Kitabı oku: «A Date with the Ice Princess», sayfa 2

She closed her eyes, silently cursing Lewis. Deep breath. One, two, three…

The speed shocked her into opening her eyes. It felt as if she was flying. Like a bird gliding on the air currents. Totally free, the wind rushing against her face and the sun shining.

By the time she reached the platform at the end of the zip-line, she understood exactly what Lewis had meant. This felt amazing. Like nothing she’d ever experienced.

He was there to meet her. ‘OK?’ he asked, his eyes filled with concern.

She blew out a breath. ‘Yes.’

‘Sure? You didn’t look too happy when you were standing on the platform.’

‘Probably because I wanted to kill you.’

‘Uh-huh. And now?’

‘You’ll live,’ she said.

He smiled, and she felt a weird sensation in her chest, as if her heart had just done a flip. Which was totally ridiculous. Number one, it wasn’t physically possible and, number two, Lewis Gallagher wasn’t her type. He really wasn’t.

‘So you enjoyed it.’ He brushed her cheek gently with the backs of his fingers, and all her nerve-endings sat up and begged for more. ‘Good. We get three turns. Ready for another?’

She nodded, not quite trusting her voice not to wobble and not wanting him to have any idea of how much he was affecting her.

The second time, the ladder was easier, and so was standing on the platform This time she stepped off without hesitation.

The third time, she turned to Lewis and lifted her chin. She could do this every bit as well as he could. ‘After three? One, two, three.’ And she jumped, yelling, ‘Whoo-hoo!’

With her customary reserve broken, Abigail Smith was beautiful, Lewis realised. Her grey eyes were shining, her cheeks were rosy with pleasure, and he suddenly desperately wanted to haul her into his arms and kiss her.

Except she was already off into space, waving her arms and striking poses as she slid down the zip-line.

If someone had told him two days ago that the ice princess of the hospital would let herself go and enjoy herself this much, he would’ve scoffed. He’d brought her here as much to rattle her as anything else.

But he’d been hoist with his own petard, because she didn’t seem rattled at all.

Unlike him. Abigail Smith had managed to rattle him, big time.

He jumped off the platform and followed her down; he was far enough behind for her to be already taking off the safety harness when he reached the landing platform.

‘So are you going to admit it?’ he asked when he’d removed his own harness and handed it to the assistant at the bottom of the zip-line.

‘What?’

‘That you enjoyed it.’

She nodded. ‘If you’d told me earlier that this was where we were going, I would’ve made an excuse. I would’ve paid back your money and given the same amount to the hospital, so nobody lost out.’

‘But you would’ve lost out.’ He held her gaze. ‘And I don’t mean just the money.’

‘Yes. You’re right.’

He liked the fact that she could admit it when she was wrong. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you.’

‘Thank you for bringing me here. I never would’ve thought I’d enjoy something like this. But—yes, it was fun.’

Oh, help. She had dimples when she smiled. Who would’ve thought that the serious, keep-herself-to-herself doctor would be this gorgeous when her reserve was down? He hadn’t expected her to be anything like this. And he was horribly aware that Abigail Smith could really get under his skin.

‘Let’s go exploring,’ he said. He needed to move, distract himself from her before he said something stupid. Or did something worse—like giving in to the temptation to lean over and kiss her.

CHAPTER TWO

ABIGAIL AND LEWIS spent the next couple of hours exploring every activity at the centre, including the almost vertical slides and the climbing wall. Abigail didn’t even seem to mind when they got a bit wet on the water chute, though Lewis’s pulse spiked as he imagined how she’d look with her skin still damp from showering with him.

‘Penny for them?’ she asked.

No way. If he told her, she’d either slap his face or go silent on him, and he wanted to get to know more of this playful side of her. ‘Time for lunch,’ he said instead.

‘Only on condition you let me pay. Because you’ve paid for everything else today.’

‘And you don’t like being beholden.’

‘Exactly.’

Someone had hurt her, he thought. Broken her trust. Maybe that was why she kept herself to herself so much: to protect herself from being hurt again. ‘Then thank you. I would love you to buy me lunch.’

She looked faintly surprised, as if she’d expected him to argue, and then looked relieved.

‘There really aren’t any strings to today, Abby,’ he said softly. ‘This is all about having fun.’

‘And I am having fun.’

Although her smile was a little bit too bright. What was she hiding?

There was no point in asking; he knew she didn’t trust him enough to tell him and she’d make up some anodyne excuse or change the subject. So he simply smiled back and led her to the cafeteria.

