are you doing here? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You know you shouldn’t wander off. Your mum is worried about you.’
‘Is she?’ Nicky asked, with the innocence of childhood. ‘Why is she worried?’
The girl gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Your dad is poorly. Your mother has better things to do than chase after you. You had better come with me.’
‘My dad’s not poorly,’ Nicky said with a frown. ‘He’s having a picnic.’
‘Well, he’s poorly now, and your mum has enough to think about without worrying about where you are.’ The girl took hold of Nicky’s hand, and turned to look at Megan. ‘I don’t suppose you have a phone that we could use, do you? My auntie’s panicking a bit. She tried to call for an ambulance, but the battery’s gone on her phone.’
‘Actually, I’m a doctor,’ Megan said, immediately alert. ‘Maybe I could help in some way. Do you want me to come and see what’s wrong? Is it your uncle who’s ill?’
‘Yes, it is. It would be great if you wouldn’t mind coming along to help us.’ The girl sounded relieved. ‘We thought he was choking, because he couldn’t get his words out properly, and then my aunt thought he’d had a stroke, because his mouth went all strange. She didn’t know what to do.’
Megan felt sure that if the man’s condition was bad enough to stop the woman coming to find her child, it was probably important enough to merit attention. She was already starting to walk back along the footpath the way she had come.
She sent a swift look in the artist’s direction, wondering whether he might decide to come and help out, but he wasn’t moving. His expression was watchful and at the same time guarded, an odd kind of what might be world-weariness shadowing his features. He was probably ruing the way his tranquil afternoon had been disturbed, but Megan couldn’t find it in her to care either way. His attitude still annoyed her.
Nicky skipped along beside his cousin, unconcerned by all the palaver, and she was glad that at least one little mystery had been cleared up.
In a meadow nearby the child’s father was lying on the grass in the shade of the hedgerow. His distressed wife was loosening his shirt around the collar, but she looked up as Megan and the girl approached.
‘Oh, thank goodness…you found him, Chloe,’ she said, sending the girl a relieved look. ‘I was so distracted. I just didn’t see him wander off.’
She broke off, obviously too concerned about her husband to say any more on that score.
‘He hadn’t gone far, Auntie Alice.’
The woman swallowed hard. ‘Thanks for bringing him back. Will you keep an eye on him for me?’ Chloe nodded, and Alice turned back to her husband. ‘William,’ she said in agitation, ‘you have to tell me what’s wrong. Is it the lager that you were drinking? Did it go down the wrong way? Has it upset your stomach? You need to try to tell me what’s happening. It can’t be the food—you haven’t eaten anything.’
William mumbled something incoherent, and Megan knelt down beside him. ‘Chloe told me your husband wasn’t feeling well,’ she told Alice. ‘I’m a doctor. Is it all right if I take a look at him?’
Alice gave a relieved gulp. ‘Would you? Oh, please do. I’d be so glad if you could do anything to help. He keeps writhing about, as if he’s in pain. He hasn’t been well for a while before this, but we thought it was just general aches and pains. We were hoping that an afternoon out would help to make him feel better. I’ve never seen him like this before.’
‘OK.’ Megan looked to see if William was responsive. ‘Hello, William. I’m Dr Rees,’ she told him, and his mouth moved but no sound came out. She set about checking his pulse. ‘His heart rate is very rapid,’ she said, looking up at Alice. ‘I really need to go and get my medical bag. It’s in my car, back at the pub, along with my phone. It won’t take me more than a few minutes.’
As she started to move away, she saw that the man from the canal bank had ventured over, presumably to see what was going on.
‘He doesn’t look too good, does he?’ he said, shooting a glance over to where Nicky’s father was lying. ‘I’ll call for an ambulance.’
‘Thanks,’ she murmured. ‘That would be a great help.’ A glance showed her that he had left his painting materials behind, and that seemed incongruous to her. The boy’s flirtation with danger had not been enough to make him leave his painting, but the notion that an adult was in difficulty had clearly caught his attention.
Or perhaps he was right, and she was the one who had things the wrong way about. Maybe she was too tense for her own good. Either way, his comments still rankled and, whatever the reality of the situation, she quickly dismissed him from her mind.
She was back at William’s side just a short time later.
‘I’m going to give him oxygen,’ she told Alice. ‘It should help him to breathe a little more easily, but I need you to assist me, if you would.’ She worked quickly, placing the breathing mask over William’s nose and mouth and securing it in place. ‘Do you think you could hold this oxygen bag and keep squeezing it for me like this?’
‘Yes, I can do that.’
‘Good.’ Megan began to wrap a blood-pressure cuff around William’s arm.
‘What’s the matter with my daddy?’
Megan looked up to see that Nicky was anxiously watching what was happening.
‘He’s not feeling very well, Nicky,’ she said. ‘We need to send him to hospital so that the doctors can make him more comfortable.’
Nicky stuck his thumb in his mouth, his eyes wide and troubled. Megan looked up at Chloe. ‘I wonder if you could take him to look at the ducks?’ she suggested softly. ‘This is perhaps a little too upsetting for him.’
The girl nodded, and Megan tacked on, ‘Just keep an eye on him and see to it that he doesn’t go too close to the water.’
‘I will.’ Chloe took off with Nicky in the direction of the canal wharf. ‘Come on, squirt,’ she said. ‘We’ll see how many ducklings we can find.’
‘Do you have any idea what might be wrong with my husband?’ the woman asked.
‘Not yet,’ Megan answered. ‘They’ll have to do tests at the hospital, and possibly a scan.’ She was concerned about the way his muscles were twitching, and as she watched him his body began to jerk uncontrollably. ‘Does he have any history of epilepsy?’
The woman shook her head. ‘No. The only thing he ever mentioned is a sort of cramping pain from time to time.’
‘Show me where it was that he had the pain,’ Megan said, and the man’s wife showed her an area around his kidneys.
‘Is that any help to you?’ the woman asked.
‘Possibly, but we won’t know anything for sure until he’s undergone thorough tests.’ Megan frowned. ‘His blood pressure is very high. Has he had problems with that before?’
‘Not that I am aware
