A rasping breath.

  Dear God.

  Marilyn was breathing in earnest now, her chest moving all by itself. It was the best sight. Her breathing sounded dreadful, a ragged rasping as if it was being torn from her body, but to Ally it was a fantastic sound.

  And then the elderly lady’s eyes flickered open. They were pain-filled and confused. She attempted to shake her head, trying to rid herself of a mask she didn’t understand, gagging a little on the airway, but Ally took her hand and held it, lifting the airway clear but replacing the mask so the oxygen still flowed.

  ‘Marilyn, lie still. It’s Ally. You’ve had a heart attack. You’re OK, but you need to lie still.’

  Marilyn’s eyes focussed. And then, unbelievably, she tried to smile. Her mouth moved beneath the mask.

  ‘Ally.’

  ‘It’s me.’ Then, as Marilyn’s face contorted in pain, Ally looked up at the nurses.

  ‘Get me five milligrams of morphine.’

  Silence.

  She looked up again and the nurses were glancing at each other in confusion.

  ‘Get me five milligrams of morphine,’ she said again, this time through gritted teeth. ‘And let’s not talk about acting improperly here. Let’s not talk about anything at all. I want a syringe of morphine and I want it now. Any questions?’

  Paul looked at her for a long moment-and then his mouth twisted in a wry grimace.

  ‘Anything you say-Doctor,’ he said softly, and went to fetch it.

  Ally stayed by Marilyn’s side for the next twenty minutes. Reaction was setting in, but she wasn’t undoing her good work by leaving. She set up an intravenous drip and watched like a hawk. But at the end of twenty minutes the morphine was working. The monitor was showing a steady, reassuring beat of a heart that was working well. Somehow they seemed to have done it.

  Leonie had disappeared to somewhere else in the hospital but Paul stayed close. A couple of times he opened his mouth to ask questions but she simply shook her head. She wasn’t up to answering questions.

  And she knew she didn’t have the answers.

  Finally she heard what she’d been waiting for. A car drew up outside the hospital and then another, and she heard the sound of Leonie’s greeting and Darcy’s barked response.

  She wasn’t ready to face Darcy. Not now.

  She’d done what she had to do. She wasn’t a doctor any more.

  ‘Take over,’ she told Paul, and he nodded. He’d assume she’d be going out to greet Darcy, she thought, but she had no such intention. There was a real doctor here now. She could leave this scene.

  And she could. This was her grandpa’s hospital. She knew it like the back of her hand.

  She walked out the ward door.

  Darcy was at the entrance. If she turned to the right she’d run into him.

  She turned to the left. She slipped out through the kitchens and into the night. The night was balmy and filled with stars, and the sea was murmuring in the background. But she didn’t notice.

  Her foot was on fire but she didn’t care. The moment she got outside she started to run, and she didn’t stop running until she reached her little flat above her rooms. When she got there she slammed the door. Then she leaned against it and started to shake.

  She didn’t stop shaking for a very long time.

  Back at the police station, Sergeant Matheson had done a fine job.

  He was a great cop, Darcy thought ruefully as he worked through what had to be done. He’d put Jerry and Kevin, his weedy acolyte, in separate cells and he’d watched them both. A clatter in Kevin’s cell had alerted him and he’d gone in to find Kevin swinging from a blanket hooked to the doorframe. But he’d moved fast. Because he was big and Kevin was essentially a lightweight he’d been able to take the man’s full weight while he’d roared for his wife to come through from the residence. Helga had stood on a chair and had managed to unhook Kevin while her husband kept Kevin’s weight from his neck, and then the policeman had started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  By the time Darcy had arrived, Kevin was starting to breathe again.

  Kevin had been lucky. The blanket had been soft and hadn’t cut into his throat. He hadn’t snapped a vertebra as many hanging suicides did.

  He’d live.

  But he’d taken some work. The man was distraught-totally bereft-and Darcy had finally stopped trying to comfort him. He’d administered sedatives and made the decision to transfer him to hospital.

  ‘I didn’t want him here in the first place,’ the sergeant admitted. ‘There’s warrants for his boss’s arrest but nothing on this guy. I just kept him for the night because he wanted to stay close to his boss, and I thought I might take the heat off the refuge.’

  ‘But you worried enough to listen out for him.’