‘What would you like?’ she asked.

He glanced at the board behind the counter. ‘A burger, chips and a cola, please.’

‘Junk food. Tut. And you a health professional,’ she teased.

‘Hey, I’m burning every bit of it off,’ he protested.

She smiled. ‘Go and find us a table and I’ll queue up.’

When she joined him at the table with a tray of food, Lewis noticed that she’d chosen a jacket potato with salad and cottage cheese, and a bottle of mineral water. ‘Super-healthy. Now I feel guilty for eating junk.’

She looked anxious. ‘I was only teasing you.’

‘Yeah. I was teasing, too.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Thank you. That looks good.’

He kept the conversation light during lunch, and then they went back to exploring the park.

‘Do you want to do the zip-line again?’ he asked.

‘Can we?’

‘Sure.’

And, as well as his usual adrenalin rush, Lewis got an extra kick from the fact that she was so clearly enjoying something they’d both thought was well outside her comfort zone.

‘Thank you. I’ve had a really nice time,’ she said when they got back to his car.

‘The date’s not over yet.’

She blinked. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘I thought we could have dinner,’ he said.

She looked down at her jeans and her T-shirt. ‘I’m not really dressed for dinner.’

‘You’re fine as you are. I don’t have a dress code.’

She frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not quite with you.’

‘I’m cooking for us. At my place,’ he explained.

This time, she laughed. ‘You’re cooking?’

He shrugged. ‘I can cook.’

She smiled. ‘I bet you only learned to impress your girlfriends at university.’

No. He’d learned because he’d had to, when he’d been fourteen. Because the only way he and his little sisters would’ve had anything to eat had been if he’d cooked it. Not that he had any intention of telling Abigail about that. ‘Something like that,’ he said lightly, and drove them back to his flat.

‘Can we stop at an off-licence or something so I can get a bottle of wine as my contribution to dinner?’ she asked on the way.

‘There’s no need. I have wine.’

‘But I haven’t contributed anything.’

‘You have. You bought me lunch.’

‘This was supposed to be my date,’ she reminded him.

‘Tough. I hijacked it, and we’re on my rules now,’ he said with a smile. ‘Just chill, and we’ll have dinner.’

Something smelled good, Abigail thought when Lewis let her inside his flat. Clearly he’d planned this, and it wasn’t the frozen pizza she’d been half expecting him to produce for dinner.

‘It’ll take five minutes for me to sort the vegetables. The bathroom’s through there if you need it,’ he said, indicating a door.

She washed her hands and splashed a little water on her face, then stared at herself in the mirror. She looked a total mess and her hair was all over the place, despite the fact she’d tied it back, and she didn’t have a comb with her so it’d just have to stay looking like a bird’s nest. Then again, this wasn’t a date date so it really didn’t matter how she looked, did it?

When she emerged from the bathroom, she could hear the clatter of crockery in the kitchen. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ she called.

‘No, just take a seat,’ he called back.

There was a bistro table in the living room with two chairs. The table was set nicely; he’d clearly made an effort.

There was an array of photographs on the mantelpiece, and she couldn’t resist going over for a closer look. At first glance, Abigail wasn’t surprised that most of them seemed to involve Lewis with his arm round someone female. One of them showed him holding a baby in a white christening gown.

His baby? Surely not. If Lewis had a child, he would’ve mentioned it.

But then she saw a wedding photograph with three women and Lewis. When she studied it, she could see the family likenesses: the bridesmaids were clearly the bride’s sisters. And the same women were in all the photographs. One of them had the same eyes as Lewis; one had his smile; all had his dark hair.

Which meant they had to be Lewis’s sisters. She guessed that the baby belonged to one of them, and Lewis was a doting uncle-cum-godfather.

He came through to the living room, carrying two plates. ‘OK?’ he asked.

‘Just admiring your photographs—your sisters, I presume?’

‘And my niece.’ He nodded. ‘My best girls.’

She’d already worked out that he was close to his family. What would it be like to have a sibling who’d always be there for you, someone you could ring at stupid o’clock in the morning when the doubts hit and you wondered what the hell you were doing? Being an only child, she’d got used to dealing with everything on her own.

‘They look nice,’ she offered.

‘They are. Most of the time. You know what it’s like.’

No, she didn’t. ‘Yes,’ she fibbed.

‘Come and sit down.’

