Читать книгу: «Emergency At Inglewood»

CHAPTER ONE

HE WAS lying to her.

It was as obvious as the stain of colour that instantly heated Kathryn Mercer’s cheeks, and her discomfort increased as the lie hung in the air between them. It was taking on a life of its own with a past history they shared, a present embarrassment they were both clearly experiencing and the shine taken off a future that Kathryn had been eagerly anticipating.

Was he trustworthy?

Kathryn deposited her small backpack with personal supplies for her first day at work in the allocated locker and took a little more time than she actually needed to push it securely into the small space and fold the strap ends away so they wouldn’t catch in the door.

‘That’s about all there is in here.’ Paramedic Tim McGrath was not looking at Kathryn as she stowed her bag. ‘There’s a shower and toilet through that door but it’s unisex. If you want one that’s women only you’ll need to go upstairs to the bedroom area.’

A seed of resentment bloomed as she heard the echo of the lie.

‘Sorry, I couldn’t ring. I…lost your phone number.’

Kathryn shut the locker with a firm clang of metal on metal. It shouldn’t be a big deal so why was she feeling so crushed? She’d only met Tim on that one occasion, months ago, in a situation that had been emotionally charged for everyone involved. What evidence had she really had to build such a picture of someone who could be trusted?

‘Here’s the office.’ Tim was still avoiding eye contact as he led Kathryn away from the locker room. ‘We have a separate area from the fire service for administration stuff. We share the commonroom and kitchen facilities, though.’

The let-down was refusing to fade. Kathryn had remembered Tim as some kind of hero—arriving at an emergency and taking charge calmly and skilfully. A professional picture impressive enough to have lured her into a new career. The desire to be like him had been strong enough to carry her through all the obstacles she had faced in changing jobs. And those obstacles had been enough to make it no small triumph that she was standing here today. No wonder her nervous excitement was making her over-sensitive.

A burst of deep male laughter could be heard well away from the small office as Kathryn nodded at various instructions she was being given about using the phone, fax machine and computer. Kathryn had arrived early for her first day at Inglewood station but a shift changeover was due shortly and there would be two fire crews and another ambulance crew somewhere on site. Possibly all male. Kathryn sucked in a deep breath to try and quell any nerves. Maybe Sean was right and she would find herself totally unsuitable for work like this.

Tim looked up at the sound of laughter and Kathryn thought she detected some relief in the knowledge they weren’t alone in this old converted house. ‘I’ll introduce you to the mob if you’re ready. We could grab a quick cup of coffee before we go and check the truck. Any questions so far?’

Harbouring a suspicion that he was untrustworthy was hardly the best way to break the ice with the man who would be her partner and hopefully her mentor for the next six months. Kathryn pushed a wayward tendril of blond hair behind her ear and smiled.

‘Not right now but I’m sure I’ll be a nuisance for the rest of the day. This is all so new.’

‘You’re a nurse, though, aren’t you?’ Tim glanced at the qualification patch on the sleeve of Kathryn’s white shirt. ‘Isn’t that why you’re already qualified for IV and cardiac procedures even though you’re in a probationary position?’

Kathryn nodded. ‘I worked in Emergency when I first qualified, but for the last few years I’ve been a part-time practice nurse in a general practice.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘My IV qualification is about the only skill I kept up. I seemed to spend half my time taking blood samples from geriatric patients who weren’t exactly filled with the joys of living.’

‘What made you decide to join the ambulance service?’

‘You did.’

‘You’re kidding!’

Kathryn’s smile widened as Tim visibly relaxed a little for the first time and advertised his interest in the conversation by perching one hip on the corner of the desk. ‘No, I’m perfectly serious. I was out of my depth that day I met you, looking after a woman who was obviously very sick. The relief when you guys came and took over was amazing, and watching you work made me realise how much I’d like to be able to really help in a situation like that.’

‘You did help. And you’d done all the right things before we got there, laying her down and taking some baseline vital signs. You were great.’ Tim smiled back at her.

