‘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-
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 when 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.
