‘Yes,’ said Rosie and I together.
‘Good. Wait here, please.’ The head withdrew and the door closed.
I paced around the room. It took a huge effort not to run out of the door and back to the circular window.
‘Why don’t they come and tell us?’ I said. But I knew the answer. They were busy doing their best. I prayed that their best was good enough.
‘She lost so much blood,’ said Rosie. ‘I held her leg in both my hands and squeezed hard to stop the blood but it oozed between my fingers and ran all over the pavement. It was horrible.’ She shuddered.
‘You did brilliantly, Rosie. Without you, she would have probably died there on the pavement. At least here she has a chance.’ I hoped so anyway.
The door reopened but it wasn’t a doctor that came in but a uniformed policeman.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said, nodding to each of us in turn, and showing us his warrant card. ‘Do either of you know the name of the young lady who was shot?’
‘Marina van der Meer,’ I said. ‘Do you know how she’s doing? I really need some news.’
‘The doctors are still working on her, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything further.’ He took a notebook out of his pocket. ‘How do you spell her name?’ he asked.
I told him and he wrote it down.
And her age? And he wrote that down, too.
‘And what is your name?’ he asked me.
I told him that as well. Come on, I thought, where’s the bloody doctor?
‘And you, madam?’
Rosie’s name went into the notebook along with our dates of birth, although why they were important, I couldn’t imagine.
‘Are either of you related to the young lady?’ In other circumstances, his use of the term ‘young lady’ would have been amusing. He made Marina sound as if she were about fourteen. She was certainly older than he.
‘I am,’ I said.
‘Are you her husband?’ At least he hadn’t asked if I were her father.
‘No, I’m her…’ What am I? I’m too old to be a boyfriend. I hate the term ‘partner’. I used to partner horses in races. Significant other? No.
‘… fiance,’ I said.
‘Are you therefore her next of kin?’
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Next of kin’ always seemed to go with ‘inform’ and ‘death’.
‘Her parents live in the Netherlands,’ I said. ‘I have their address somewhere at home. She also has a brother. He lives in the States.’
‘And you, madam?’ said the policeman, turning to Rosie.
‘I work with Marina at the London Research Institute. I was there when she was shot.’
His eyes opened wider. ‘Were you? My superiors will want to take a statement.’
He turned away and spoke quietly into his personal radio. I didn’t catch everything he said but I did hear him say ‘witness’.
One of the medical staff came into the room. He was dressed in blue trousers and matching blue smock, with one of the dishcloths on his head.
‘You’re here with the girl who was shot?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She’s my fiancee.’
‘She isn’t wearing a ring.’
‘She will be next week.’ If she lives, I thought. ‘How is she doing?’
‘Not good, I’m afraid. She’s gone to theatre so I’ve handed her over to a surgeon. Sorry, I should introduce myself, I’m Dr Osborne; I’m the duty Accident and Emergency consultant.’
‘Sid Halley,’ I said. He didn’t offer his hand. Germs and all that.
‘Ah,’ he said, nodding, ‘the jockey. I thought I recognised you from somewhere. Well, your girlfriend has lost an awful lot of blood. In fact, I’m amazed she was still alive when she arrived here. There was no measurable blood pressure.’
‘But she will be all right, won’t she?’ I was desperate.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Not yet. She was alive when she went to theatre, that’s the best I can say.’
I could hear my blood rushing in my ears.
‘The bullet missed the knee itself so the joint is fine but it tore open the femoral artery where it becomes the popliteal at the back of the knee, hence the blood loss. I think it was probably a small bullet and it didn’t do much damage to the rest of her soft tissue. She was very unlucky.’
‘But have you stopped the bleeding?’ I asked frantically.
‘Yes, I have for the time being but it’s not that simple. I am worried about further bleeding into her internal organs.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘We had to give her a great deal of blood and other fluids to replace what was lost, to fill the pipes up again, as it were.’
I nodded. I knew all about having to have blood.
‘Well, we had to give her an awful lot due to the continuous bleeding.’
‘Didn’t you apply a tourniquet?’ I asked.
‘Something similar. We applied direct pressure to the leg but you have to release it every ten minutes or so otherwise the lower leg begins to die. Whenever we did, the arterial bleeding started again. So, we had to give her much more blood than her whole body normally holds.’
I’d been correct; it had been going right through her.
‘This produces an added problem. Such a large transfusion severely dilutes some of the factors in the blood. It also causes a reduction in usable platelets. The combined effect is to reduce the ability of the blood to coagulate. It’s called dilutional thrombocytopenia. The factors are essential to keep the arteries from leaking blood and causing diffuse bleeding at various points in the body, especially in the internal organs like the kidneys. Until her body can replenish the factors and the platelets naturally, she is living right on the edge. I have to be frank — I believe that any further bleeding might be more than she could take. It would require more transfusion which would further reduce the usable platelets, which in turn would lead to more bleeding and eventually to a complete collapse of her system.’
‘But…’ I swallowed, ‘when will we know?’
‘The next few hours are critical. If she survives that, then her chances are reasonable.’
‘Reasonable’ didn’t sound reasonable enough to me.
‘How long will she be in theatre?’
‘Not long, I imagine,’ he said. ‘She’s gone to have a better repair of the artery. It’s risky but the surgeon and I thought it was better to fix the artery now so that it didn’t rupture again, which might lead to catastrophic failure.’
‘How do you fix an artery?’ I asked.
‘Using a graft,’ he said. ‘We take a piece of vein from her other leg and sew it into the artery to bridge the gap made by the bullet. The procedure is quite normal and is used all the time for heart bypass operations. The problem here is the need to keep blood loss to an absolute minimum.’
I wasn’t really listening to the details. ‘When can I see her?’ I asked.
‘After theatre she will be taken to intensive care. You’ll be able to see her there but she’ll be sedated and asleep. We will try to keep her blood pressure as low as possible for a while. Look, I’m sorry, but I must go now. I’m needed elsewhere.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. It was insufficient.
He went out, leaving Rosie, me and the policeman.
‘She’s in the best hands,’ said the policeman kindly.
I nodded. I felt so helpless.
‘I left my car on the pavement outside the hospital,’ I said. ‘I’d better go and move it.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘You’re not to leave until you’ve given a statement to my super.’