‘Was she a triple-A, like you thought?’

An eyebrow lifted. ‘You’ve got a good memory. That was months ago.’

‘It made a big impression on me. Enough to make me apply for a career in the ambulance service. And I’ve always wondered how she got on. I watched the paper for a few days but I didn’t see a death notice.’

Tim shifted, looking uncomfortable again at the reminder of not keeping his promise to ring Kathryn and let her know the patient outcome. ‘She didn’t die but it was touch and go there for a while. It was a rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. They got her into Theatre almost immediately and fixed the rupture and dissection with a graft. She was fine.’ He stood up. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t let you know at the time.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Kathryn watched as Tim headed for the door. It did matter, though. Enough to make her pursue the issue just a little further. ‘I should have rung you,’ she added. ‘An empty syringe package wasn’t exactly the best place to write my phone number.’

Tim shrugged. ‘I guess not,’ he agreed, a shade too readily. ‘Bit too easy for it to disappear along with the rest of the rubbish.’

So he’d thrown it away. That he was being truthful about the package going into the rubbish was as obvious as the lie about losing it had been. Kathryn followed Tim along the corridor to the source of the buzz of male conversation and laughter.

She was missing something here and her instincts told her it was something significant. What she couldn’t understand was why it was important enough to be difficult to lie about. Or was Tim McGrath normally so honest that he had trouble with any fabrication? Kathryn hoped that was the case but only time would tell.

Entering the commonroom was daunting. The group of men was seated around a long dining table and their breakfasts were abandoned as Tim walked towards them.

‘This is Kathryn Mercer,’ he told the group. ‘But she prefers to be called Kat. She’s Laura’s replacement on Green Watch for the next six months.’

The chorus of greetings was friendly.

‘Have some porridge, Kat,’ someone suggested. ‘Mrs Mack always makes enough to feed an army.’

‘Um…thanks, but I already had breakfast.’ Actually, Kathryn had been feeling far too sick from nerves to eat anything so far today, but there was no way she could face porridge even on the best of mornings.

‘So did I.’ Tim flashed her the ghost of a wink. ‘All the more for you guys. Have a second helping, Stick.’

One of the firemen muttered something inaudible and a small, wiry figure emerged from the kitchen area.

‘That’s enough o’ that muttering, Jason Halliday. Porridge is good for you. It’s the only thing that puts a good lining on your stomach on these cold mornings.’

‘This is Kathryn, Mrs Mack,’ Tim said. ‘My new partner. Kat, this is Jean McKendry, who lives next door and is kind enough to spend her days looking after Inglewood station.’

Kathryn smiled. The woman reminded her of her grandmother and she could see the warmth that lay below the stern tone. ‘Hi,’ she said shyly.

‘Och, but she’s just a wee thing.’ Kathryn was subjected to a concerned frown over half-moon spectacles. ‘How’s she going to cope in with this lot?’ The older woman sniffed and Kathryn had the horrible feeling that her competence was in as much doubt as her physical ability to handle a demanding job. Then Jean McKendry sniffed even more pointedly, muttered something about muffins burning and disappeared back into the kitchen on an apparently urgent mission.

The blond fireman, Jason, was grinning. ‘Kat’s little and she’s blond. Tim’s big and brown. What does that remind you of, Stick?’

‘Laura isn’t exactly tall, Jase.’

‘No, but my Laura’s got a bit of meat on her bones.’ Jason shook his head impatiently. ‘Come on…it’s not rocket science. What are we eating here?’

More than one of his colleagues was grinning. The rest were looking blank.

‘Porridge,’ Jason said with a grimace. He cast a somewhat guilty glance towards the kitchen but dealing with the muffins was obviously keeping the housekeeper out of earshot and his grin appeared again. ‘Come and sit down, Goldilocks.’

Kathryn laughed. She liked this fireman and she liked the fact that she was already being accepted enough to earn a nickname. She stole a glance at her partner. He was rather bear-like. Tall and solid with brown hair and brown eyes. Not at all fierce, though. He seemed to be enjoying the exchange as much as Kathryn, and his smile was the most genuine she had seen so far.

