him to take Guy home. Then she walked back to her own flat, made herself a strong cup of coffee and sifted through her post. Junk mail, more junk mail, a bank statement and a postcard from Sandy in Tokyo.
Sometimes she wished she’d had the nerve to do what her friend Sandy had done and taken a year out to travel. She could have rented her flat out for a year and gone round the world with Sandy. Had adventures. But, no, she’d been too staid and sensible. Surgical jobs weren’t as easy to come by as emergency department jobs, so she’d declined Sandy’s offer.
Did that make her boring? Maybe. But she’d worked hard to get as far as she had. Taking a year out would have set her back too much. She’d done the right thing.
Her mum had also popped round, found Sophie was out and had scribbled a note on the front cover of her favourite gossip magazine. Missed you. Call me. Sophie grinned. Typical. She’d even written her duty on her mother’s kitchen calendar, so her mum would know know exactly when Sophie was likely to be at home—and Fran completely ignored it. Scatty didn’t even begin to describe her. And Sophie adored her for it.
Idly, she sipped her coffee and flicked through the magazine. She really didn’t understand what her mum saw in this kind of stuff. Who cared where celebs went or what their houses looked like?
Then a name leapt out at her.
Charlie, Baron Radley.
She stared at the photograph. He was dressed up to the nines—expensive dinner jacket, dress shirt, bow-tie. Tall, dark and handsome—and he looked as if he knew it, too. A woman in a little black dress—a dress she must have been poured into, and she was dripping in diamonds as well—was hanging off his arm. Her blonde hair was cut fashionably, her make-up was flawless and they really looked like the ultimate ‘golden couple’.
The caption beneath, gushing about his fabulous wealth and his partner’s equally fabulous modelling successes, didn’t make Sophie feel any better about it. If anything, it convinced her even more that the board had made a terrible mistake. This man—one of the jet set, who went to all the best parties, probably only ever drank champagne and, for all she knew, might join the rest of his crowd in snorting the odd line of coke—was going to be the new director of surgery at the Hampstead General.
‘This,’ she predicted grimly, ‘is going to end in tears.’
‘SAMMY and I can’t wait any longer,’ Sophie said. ‘We’ve got a patient prepped for Theatre and a huge list to get through.’ It was all very well R.C. Baron Radley wanting to meet the team—but, if he couldn’t even be bothered to turn up on time, why should their patients have to suffer?
‘Sophie, don’t you think you ought to give him another five minutes?’ Abby said. ‘I mean, Andy’s off duty so you’re the most senior one here from your firm. He’s probably with one of the big cheeses—you know what they’re like when they start talking. Give him five more minutes.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘My patients come first. And if that gives me a black mark in Baron Radley’s book, tough.’ She curled her lip. ‘I’m a doctor, not a serf who needs to bow down to the nobility.’
Guy whistled. ‘Wow, Soph, I never knew you were so against titles.’
‘I just don’t see why an accident of birth makes one person “better”…’ she emphasised the speech marks with two curled fingers on each hand ‘…than another. I’ll just have to catch up with His Lordship later.’
‘We’ll give your apologies to him, Soph,’ Abby said.
‘I think,’ Sophie said crisply, ‘he should be the one apologising to us—and to our patients—for wasting time. See you later. Sammy, let’s go scrub up.’ Together with her house officer, she left the staffroom and headed for Theatre.
Something didn’t look right, Charlie thought. The kid posting something through the neighbour’s letterbox didn’t have a bike with him or a bag full of newspapers. So just what was he stuffing through it?
Then there was a loud bang, and Charlie realised exactly what the boy had posted. A firework. It looked as if he had just taken another from his pocket. Hadn’t anybody told him why it was stupid to play with fireworks? It was an explosive; it could go off in his face. And the one he’d shoved through the door could have done a lot of damage, too, if someone had been close to it when it had gone off. And you never, but never, lit fireworks with an ordinary match.
‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.
The boy looked up, curled his lip, flicked a V-sign at Charlie and lit another match.
‘Put that match out, you idiot! You’ll get h—’
But before Charlie could finish, there was a loud bang and the firework in the boy’s hand exploded.
Charlie forgot the fact that he was on his way to work—his first day in his new role as Director of Surgery, when he really shouldn’t be late—and years of training took over. He grabbed his mobile phone and punched in the number for the emergency services as he ran towards the boy. ‘Ambulance, please.’ He gave them the location. ‘We have a firework injury involving a child. Major burns.’ Burns to the hand or feet were always classified as major. ‘Better call the fire brigade, too—he was stuffing fireworks through a letterbox.’
The boy was screaming, and he’d dropped the match. Luckily the ground was still wet, so the flame would have been extinguished—if any loose powder from the fireworks was lit, the boy could end up with flash burns to his legs as well as the damage to his hand.
Charlie pushed through the open gate just as the door to the neighbouring house opened.
‘What’s going on?’ the elderly man demanded.
‘Firework went off in his hand,’ Charlie said swiftly. ‘I’ve called the emergency services. I’m a doctor. Will you let me take a look?’ he asked the boy.
Shaking, the boy held out his hands. ‘It hurts!’ he wailed.
‘What’s your name?’ Charlie asked.
‘L-Liam,’ he choked.
‘Bloody little hooligan! He’s always causing trouble round here,’ the neighbour said in disgust. ‘We should just hand him over to the police.’
‘Right now, my priority’s to stop him losing blood. Have you got a first-aid kit?’ Charlie asked.
‘Only plasters and headache tablets.’ The neighbour shrugged. ‘The wife might have a bandage in there.’
Probably one that wasn’t sterile, Charlie guessed. ‘Do you have a clean, dry cloth—a teatowel or something? Please?’
The man nodded and went back inside his house. Meanwhile Charlie quickly assessed Liam’s hand. Normally, in cases of thermal burns, you needed to cool the burn down fast with lukewarm water. But this wasn’t a normal thermal burn—it had been caused by a firework. Fireworks often contained phosphorus, a chemical that reacted with water and caused more burning, so running water over the child’s