He put the plate down in front of her, and she felt her eyes widen. Oh, no. She should’ve said something. Right back when he’d first told her they were having dinner here. But she’d simply assumed that by ‘cooking’ he’d meant just throwing a frozen cheese and tomato pizza into the oven, and then she’d been distracted by the photographs.

Dinner was presented beautifully, right down to the garnish of chopped fresh herbs.

But no way could she eat it.

Maybe if she ate just the inside of the jacket potato, then hid the chicken stew under the skin?

He clearly noticed her hesitation. ‘Oh, hell. I didn’t think to ask. And, given what you had for lunch…’ He frowned, and she could see the second he made the connection. ‘You’re vegetarian, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ She swallowed hard. ‘But don’t worry about it. You’ve gone to so much trouble. If you don’t mind, I’ll just eat the jacket potato and the veg.’

‘A casserole isn’t much trouble. And I’m not going to make you pick at your food. Give me ten minutes.’ Before she had a chance to protest, he’d whisked her plate away.

She followed him into the kitchen. ‘Lewis, really—you don’t have to go to any more trouble. Honestly. It’s my fault. I should’ve said something before. Leave it. I’ll just get a taxi home.’

‘You will not,’ he said crisply. ‘I promised you dinner, and dinner you shall have. Are you OK with pasta?’

‘I…’

‘Yes or no, Abby?’ His tone was absolutely implacable.

And, after all the adrenalin of their day at the adventure centre, she was hungry. She gave in. ‘Yes.’

‘And spinach?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I know you’re OK with dairy, or you wouldn’t have eaten cottage cheese. But I’ve already made enough wrong assumptions today, so I’m going to check. Are you OK with garlic and mascarpone?’

‘Love them,’ she said, squirming and feeling as if she was making a total fuss.

‘Good. Dinner will be ten minutes. Go and pour yourself a glass of wine.’ He was already heating oil in a pan, then squashed a clove of garlic and chopped an onion faster than she’d ever seen it done before.

So much for thinking he’d exaggerated his cooking skills. Lewis Gallagher actually knew his way around a kitchen. And he hadn’t been trying to impress her—he was trying to be hospitable. Bossing her around in exactly the way he probably bossed his kid sisters around.

She went back into his living room, poured herself a glass of wine and then poured a second glass for him before returning to the kitchen with the glasses. ‘I, um, thought you might like this.’

‘Thank you. I would.’ He smiled at her.

The spinach was wilting into the onions and the kettle was boiling, ready for the pasta. ‘Sorry, I’m out of flour, or I’d make us some flatbread to go with it.’

And she’d just bet he made his bread by hand, not with a machine. Lewis Gallagher was turning out to be so much more domesticated than she’d thought. And the fact he’d noticed that she couldn’t eat the food and guessed why… There was more to him than just the shallow party boy. Much more.

Which made him dangerous to her peace of mind.

She should back away, right now.

But then he started talking to her about food and bread, putting her at her ease, and she found herself relaxing with him. Ten minutes later, she carried her own plate through to the living room: pasta with a simple garlic, spinach and mascarpone sauce.

‘This is really good,’ she said after the first mouthful. ‘Thank you.’

He inclined his head. ‘I’m only sorry that I didn’t ask you earlier if you were veggie. Dani would have my hide for that.’

‘Dani?’

‘The oldest of my girls. She’s vegetarian.’

Which explained why he’d been able to whip up something without a fuss. And not pasta with the usual jar of tomato sauce with a handful of grated cheese dumped onto it, which in her experience most people seemed to think passed for good vegetarian food.

‘So your sisters are all younger than you?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘Dani’s an actuary, Manda’s a drama teacher, and Ronnie—short for Veronica—is a librarian.’

‘Do they all live in London?’

‘Dani does. Ronnie’s in Manchester and Manda’s in Cambridge. Which I guess is near enough to London for me to see her and Louise reasonably often.’

‘Louise being the baby?’ she guessed.

‘My niece. Goddaughter.’ He grinned. ‘Manda named her after me, though I hope Louise is a bit better behaved than I am when she grows up.’

Abigail smiled back at him. ‘Since you’re the oldest, I’m surprised none of them were tempted to follow you into medicine.’

It wasn’t that surprising. Lewis had been the one to follow them to university. Because how could he have just gone off at eighteen to follow his own dreams, leaving the girls to deal with their mother and fend for themselves? So he’d stayed. He’d waited until Ronnie was eighteen and ready to fly the nest, before applying to read medicine and explaining at the interview why his so-called gap year had actually lasted for six.

‘No,’ he said lightly. ‘What about you? Brothers or sisters?’

