‘Me?’
‘Please. What’s your name?’
‘Mary. I know these people,’ she ventured. ‘They live near me.’
‘Great.’ She motioned her to come close, so Judith could see how comfortingly grandmotherly she looked. ‘Judith, Mary’s one of your neighbours and she’ll be looking after Thomas. Spike here is holding your arm up until the ambulance arrives, so it doesn’t start bleeding again. You’re going to be fine. I need to help Dr Ashton with Grace. If you promise to stay still then there’ll be two doctors looking after Grace.’
‘Go,’ the woman whispered without hesitation. ‘Go.’
He heard her in the background and he blessed her for it. He’d never questioned her competence, but now… She was skilled and she was fast and she was sure. People jumped when she said jump, recognising her natural authority even if she was nine months pregnant, covered with sand and dressed in a bright yellow sarong.
There was so much blood…The woman Maggie was working on must have torn an artery but he couldn’t help her. He had urgent work to do himself.
Vaguely he heard the voices in the background, the woman’s voice naming her children. The blonde-ringletted child under his hands was dressed endearingly in a pink tutu over a bathing costume stained with rainbow ice cream. She was called Grace?
She was conscious. Just. Considering the force with which she’d hit the road, consciousness was a miracle. But like her mother, there was far too much blood. From her leg. Torn femoral artery? It must be.
He’d ripped his shirt-he was getting good at this!-and was twisting a tourniquet. Slowing the bleeding. Her leg was twisted at an appalling angle. There was a gash across her abdomen, bleeding sluggishly, and the bitumen had ripped her skin like sandpaper. Her tutu was bright with blood.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ he murmured as he worked, and she gazed up at him in pain and confusion and shock. ‘It’s okay. The car hurt your leg. I’m a doctor and I need to fix it.’
‘M-Mummy…’
And then her eyes rolled back in her head. Her tiny body was suddenly limp.
No!
Blood loss. Haemorrhagic shock.
He dropped the shirt-cum-tourniquet he was working on and moved to cup her face in his hands. Breathed. Hit her chest.
Her leg started spurting blood again.
But suddenly Maggie was beside him, kneeling on the bitumen, taking in the situation in one sweeping glance.
‘I’ll stop the bleeding, you get her breathing,’ she muttered. ‘Go.’
He had help!
It was blood loss-lack of blood pressure-that’d caused her heart to stop. He knew that. He had to get her breathing. But it was no use getting her heart to work again if the blood loss didn’t stop. The task was impossible.
But with Maggie beside him he no longer had to think about the bleeding. He could move to CPR as he’d practised it so many times, at medical school and afterwards.
Breathe, one, two, three…
Breathe, one, two, three…
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Maggie snapped as she worked, and he glanced across to where a kid with spiked hair was supporting the mother. So did Maggie.
The kid gave Maggie a thumbs-up sign, and she turned back and kept on working.
Breathe, one, two, three…
‘I’m shifting this leg,’ she said. ‘The compound fracture means we’ll never stop the bleeding while the artery’s this exposed.’ But she hadn’t stopped to speak. She was simply doing. She was twisting the shirt-tourniquet one last time, holding it in her teeth-in her teeth!-taking the leg in both hands…
One fast movement and the leg was suddenly in alignment.
Not that Max had time to care.
Breathe, one, two, three…
Please.
Breathe, one, two, three…
And the little girl’s chest heaved. Heaved again, all by itself.
‘Dear God,’ Maggie whispered, and Max was saying it too, over and over in his head.
Please, please, please…
The child was breathing.
The bleeding was slowing again now, but not because of death. Not!
‘The ambulance,’ Maggie whispered, and he heard it then, the scream of the siren above the traffic. Help was on its way. Plasma. IV fluids for both mother and daughter. If they could get them on board before the little girl’s heart shut down again, she stood a chance.
And then the professionals were there. There were suddenly four skilled paramedics, assessing in an instant what Max and Maggie were doing, skilled hands taking over, smoothly, efficiently.
IV lines were going in. Oxygen masks. Pain relief.
Stabilisation, stretcher boards, transfer.
Curt questions, to the point, to each of them. Who was involved? The blood…was any of it Maggie’s? Max’s? Spike’s?
The baby in the stroller…Identification?
‘I know who they are,’ Mary said. The elderly lady had lifted the toddler from the pram and was cuddling him. ‘If you want, I’ll come to the hospital and hold the baby until someone can come for him. I can give you details.’
‘And you?’ The ambulance officer turned to Maggie. ‘Do you need help?’
‘I’m f-fine,’ she managed, knowing she didn’t look fine. Nine months pregnant, soaked in blood, shocked.
‘I’ll look after her,’ Max said, and his arm came round her waist and she let herself lean into him.
‘I feel funny,’ Spike said suddenly, and there was another moment of drama where the paramedic moved fast before the kid’s knees buckled under him.
‘He’s a hero,’ Maggie said shakily as they loaded Spike, too, into the ambulance and the paramedic looked at her and then at Max.
‘It seems we have a surfeit,’ he said dryly. ‘We were lucky to get here as fast as we did-the power’s off all over the city and the traffic’s crazy. But in the meantime you guys seem to have saved a couple of lives.’
And then they were gone.
The police were taking statements and were collecting fragments of broken glass for forensics. Someone had started cleaning blood from the road.
In a few minutes all evidence of the accident would have disappeared. The stone had been tossed into the lake, it had splashed, the ripples were moving outward and in minutes life would be smooth again. Only Maggie didn’t look the least bit smooth.
‘Maggie, you know we agreed that shower wasn’t a good idea?’ Max murmured, and she looked up him and he saw her react to what he must look like. Which was a reflection of what she looked like.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, version two.
‘I’m not sure they’ll even let us into the apartment block now,’ she muttered, and her voice was shaky.
‘You should have gone with the ambulance.’
‘Why? My voice always shakes after drama. I’m fine.’ She shook her head. ‘Of all the criminal…’
‘Don’t think about it. Come and get clean.’
‘You’ll talk your way past my concierge?’
‘I’ll do whatever I must to get this off us,’ he muttered grimly. ‘But we did good, Maggie.’
‘We did, didn’t we?’ she said-and burst into tears.
She sobbed. She sobbed all the way back to the apartment, while Max told a stunned concierge what had happened. The power was out and the reception area was dim. ‘There’s been power outages a couple of times already this week,’ a shocked concierge told them as he ushered them toward the stairs. ‘That’ll be what