‘We need to go and check the truck,’ Tim said, after a glance at the wall clock. ‘We’ll get a coffee after that if it’s still quiet so you’ll get a chance to talk to Kathryn later.’ He turned towards her and his smile became simply polite. ‘These guys don’t have to work nearly as hard as we do. They spend most of their days sitting around drinking coffee and talking. Just don’t believe everything they tell you.’

‘We get bacon and eggs for breakfast in summer,’ one of them said.

‘That is true.’ Tim’s gaze veered towards the kitchen but there was no sign of the porridge-maker. He lowered his voice anyway. ‘Roll on summer!’

The appreciative chuckle followed the two ambulance officers as they left the commonroom. Clearly Tim was far more relaxed with this group of men than he was with her but that was hardly surprising. They didn’t know each other and they had started their acquaintance with Tim’s astonished recognition of Kathryn as the member of the public who had assisted a woman in trouble in a restaurant, rapidly followed by his unsuccessful attempt to cover up why he hadn’t bothered to phone her.

At least he had recognised her. It would have been even more of a let-down to find she had made no impression on the man who had been in her thoughts with astonishing frequency over the last few months.

She followed Tim towards the garage where the fire engine and ambulance were parked. Let it go, she told herself firmly. It really doesn’t matter that he didn’t ring you. He probably just got busy with another emergency and forgot. Perfectly reasonable if that was the case, but why hadn’t he just said so?

The outgoing crew was happy to hand over their pagers and head home for some sleep.

‘Good luck,’ they told Kathryn. ‘And just tell Tim to shut up when you get sick of him talking all the time.’

Kathryn raised an eyebrow and Tim smiled wryly. ‘I’m known for being a bit on the quiet side,’ he explained. ‘You’re more likely to get bored stiff with my company than sick of listening to me talking.’

‘I doubt very much that I’ll get bored,’ Kathryn told him. ‘You might need to tell me to shut up if I ask too many questions.’

‘I’m happy to answer anything I can. That’s part of what taking on a probationary officer is all about.’ Tim handed Kathryn a paging device and showed her how to scroll through messages.

‘The job number and date come up first. Then the priority for the call. P1 is a life-threatening emergency and the only one we use lights and sirens for. P2 is non-urgent but requires a response time of less than thirty minutes, and P3 is routine stuff like inter-hospital transfers. P4 is a private hire.’

‘What sort of reasons do people hire an ambulance for?’

‘To take a relative back to a rest home or hospice after they’ve had a few days at home maybe. Usually it’s a rest home bringing a resident back after they’ve been checked out after a fall or something.’

‘OK.’ Kathryn nodded, tucking the information away. P1s were going to be the calls she would be most nervous about.

The thought of heading off to an unknown emergency with the wail of a siren distracting her from remembering even well-rehearsed protocols was enough to make the back of her neck prickle. Thank goodness she had someone like Tim McGrath for a partner. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and had the aura of a relaxed attitude to his job that could only come from a combination of competence and experience.

Kathryn had also had the advantage of seeing Tim in action thanks to that incident in the restaurant. She knew he was competent and could stay calm in an emergency. She’d be OK with a partner like Tim. Becoming good at this job wasn’t just a fantasy. She could do it.

‘Of course, dispatch can only make a priority decision based on the information they get given,’ Tim continued thoughtfully. ‘Quite often a P1 is nothing significant, but you can get some of the sickest people on a P2.’

Kathryn chewed her bottom lip as the flash of confidence faded. She’d have to worry about both P1s and P2s, then.

Tim’s amused expression made her flush with embarrassment at showing obvious nerves, but his smile was reassuring. ‘They get it right most of the time. Like that restaurant case you were involved in. Having got the job definition on the pager as ‘‘abdo pain’’ at a restaurant, we thought we were going to a case of food poisoning and thought the P1 response was a bit of overkill. Turned out it was a life-threatening emergency, wasn’t it?’