She looked away. ‘Neither. Just me.’

‘That explains the ice princess. Daddy’s girl,’ he said.

Daddy’s girl.

Did he know?

Had he made the connection with ‘Cinnamon Baby’, the little girl with ringlets who’d been the paparazzi’s darling, smiling for the cameras on her father’s shoulders? She really hoped not. Abigail didn’t use her first name any more, and it had been years since the paparazzi had followed her about. Even so, the times when her identity had been leaked in the past had made her paranoid about it happening again.

And there was no guile in Lewis’s face. Abigail had already leaped to a few wrong conclusions about him, and she knew she wasn’t being fair to him.

‘I suppose I am, a bit,’ she said.

‘Is your dad a doctor?’ he asked.

‘No. What about your parents?’

He shook his head, and for a moment she was sure she saw sadness in his eyes, though when she blinked it had gone. Maybe she’d imagined it.

Pudding turned out to be strawberries and very posh vanilla ice cream.

‘Do I take it you make your own ice cream?’ Abigail asked.

Lewis laughed. ‘No. There’s an Italian deli around the corner that sells the nicest ice cream in the world, so there’s no need to make my own—though I would love an ice-cream maker.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘But my girls say I already have far too many gadgets.’

‘Boys and their toys,’ she said lightly.

‘Cooking relaxes me.’ He grinned. ‘But I admit I like gadgets as well. As long as they’re useful, otherwise they’re just clutter and a waste of space.’

Abigail glanced at her watch and was surprised to discover how late it was. ‘I’d better get that taxi.’

‘Absolutely not. I’m driving you home. And I only had one glass of wine, so I’m under the limit.’

It was easier not to protest. Though, with the roof up, his car seemed much more intimate. Just the two of them in an enclosed space.

He insisted on seeing her to her door.

‘Would you like to come in for coffee?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘You’re on an early shift tomorrow, so it wouldn’t be fair. But thank you for the offer.’

‘Thank you for today, Lewis. I really enjoyed it.’

‘Me, too,’ he said.

And this was where she unlocked the door, closed it behind her and ended everything.

Except her mouth had other ideas.

‘Um, those concert tickets I bid for at the fundraiser. It’s on Friday night. It probably isn’t your thing, but if you’d like to, um, go with me, you’re very welcome.’

He looked at her and gave her a slow smile that made her toes curl. ‘Thank you. I’d like that very much.’

‘Not as a date,’ she added hastily, ‘just because I have a spare ticket.’ She didn’t want him thinking she was chasing him. Because she wasn’t.

Was she?

Right at that moment, she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. Lewis Gallagher rattled her composure, big time. And, if she was honest with herself, she’d been lonely since she’d started her new job. Lewis was the first of her colleagues who’d really made an effort with her, and part of her wanted to make the effort back.

‘As friends,’ he said. ‘That works for me. See you tomorrow, Abby.’ He touched her cheek briefly with the backs of his fingers. ‘Sleep well.’

Despite the fresh air and the exercise, Abigail didn’t think she would—because her skin was tingling where Lewis had touched her. And the knowledge that he could affect her like that totally threw her. ‘You, too. Goodnight,’ she mumbled, and fled into the safety of her flat.

CHAPTER THREE

‘JUST THE PERSON I wanted to see.’ Marina Fenton smiled at Abigail. ‘Are you free for lunch today?’

It was the last thing Abigail had expected. She normally had lunch on her own and hid behind a journal so nobody joined her or started a conversation with her. ‘I, um…’ Oh, help. Why was she so socially awkward? She was fine with her dad’s crowd; then again, they’d known her for her entire life. It was just new people she wasn’t so good with. And, growing up in an all-male environment, she’d never quite learned the knack of making friends with women. She didn’t have a clue about girl talk. ‘Well, patients permitting, I guess so,’ she said cautiously.

‘Good. I’ll see you in the kitchen at twelve, and we can walk to the canteen together.’

‘OK.’ Feeling a bit like a rabbit in the headlights, Abigail took refuge in the triage notes for her next patient.

At twelve, she headed for the staff kitchen. Marina was waiting for her there, as promised, but so was Sydney Ranieri, which Abigail hadn’t expected.

‘I know I’m officially off duty today, but Marina said she was having lunch with you and I thought it’d be nice to join you both—if you don’t mind, that is?’ Sydney asked.

‘I, um—no, of course not.’ But it threw her. Why would the two other doctors want to have lunch with her?