  ‘He seemed desperate wh
en we brought them in,’ the policeman told him. ‘He kept telling Hatfield that he’d stick with him but the last time he did… We were about to put them into a cell together when Kevin put a hand on Hatfield’s shoulder and Hatfield turned round and kicked him. Like a stray dog. Worse. He kicked him so hard that I could add an assault charge to whatever else that bastard’s up for. So I put them in separate cells and then I thought I’d read my book out here tonight rather than go back and sit with Helga. Cliff’s on night duty so I was going to have him come in when I went to bed.’

  He was a great cop, Darcy thought again. To recognise desperation…

  He spent a little time with the sergeant and his wife before he left, talking through what had happened as Kevin drifted into sleep. Doing a debrief. It was the least they deserved. Finally he’d left, loading Kevin into the ambulance and following him to hospital.

  To be met by the next episode of the night’s drama.

  ‘Marilyn’s arrested?’ Leonie hadn’t got the words out before he was striding down the corridor, expecting chaos. Or worse.

  But it wasn’t chaos, he admitted as he finally got the story from Paul. It was just unbelievable. He examined Marilyn and found her deeply asleep, and if he hadn’t had two nurses corroborating each other’s stories he would never have believed what had happened.

  ‘Ally did this? Ally got her back from cardiac arrest?’

  ‘She’s good,’ Paul said seriously. ‘She’s a bloody fine doctor. Hell, Darcy, we didn’t even have the monitor attached.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Marilyn must have unplugged it,’ Paul told him. ‘She complained it made a buzz and we told her you’d ordered it to stay on. But when I went to supper and Leonie went to the bathroom, she must have decided to pull it out. That’s what we think must have happened-she leaned over to unplug it and the effort brought on the attack.’

  Hell. Darcy sighed in exasperation and raked his fingers through hair that was already crazily unruly. It had been raked quite a few times today already. Some people were their own worst enemies.

  ‘She’ll have to agree to bypass surgery now,’ he muttered, looking down at the sleeping woman with something akin to despair.

  ‘Maybe she will.’ Paul was looking at him, considering. ‘But…about Ally. Did you know Dr Westruther was a doctor?’

  ‘It’s written on her sign.’

  ‘Yeah, but a real doctor.’

  ‘She can’t be a real doctor. Not a doctor of medicine.’

  ‘She must be,’ Paul told him. ‘Hell, Darcy, we panicked. I couldn’t even get the monitor working to see if it was her heart or not, and Leonie was doing the hand-wringing she always does in a crisis. I tell you, if Ally hadn’t come, we’d be wheeling Marilyn into the morgue. She knew everything. She knew exactly what to do-the right dosages, everything. And the way she did it… She’s done it before, Darcy. Lots of times.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense. And where is she now?’

  ‘Sloped off home?’ Paul suggested. He shrugged. ‘Maybe if she’s unregistered, she’s afraid you’ll sue.’

  ‘As if I would-for saving Marilyn’s life.’

  ‘Will you go find her?’

  That was what he wanted to do. Desperately. But medical imperatives ruled-as always.

  ‘How can I?’ he asked helplessly. ‘I have two patients I need to settle. I need to admit Kevin. I need to organise for Marilyn’s transfer first thing tomorrow-she’s having her bypass whether she wants it or not, and if I organise it before she wakes then she can’t argue. I’ll telephone her daughter now and talk her through the options. It’s going to take time.’

  ‘Time that you’d much rather spend going round to talk to Ally?’ Paul suggested, with just a hint of mischief in his eyes, and Darcy threw him a dark look.

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  So he worked on, in confusion.

  By the time he’d finished it was almost three. Much too late to visit Ally. Though he just happened to drive past. Well, he had to move his car into the garage for the night, so he may as well do a quick drive down the main street and see if her premises were in darkness.

  They were.

  Finally he lay in bed in even deeper confusion. There were so many questions.

  Had she been a doctor? Was she unregistered? Struck off for something like drug use? After all, she was into alternative therapies.

  Great. Why was he determined to paint her so black? ‘She’d throw another paintpot at me if she could hear me thinking like this,’ he told Jekyll, who was snoring on the end of his bed. ‘Maybe I’d deserve it.’

  His dog opened a bleary eye, wagged his tail and went back to sleep. Under his bed, Hyde kept right on snoring.

  ‘You guys are asleep. I should be, too.

  ‘It’s not going to happen.

  ‘So?

  ‘So if Ally doesn’t want to be a doctor then maybe I shouldn’t ask any questions?’ He was discussing it with the dogs.

  They weren’t answering.

  ‘I shouldn’t ask Ally.