‘I’ve never been more relieved in my life than I was when I heard that siren getting closer,’ Kathryn confessed. ‘I could tell she was really sick and I had no idea why. A heart attack seemed the most likely cause but the abdominal pain didn’t exactly fit.’

‘Some MIs do present with epigastric or back pain so it wasn’t so far off the mark for a diagnosis. At least you knew how important it was to get urgent help.’

‘And at least I know a bit more about triple-As now. I paid particular attention to that lecture.’

‘So tell me, then.’ Tim leaned against the back doors of the ambulance, swinging his pager by the curly elastic cord attached to a clip. The awkwardness of revisiting that particular case seemed to be receding and he was obviously warming to his new role as a mentor. ‘What do you know about triple-As?’

A chance to impress Tim was welcome. Maybe he was uncomfortable with her because he had no idea what she was capable of. ‘The signs are a pulsating mass in the abdomen and you might hear a bruit over the mass. If they rupture, it’s a medical emergency. Signs and symptoms include a severe, tearing pain and blood loss leading to shock.’

‘Causes?’

‘Usually arterial disease. You can get a false aneurysm caused by trauma.’

‘Do you know why the heart rate can stay normal?’

Kathryn frowned. ‘I don’t think we covered that in class…unless I’ve just forgotten.’ She chewed her lip again. So much for impressing her new partner. ‘With shock associated with blood loss you’d expect a tachycardia, wouldn’t you? Seeing as that’s the compensatory mechanism to try and keep the blood pressure up.’

Tim nodded, seemingly not bothered by any lack in her knowledge base. ‘That’s why it’s such a good marker for a triple-A. An aneurysm causes the walls of an artery to bulge. When the aorta gets stretched it stimulates receptors into thinking that the blood pressure is actually high. Therefore the compensatory mechanism is to reduce the heart rate to keep the blood pressure down.’

‘Not good for hypovolaemic shock.’ Kathryn was delighted to have something explained so simply. Tim was obviously a good teacher and some of the excitement at the prospect of working with him returned to lift her spirits. ‘And no wonder she started to feel better lying down with her feet up and then fainted when she sat up again.’

‘Two litres of saline got the pressure up enough for us to be able to give her some morphine. She wasn’t feeling too bad at all by the time we got her out of the restaurant. In fact, she was asking for you. She wanted to thank you.’

The awkwardness concerning the case returned with a rush, although it wasn’t Tim’s failure to phone her that was the cause this time. Kathryn found herself mirroring Tim’s earlier action and fiddling with her own pager’s safety cord.

‘I…couldn’t stay any longer.’ She hoped Tim’s memories of that evening were less clear than her own. Sean’s patent ill humour at her involving herself in the case had been humiliating enough at the time.

‘I hope your evening wasn’t entirely ruined.’

The odd tone of the comment made Kathryn glance up in surprise, and she caught an expression she had no hope of reading in Tim’s gaze. She needed to get him off any track concerning her personal life so she smiled brightly.

‘Heck, no! That was the most exciting thing I’d done in years. It was what persuaded me to throw in my practice nurse job and train as an ambulance officer.’

‘And is your…husband happy about it?’

‘Sean?’ Kathryn looked away, trying to sound casual and ignoring the odd hesitation in Tim’s query. He wasn’t to know how laughable the notion of her being out to dinner with anyone other than her husband was. It was laughable enough to make her smile again. ‘He’ll cope.’

She was unaware of the defiant tilt her chin adopted. He’d have to cope. There was no way he was going to interfere with her new career. Even mentioning Sean had added a new tension to the atmosphere and Kathryn’s shiver had little to do with the chilliness of the garage they were standing in.

Care was going to be needed in future not to allow any mention of her home life to intrude on her work hours. This career was her hope for the future. An escape. Something Sean had no part of, and she intended to keep it that way despite the clutch of any tentacles of guilt. Most importantly, she didn’t want Tim or anyone else at Inglewood station knowing anything about her marriage.

If you could even call it that.