‘By the way, lunch is on us,’ Marina said, ushering her out of the department and towards the hospital canteen. ‘Because we’ve been feeling immensely guilty about the weekend.’

Oh. So that was what this was all about. Guilt. Well, she’d never been much good at making friends. Stupid to think that might change with a different hospital. Abigail shook her head. ‘There’s no need, on either count. I was happy to help with the fundraising. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.’

‘So it went well, then, your date with Lewis?’ Sydney asked.

Yes and no. Except it hadn’t really been a date. And it wouldn’t be fair to Lewis to discuss it. ‘It was OK.’

‘OK?’ Sydney and Marina shared a glance. ‘Women never say that about a date with Lewis.’

Abigail spread her hands. ‘He took me zip-lining.’

‘Ah.’ There was a wealth of understanding in Sydney’s voice. ‘That’s the thing about the male doctors in this department. They all seem to like doing mad things. Marina’s husband organised a sponsored abseil down the hospital tower. All two hundred and fifty feet of it.’ She shuddered. ‘And somehow he persuaded the whole department into doing it.’

‘Mmm, I can imagine that,’ Abigail said dryly. Max had persuaded her to do something well outside her comfort zone, too.

‘But it had its good points. I met Marco because I got stuck,’ Sydney said. ‘Faced with the reality of walking backwards into nothing, I just froze.’ She grimaced. ‘Marco sang me down.’

‘He sang you down?’ Abigail couldn’t help being intrigued. ‘How?’

‘He got me to sing with him, to distract me from the fact that I was on the edge of this huge tower, and then he talked me through every step. I was still shaking at the bottom of the tower when he abseiled down next to me.’ Sydney rolled her eyes. ‘And when he landed, it was as if he’d done nothing scarier than walking along the pavement towards me.’

‘That sounds exactly like the sort of thing Lewis would do,’ Abigail said.

‘He wasn’t with the department then, or he probably would have done.’ Marina smiled, but her eyes held a trace of anxiety. ‘Was it really that awful?’

‘The first time I had to step off that platform, with nothing but a bit of webbing and a rope between me and a huge drop, I wanted to kill him,’ Abigail admitted, and they all laughed. ‘But then—once I’d actually done it, it was fun. The second time round was a lot better.’

‘Good.’ Marina rested her hand briefly on Abigail’s arm. ‘I’ve been feeling terrible all weekend, thinking that we pushed you into offering that date. I had no idea that Lewis was going to bid for you.’

‘Neither did I,’ Abigail said dryly.

‘He’s a nice guy,’ Sydney said. ‘As a colleague, he’s totally reliable at work and he’s good company on team nights out. But, um, maybe I should warn you that when it comes to his personal life, he doesn’t do commitment.’

‘Three dates and you’re out. So I heard,’ Abigail said. Though she knew that Lewis did do commitment, at least where his family was concerned. He was really close to his sisters and his niece. Though, now she thought of it, he hadn’t had any pictures of his parents on display in his flat. Which was odd.

And why would someone who was close to his family be so wary of risking his heart? Had someone broken it, years ago?

Though it was none of her business.

They were just colleagues. Possibly starting to become friends. Though she wasn’t going to tell Marina and Sydney that they were going to the concert together later in the week. She didn’t want them to get the wrong idea.

Once they’d queued up at the counter and bought their lunch, they found a quiet table in the canteen.

‘So are you going to see Lewis again?’ Marina asked.

‘Considering that we work in the same department, I’d say there’s a good chance of seeing him in Resus or what have you, depending on the roster,’ Abigail said lightly.

‘That isn’t what I meant.’

Abigail smiled. ‘I know. But we’re colleagues, Marina. He only bid for that date because—well, he said he was trying to persuade me to do more things with the team.’

‘Helping you settle in. Fixing things.’ Sydney looked thoughtful. ‘Actually, Lewis is like that. He sees something that maybe could work better if it was done differently, and he fixes it.’ She smiled. ‘Well, I guess that’s why we all chose this career. We’re fixers.’

‘Definitely,’ Abigail said, and was relieved when the discussion turned away from Lewis. By the end of the lunch break she found herself really enjoying the company of the other two doctors. They weren’t like the mean girls who’d made her life a misery at school. They were nice.

‘I’d better get back,’ she said when she’d finished her coffee.

‘Me, too,’ Marina said. She winked at Sydney. ‘It’s all right for you part-timers.’