  ‘Of course I’ll ask Ally.’ It was as much as he could do not to get out of bed and ask questions right then.

  He didn’t. But it was only because he knew very well that at three in the morning there’d be no answers. But the moment morning came those questions were going to be answered.

  CHAPTER SIX

  UNLIKE Darcy, when Ally hit the pillow she went out like a light. She was exhausted past belief, and although she’d thought the trauma of the day would keep her staring at the ceiling it did no such thing.

  She’d saved Marilyn’s life.

  The thought was like some sort of heat bag that she could hug, warming parts of her she hadn’t known were cold. It took away the awfulness of the day, the horror of facing Jerry. The pain.

  And Jerry was in jail. She hadn’t been able to stop him all those years ago but now he’d spend years behind bars. All the people whose lives he’d messed with in the past would read about it in the newspapers and say to themselves, He’s a convicted felon. He’s of no worth.

  And if he was of no worth then the fact that he’d indoctrinated the same belief into them could somehow-please?-be assuaged.

  It was a fine thought. It let her relax into her pillows with a sigh of contentment, and that was her last thought for a very long time.

  She woke to banging.

  Urgent banging.

  She opened one eye and glanced cautiously at her bedside clock. Eight-fifteen.

  This was her first morning of being open for business, she thought with a little glow of anticipation. She had a sign on the door saying she was ready for clients from nine a.m. Maybe this was the first one.

  Maybe that was wishful thinking. Surely a potential client wouldn’t be banging with such urgency when it was three quarters of an hour before her advertised opening.

  The sun was streaming in the window through the crimson oak leaves. She refused to be apprehensive on a morning like this, she told herself. She tossed back her covers, padded over to the window in her oversized T-shirt and threw open the window. Darcy was right below. He had his arms full of parcels, there were two dogs at his heels and he was banging on her door like he was really, really impatient.

  ‘I’m not open until nine,’ she said cautiously. ‘If you want a massage, you need to come back.’

  He stood back and looked up.

  ‘It’s about time. I’ve been thumping on your door for five minutes.’

  ‘I was asleep.’ She let indignation enter her voice. He unsettled her but she wasn’t about to let him know that.

  ‘Let me in.’

  ‘I’m not dressed.’

  ‘I have breakfast,’ he said, and she thought about it. And glanced across to her bench where a solitary tea bag mocked her.

  ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘Eggs. Bacon. Tomatoes, crumpets, butter, orange juice, bananas, coffee, milk…’

  ‘Enough.’ There was a part of her-a really big part
of her-that was saying, Stay away from this man. He disconcerted her and, more, he represented a world she no longer wanted anything to do with. But he was looking up with an expression that was a strange mix of hope and happiness.

  He looked great. He’d lost his tie-his shirt was open and his trousers were more casual than the ones she’d seen him in until now. His hair was sort of tousled and soft.

  He was smiling.

  The feeling she’d gone to sleep with-that God was in his heaven and all was right with her world-was a sensation she’d hardly ever felt. Now here was this man and his face said he was feeling exactly the same. And he made the sensation grow.

  Then there was the fact that his dogs were looking up at her, too, their huge eyes just as hopeful as their master’s. If she locked him out, she wouldn’t get a chance to hug his dogs.

  She really needed her own dog. But meanwhile…

  ‘OK,’ she told him, trying to make her voice sound grudging. ‘Give me five minutes to get dressed.’

  ‘One minute,’ he told her. ‘Otherwise the boys and I will start on the bacon.’

  ‘Three minutes. Don’t you dare.’

  She moved.

  This was her opening day, she reminded herself as she had the world’s fastest shower and hauled on jeans and T-shirt. She’d change for work later.

  From one lot of faded clothes to another?

  So what? Her bubble of happiness refused to be dissolved because of worry that she didn’t have the right outfit. Today was her first day of being a professional massage therapist, and she’d enjoy it. As she’d enjoy hugging Jekyll and Hyde. And eating breakfast with their master?

  Enough. Don’t ask questions, she told her reflection. She dragged a comb though her hair, took a disparaging look at herself in the cracked mirror over the bathroom basin, stuck out her tongue-and went to let in breakfast.

  She smiled as she swung the door wide. He smiled, too, but then his smile faded.

  She took an involuntary step backward.

  ‘What?’ she said, a trifle breathlessly.

  ‘You’re a doctor.’

  It was like a slap. Oh, let’s get right to the point, she thought.

  ‘Did you smile at me just so I’d let you in?’ she demanded, and he looked confused.