Fortunately, Tim seemed completely uninterested. He snapped his pager into the holder clipped to his belt and Kathryn followed his example.

‘There are other priorities as well.’ His tone was coolly professional once again. ‘At times we’re on standby for fires or armed offender callouts for the police, long-distance transfers and back-up assistance for other ambos. You’ll pick it all up in no time.’

‘I hope so.’ Kathryn watched Tim open a side door of the ambulance.

‘Here we have the ramps, carry chair, hare traction splint and KED. Have you covered using the KED?’

Kathryn nodded. Her class had been through more than one scenario training them to use the body splint to help extricate car accident victims. Having to attend a major car crash on her first day was a prospect that had kept her awake for a large part of the previous night. The image of trying to cope with such a scene took turns with an even greater fear—that she might have to defibrillate someone for the first time.

When the side door refused to close easily, Tim took a few minutes to rearrange the contents. Kathryn watched him, aware that her fears about what the day might bring and what would be revealed about her competence paled in comparison to a much darker fear that Tim had inadvertently reminded her of. A fear that had presented one of the largest obstacles to her career change.

Tucked away in her boring job as a GP nurse in an old-fashioned clinic in the suburbs had been safe. It had been easy to keep up the pretence of a happy marriage with the elderly GP who had been a close friend of Sean’s father because he hadn’t been any more interested in Kathryn than he was in his patients. Old Dr Braithwaite had been far too busy having an affair with the clinic’s receptionist and Kathryn had been forced to turn a blind eye because she knew, better than anyone, that it wasn’t always the husband’s fault. It was quite possible for a totally inadequate wife to drive a man into the arms of another woman. A whole string of them, even.

And here she was taking on a career she was determined to excel in, which meant she would be working with a lot of men. Inglewood station was a peripheral city response base that housed both fire and ambulance crews, and being assigned here accentuated the difference in the age group and numbers of her new colleagues. She was going to be in almost daily contact with a lot of men who would inevitably be very sympathetic to Sean…if they knew. Kathryn would end up being labelled in terms she couldn’t bear to imagine, even if there was justification in such derision.

Her problems had nothing to do with life on the outside, however. An ‘outside’ that was now a new start. The future had always been haunted by the unknown but for the first time in many years some of those unknowns were exciting. Compelling, even. Kathryn had taken the first brave steps on a solo journey she had every intention of continuing.

Straightening her spine, she caught one of the swinging doors as Tim opened up the back of the ambulance and she pushed it to catch in the open position.

‘Are you comfortable with the layout and finding what you need in here?’

She nodded confidently. ‘That’s something I can do.’

‘Right. Quick test, then.’ Tim vaulted into the back of the ambulance, surprisingly lightly for such a big man. He tapped the sliding glass door of an overhead locker. ‘What’s in here?’

‘Straps for the scoop stretcher or backboard, hard hat, cervical collars, maternity kit and incontinence pads.’

Tim grinned. ‘Let’s hope we don’t need too many of those on your first day. And this one?’ He tapped another locker on the opposite side of the truck.

‘Dressings in three sizes, bandages—also in three sizes—saline pouches, triangular bandages and another hard hat.’

‘Where’s the IV gear?’

‘In the drawer under the life pack.’ Thoughts of Sean or fears of her private life being exposed were mercifully fading into oblivion. This was fun.

‘And?’

Taken aback, Kathryn frowned as her gaze raked the remaining storage spaces. ‘Well…the giving sets and pressure cuff and bags of saline are in that locker over there and…um…’

‘What happens if we need to put an IV line in when we’re not in the back of the truck?’

‘Oh-h.’ Kathryn rolled her eyes at her obvious omission. ‘There’s supplies of everything in the resuscitation kit.’

‘Good.’ Tim touched the large, tackle-type box with his foot. ‘We’ll go over the kit later. Are you familiar with this type of life pack?’

Kathryn nodded. ‘That’s what we’ve been using for training.’

‘You’re qualified to defibrillate manually, aren’t you?’