Sydney just laughed. ‘It’s fun being a lady who lunches. Well, at least part time. I’d never give up work totally because I’d miss it too much. I’ve enjoyed today. Let’s make it a regular thing,’ she suggested. ‘I work Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Which of those days is best for you, Abby?’

The same diminutive Lewis had used. Something that had never happened in previous hospitals—she’d always been Dr Smith or Abigail. But here at the London Victoria it was different. There was much more of a sense of the department members being a team. Being friends outside work. And Marina and Sydney were offering her precisely that: friendship. For her own sake, rather than because she was Keith Brydon’s daughter—as people had in the past whenever her identity had leaked out.

For once in her life Abigail was actually fitting in. It felt weird; but it felt good. And she didn’t want that feeling to stop.

‘How about Wednesdays?’ Abigail asked.

‘Excellent. Wednesday at twelve it is, patients permitting—and if one of us is held up, the others will save a space at the table,’ Marina said with a smile. ‘It’s a date.’

Abigail didn’t see Lewis all day, even in passing. She’d been rostered in Minors for her shift and according to the departmental whiteboard he was in Resus. She wasn’t sure if she was more relieved that she didn’t have to face him or disappointed that she hadn’t seen him. And it annoyed her that she felt so mixed up about the situation. She’d worked hard and she’d been happy to make the sacrifices in her personal life to get where she wanted to be in her professional life. So why, why, why was she even thinking about dating a man who had commitment issues and wasn’t her type?

She was still brooding about it the next day. Though then it started to get busy in the department.

She picked up her next set of triage notes. Headache and temperature. Normally patients with a simple virus would be treated by the triage nurse and sent home with painkillers and advice. But this wasn’t just a simple case, from the look of the notes: the nurse had written ‘Query opiates’ at the bottom of the page. So the headache and temperature could be part of a reaction to whatever drug the patient had taken.

‘Eddie McRae?’ she called.

An ashen-faced man walked up the corridor, supported by another man.

She introduced herself swiftly. ‘So you have a headache and temperature, Mr McRae?’

‘Eddie,’ he muttered. ‘I feel terrible.’

‘Have you been in contact with anyone who has a virus?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so.’

So it could be withdrawal or a bad reaction to the drugs he’d taken. His breathing was fast, she noticed. ‘Can I take your pulse?’

‘Sure.’

His pulse was also fast, so Eddie could well be suffering from sepsis.

‘Have you taken anything?’ she asked gently.

This time Eddie didn’t say a word, and she had a pretty good idea why. ‘I’m not going to lecture you or call the police,’ she reassured him. ‘My job’s to help you feel better than you do right now. And the more information you give me, the easier it’s going to be for me to get it right first time.’

‘He took something Saturday night,’ his friend said. ‘He’s been ill today, with a headache and temperature.’

‘So it could be a reaction to what you took. Did you swallow it?’

Eddie shook his head and grimaced in pain.

‘Injected?’ At his slight nod, she said, ‘Can I see where?’

He shrugged off his cardigan. There were track marks on his arm, as she’d expected, but the redness and swelling definitely weren’t what she’d expected.

‘Eddie, I really need to know what you took,’ she said gently.

‘Heroin,’ his friend said.

‘OK.’ She knew that the withdrawal symptoms from heroin usually peaked forty-eight to seventy-two hours after the last dose, but this didn’t seem like the withdrawal cases she’d seen in the past.

‘Are you sleeping OK, Eddie?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you have any pain, other than your head?’

He nodded. ‘My stomach.’

‘Have you been sick or had diarrhoea?’

He grimaced. ‘No.’

Abigail had a funny feeling about this. Although she hadn’t actually seen a case at her last hospital, there had been a departmental circular about heroin users suffering from anthrax after using contaminated supplies, and an alarm bell was ringing at the back of her head. There was no sign of black eschar, the dead tissue cast off from the surface of the skin, which was one of the big giveaways with anthrax, but she had a really strong feeling about this. Right now she could do with some advice from a more senior colleague.

‘I’m going to leave you in here for a second, if that’s OK,’ she said. ‘I have a hunch I know what’s wrong, but there’s something I want to check with a colleague, and then I think we’ll be able to do something to help you.’

‘Just make the pain stop. Please,’ Eddie said.

She stepped out of the cubicle and pulled the curtain closed behind her. With any luck Max or Marco would be free—in this case, she needed a second opinion from a consultant.

But the first person she saw was Lewis.

‘OK, Abby?’ he asked. ‘You look a bit worried.’

‘I need a second opinion on a patient. Is Max or Marco around?’