Charlotte found invaluable in her dealings with people in traumatic situations, she could sense that there was something important her grandmother was keeping to herself.
‘I might not like hearing it,’ Lady Geraldine continued, ‘and I might not understand it, but it won’t stop me wanting the chance to be proud of my granddaughter. Who knows? It might be the only chance I ever get.’
Yes. There was a shadow there in her grandmother’s eyes. Eyes that usually sparkled with the determination to squeeze the best that life had to offer out of every opportunity. What was going on?
Charlotte knew she was staring. She also knew that her grandmother could read her like a book.
‘We’ll talk later,’ Lady Geraldine said crisply. ‘What we have to do now is get you tidied up. Thankfully, I have spare hosiery in my bag. And a hairbrush. Come on, Charlotte. Where’s the nearest bathroom? There’s no time to waste. You don’t want to keep all these important people waiting, do you?’
‘But…’
There was a plea on Richard’s face now. ‘You don’t have to give the presentation you prepared,’ he said quietly. ‘I have every confidence that you can think of something to say that would be an appropriate way to open this symposium. Could you do that, Charlotte? Please?’
The space between that rock and hard place suddenly got so small that it squeezed the breath out of Charlotte’s lungs. She couldn’t think. Maybe because she had no choice.
‘I’ll do my best.’
So it was that Charlotte found herself looking almost presentable again fifteen minutes later, standing in front of a room full of people who sat at a huge, U-shaped table. Some wore headphones to receive the translation service. Most had laptops or tablets on the table in front of them, along with pads of paper, pens, pitchers of iced water and even bowls of mints.
Charlotte had nothing other than a microphone clipped to the lapel of her jacket. From the way her heart was pounding and how exposed She felt, she could have been standing here stark naked.
She tried to smile at the group but failed. She did, however, manage to introduce herself and apologise for the delay in starting.
‘I’m sure you’ve all heard by now of the reason why I was delayed and you, more than most, will understand that emergencies happen.’
Oh, help. Charlotte could hear the sound of her own voice, magnified by the loudspeaker system. Where was the calm, professional tone she always used in public?
What would her grandmother think of this? The niggling worry that there was something wrong that her grandmother wasn’t telling her couldn’t be allowed to surface until this was all over but it was impossible not to have a flash of shame that the pride her only living relative had taken in her achievements was going to be dented.
‘Ah…’ Charlotte stared at the group, totally at a loss for what she could say next. Please, God, let the ground open and swallow me up, she thought.
The ground didn’t open but the door of the conference room did, to admit a latecomer. Everybody’s head turned at the interruption but Charlotte’s gaze had got there first and now it was stuck.
The worst moment of her life had just taken a dive to a new low.
How on earth could Nicholas Moretti have the nerve to show up here, knowing he’d ruined her preparation for this talk? He’d already revealed his disbelief that she was who she said she was. Did he now want to see if she was going to make a fool of herself and confirm that disbelief?
He was about to get what he came for, then, wasn’t he?
Nico gave a very European hand gesture, apologising for his interruption as he took the empty space at the table. His body language conveyed complete confidence that he had the right to be here, though. That he was, in fact, eager to take part in the proceedings. And then his gaze locked with Charlotte’s and that weird spinning sensation in her gut seemed to catch fire.
Anger?
Quite possibly.
Charlotte Highton wasn’t about to let the actions of a man even threaten to destroy her.
Not again.
She took a deep breath, jerking her gaze away from Nico and vowing not to let it return to that section of the table until she was finished. In a way, he’d done her a favour. His entrance had covered her stumble and now she was fired up. Whether it was from anger or desperation was immaterial.
‘Some of you might be asking whether I should have let myself become involved in that emergency situation, especially when the result has deprived you of the audiovisual accompaniment you were supposed to have this morning.’
A ripple of sympathy went through the gathering.
‘It’s a fair question,’ Charlotte continued. ‘How far should any of us go in getting involved? How far should we go as emergency medicine specialists? Out in the field or in our own departments?’
Her words were clear and her tone as professional as ever now. Everybody was listening. Looking at her. She could feel one gaze in particular so strongly that she knew exactly who it was coming from. Good. Let him watch and listen. Let him see who Charlotte Highton was now.
‘We can do so many things that can be done in an operating theatre in our emergency departments or out in the field. Burr-holes, tracheotomies, amputations, thoracotamies, Caesareans.’ Charlotte paused for effect. ‘Extreme measures in desperate circumstances. How many are justified? Does the weight of evidence suggest we’re performing miracles? Or guilty of performing mutilations?’
Another pause. This was the moment that would make or break this talk.
‘I had a presentation that was full of statistics about these kinds of extreme procedures and graphics to show you the controversial relationship between patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Obviously it’s not possible to do those facts and figures justice from memory, so instead…’ The solution to this problem came to her in a flash of inspiration. ‘I’m going to present a case history.’
Nico sat back in his chair.
He could feel the surprise of the people around him. What was this? They were all intelligent people who were hungry for new knowledge. They wanted to be presented with the results of cutting-edge research that they could use to improve what they did for a career. But they were going to be told a story?
‘The man I’ll call Bernie was forty-three years old,’ Charlotte was saying. ‘He went to the corner shop very late one night, because his pregnant wife had a craving for chocolate ripple ice cream. The timing was unfortunate. The shop was held up and Bernie got stabbed. A small knife with a short blade was buried to its hilt in his chest, deflected by the sixth rib, maybe five or six inches to the left from the midline.’
Nico could sense the interest picking up around him. The injury had been dangerously close to the man’s heart.
‘The ambulance crew knew not to remove an impaled object. Bernie’s still conscious when they arrive but his blood pressure’s dropping. Fortunately, this corner shop is only about two minutes’ drive from St Margaret’s hospital. They put a doughnut dressing around the knife to stabilise it,
