‘And we’ll run a cardiac trace to check your heart,’ added Frankie.
The phone rang at the main nurses’ station and Corey left to answer it. Frankie leant forward to listen to the woman’s chest through her stethoscope. When she put the stethoscope on the area of skin below her breasts, Mrs Jepson flinched.
‘Don’t touch me there—it’s absolute agony, that!’ she gasped.
Frankie looked more closely at the area she’d just touched and frowned. ‘Did you know you’ve got a rash here…quite a distinctive rash?’
‘There wasn’t anything there yesterday.’
Frankie pulled the overhead light so that it focussed on the red weal across the woman’s chest. ‘You know, Mrs Jepson,’ she said slowly, ‘I think that this could be a clue to the mystery of your pain.’
Mrs Jepson gave a sharp intake of breath. ‘It’s my heart, isn’t it?’ she said in a quiet voice, as if bracing herself for very bad news. ‘Have you heard something odd through that instrument?’
‘Your heart and chest sounded fine—it’s what I can see that’s quite illuminating. You’ve got a band of blistery little spots across your chest, which have probably just come out. Does it feel itchy?’
‘A little. It’s painful when you touch that area, and there’s a horrible pain deep into the chest….’
The door opened behind Frankie and a deep voice said, ‘Was someone wanting a heart trace in here?’
Frankie glanced towards the tall figure who’d entered the cubicle, then her mouth dropped as she did a double-take at the tall man with rimless glasses and russet hair who stood in front of her. Was she imagining things or was it really the familiar figure of Jack Herrick?
‘My God…Jack!’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Jack stared back at Frankie, also stunned. ‘I might ask you the same thing,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were working at the infirmary…’
‘I have been for six months…You must be the new registrar that Corey told me about.’
Mrs Jepson looked from one doctor to the other, interest making her forget her discomfort for the moment.
‘You two old friends, then?’ she asked.
Jack smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Jepson. As you can see, we’re both a bit surprised to see each other. And yes, we go back quite a long way. Now, first things first—I believe you’ve been having chest pains…’
‘I’d like you to take a look at this rash, Dr Herrick,’ said Frankie, her mind still buzzing with the surprise of seeing him. ‘I’d be interested to know what you think.’
He inspected the reddened area closely for a moment, then looked across at Frankie. ‘Not much doubt about it—a good example of Herpes zoster, I would say.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Mrs Jepson.
‘I suppose you had chickenpox when you were a child?’
She looked puzzled. ‘Yes. All my brothers and sisters had it at the same time—Mum nearly went mad!’
‘Then your past has come back to haunt you, I think. The virus has been reactivated, and all the signs point to it being shingles…’
‘Shingles?’ repeated Mrs Jepson, gazing at both doctors in astonishment.
‘That’s right,’ said Frankie. ‘The pain in your body is caused by the shingles. In fact, the virus is affecting the nerve endings—that’s why it’s so sore. The rash often doesn’t appear for a few days.’
The woman lay back on the pillows. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Is that all it is?’
Frankie smiled. ‘It’s not very nice, I’m afraid, but it’s better than having a heart attack! Mind you, I still think we need to run these tests on you. We don’t want to assume that just because you’ve got shingles there aren’t any other problems.’
‘That’s one thing my Bert never thought of!’ Mrs Jepson looked rather triumphantly at Frankie and Jack, clearly pleased to have put one over on her husband. ‘I wonder what’s brought on shingles, then? I’ve not been near anyone with chickenpox…’
‘It doesn’t work that way. Often it’s because you’ve been under stress for some reason and perhaps your immune system’s been compromised—or possibly because you’ve been on steroid treatment.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Mrs Jepson gloomily. ‘I’ve had that much trouble with our son—he’s been in trouble with the police, taking drugs, joy-riding cars and I don’t know what else. I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’
Jack nodded sympathetically. ‘That sort of thing could trigger an attack. We could try you on an antiviral drug which might reduce the severity of the active stage and minimise nerve damage.’
Frankie broke open a sterile needle pack and nodded, adding, ‘In the meantime, we’ll make sure that this is the only problem you have. Dr Herrick will run a trace on your heart when I’ve taken some blood for tests.’
She wound a cuff round the patient’s arm to make it easier to find a vein. Jack watched as she completed the task and she felt his gaze on her. She wondered if he felt any embarrassment at all, bumping into her like this. Was he going to explain why he’d just vanished into thin air and had he any idea how much he’d hurt her? Not, she conceded wryly, as much as his precious brother-in-law had hurt her—but it had been damned rude to vanish without explanation. Recently men seemed to have treated her pretty badly, she reflected grimly.
Her patient’s plaintive voice brought Frankie guiltily back to the matter in hand. ‘I hope I don’t faint, Doctor—I have a horror of needles. Have you nearly finished yet? I can’t bear to look at what you’re doing.’
Frankie drew some blood into the needle and smiled reassuringly at Mrs Jepson. ‘There we go! All done now. We’ll soon get the tests back.’
Mrs Jepson lay back on the pillows and looked up at them both. ‘Thank goodness that’s over! And fancy me having shingles! I can’t wait to tell Bert.’
Frankie moved over to the shelf to pick up the phials for the blood. She brushed past Jack and flicked him a caustic glance. ‘I was led to believe you’d moved miles away from here when you left,’ she said in a low voice.
Was there slight embarrassment in his eyes when they met hers? ‘That’s true. I went down to London, but things didn’t work out quite how I hoped. However, it looks like we’ll be working together again—it’ll seem like old times,’ he commented smilingly.
Not quite like old times, thought Frankie. She’d thought that Jack and she had had a free and easy relationship before—now she couldn’t help feeling resentful at working again with a colleague who had brushed off their friendship so casually. Now another dynamic had entered the picture: she was no longer engaged to Damian. She and Jack did not have that connection any more, and perhaps it was better that way—she