Her nod was a lot slower this time. ‘I haven’t done it for real yet. Only on dummies.’

Tim’s smile was quick. ‘We’ll try and make sure your first arrest patient isn’t too bright, then.’

Kathryn laughed but was disconcerted at the way Tim’s gaze veered instantly away from her face. A slightly awkward silence fell, which added to Kathryn’s confusion. This was like a roller-coaster. Whenever she felt that Tim was being friendly and they were establishing some kind of rapport, it got flicked off like a switch and that inexplicable tension was back again. Had she done the wrong thing by laughing at his joke? Why had he made one if she wasn’t supposed to find it funny?

Recognising that she was doing something wrong was a skill Kathryn was expert in, however. She cleared her throat.

‘It must be a pain, having to work with someone like me.’

‘What?’ Tim snapped the battery he was checking back into its slot in the life pack.

‘I mean, I must seem a bit of a liability when you’re used to working with someone as qualified as your last partner. Laura, was it?’

Tim nodded. ‘Laura Green. Now Laura Halliday.’

‘Halliday? Wasn’t that the name of one of the firemen?’

Tim nodded again. ‘Jason. He and Laura got married a few months ago. She’s taking maternity leave now.’

‘Oh.’ Kathryn knew her smile was probably wistful. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Yeah.’ Tim clipped the safety belt that held the life pack in position. ‘She thinks so.’ He looked directly at Kathryn. ‘I hope I’m not giving the impression that I’m not happy to work with you. It’s actually a bit of a treat, getting a probationary officer with your qualifications. I was expecting somebody as green as grass, which can make life a bit difficult for a while.’

‘I’m still green,’ Kathryn warned. ‘As I said, it’s been years since I worked in Emergency and all the pre-hospital emergency medicine I’ve learned over the last few months is still just theory.’

‘You’ve done third crewing, though, haven’t you?’

‘It’s not the same when you’ve got people walking you through stuff. It’s a big step being out on the road as a qualified officer.’

‘You’ll learn soon enough,’ Tim assured her. His eyebrows rose as their pagers sounded simultaneously. ‘Perhaps even sooner than I thought. All set?’

‘As long as I don’t have to defibrillate someone on my first job.’ Kathryn’s smile was rather shaky as she climbed up into the passenger seat of the ambulance. Any concerns over the difficulty she was having breaking the ice with Tim fled into the same space Sean was now occupying.

Her pager informed her that this job was a P1 and it was already as nerve-racking as she had feared.

The switch to change the wail of the siren to a shorter yelp for additional warning at intersections was just above Tim’s head. He left it on yelp and added a blast on the air horn for good measure when a courier van driver decided he could scoot past the other traffic already slowing obediently to give the emergency vehicle right of way. The driver’s non-verbal sign that he wasn’t impressed with being reprimanded drew a disgusted snort from Tim and a squeak from his new partner.

‘Can you believe that guy?’

‘Believe anything if it’s a courier van,’ Tim growled. ‘Or a taxi. Or one of those little granny wagon boxes on wheels.’ He could see Kathryn’s hand shaking slightly as she tried to find the address they’d been given on the map. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said shortly. ‘I know where it is.’

His mood slipped another notch or two as he heard his tone. He should be giving Kathryn some encouragement, not making her feel as though he couldn’t be bothered with any incompetence. This was her first day on the job, for heaven’s sake, and as far as potential partners went he had probably scooped the pick of the latest intake. It would be nice to blame his uncharacteristic ill humour on the idiocy of courier van drivers but, sadly, Tim knew that he had been thrown off his usual even keel well before that.

About the time Kathryn Mercer had walked into the garage at Inglewood station this morning, in fact.

He must have looked like more of an idiot than a courier van driver with his mouth hanging open, but seeing Kathryn had been a shock to say the least. She was supposed to be firmly in the realms of fantasy now. Locked away like an attractive movie star. Perfect but totally unattainable. She wasn’t supposed to walk into his life like that. How the hell could he be expected to work with someone he shouldn’t have been thinking about in the kind of terms he had been?