Hopefully the pain would ease very quickly. And where the hell was the ambulance?
‘Little bugger. Right hooligan. Clip round the ear, if he was mine,’ Mary muttered.
‘Try not to talk,’ Charlie soothed.
‘Put fireworks through my door. Needs a good hiding,’ she wheezed.
‘He’s learned his lesson the hard way,’ Charlie said gently. ‘One blew up in his hand. He’s lost the tips of a couple of fingers.’
‘Told him not to chuck rubbish in my garden. Kept on. Kicked my fence down. Now this.’
‘The police’ll sort it out, Mary,’ Bill said. ‘Oi, you, the doctor said to stay still!’
Charlie glanced over to see Liam struggling and Bill trying to pin him down.
‘Can’t stay. Mum’ll kill me if I’m in trouble,’ Liam said, clearly panicking.
‘Should’ve thought of that earlier, shouldn’t you?’ Bill sneered. ‘Tell that to them when they take you down the nick.’
‘Liam, you’ll be going to hospital,’ Charlie interjected. ‘We need to sort your hand out before anything else happens. And you need to stay calm right now. If you start moving about and lose much more blood, you’ll start feeling very, very rough. Or you could struggle, and Bill will have to give you mouth to mouth.’
As he’d hoped, both Bill and Liam looked horrified at the thought. They both lapsed into silence, and Liam stayed absolutely still.
To Charlie’s relief, he heard a shout at the front door. ‘Paramedics—is anyone in there?’
‘In the kitchen,’ Charlie said.
‘What have we got?’ the older paramedic asked.
Charlie gave the two paramedics a brief run-down of what had happened. ‘Mrs Ward’s had GTN but it isn’t having much effect. We’ve found Liam’s missing fingertips and put them in a plastic bag with ice—I cleaned the wound with a dry cloth in case of phosphorus contamination.’
‘Trained first-aider?’ the younger paramedic asked.
Charlie smiled. ‘Something like that.’
‘We’ll take them both in,’ the older paramedic said.
‘My house. Open,’ Mary said.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay and help the police secure it,’ Bill said. ‘I’ll tell them what happened.’
Charlie took the notebook from his inside pocket and scribbled his mobile number. ‘I need to get going, but they can get me on this number or call me at the hospital—the Hampstead General.’
‘You work at our place?’ the younger paramedic asked.
‘Yep.’ Charlie glanced at his watch. ‘And I’d better get my skates on or I’ll be late for work.’ He was already late, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘Might as well come along with us, then,’ the younger paramedic said with a smile.
Ten minutes after Sophie had left, Charlie walked into the department. ‘Sorry I’m late. Unavoidable delay,’ he said. Not that he was going to explain what his delay had been. I had to rescue a woman with angina and a boy with major burns. It would have sounded bleating or boastful or, worse, both together. ‘Thanks for waiting. I wouldn’t have blamed you all for getting on with your lists, thinking I wasn’t going to bother turning up.’
Guy coughed. ‘I’m afraid the other firm isn’t here. Andy’s away today and Sophie, his registrar, was called into Theatre.’
Pretty much as he would have expected. ‘No problem. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to catch up with them later.’ Charlie shook his hand. ‘Charlie Radley.’
‘Guy Allsopp, consultant surgeon. This is Mark, my registrar, and Abby, my house officer,’ Guy said. He quickly introduced the rest of the staff.
‘Pleased to meet you all. Well, let’s get the awkward stuff out of the way first,’ Charlie said. ‘First off, I know there were internal candidates for the job, so I imagine a few of you would much rather I wasn’t here. I’m sorry that someone had to be disappointed, but I hope we can learn from each other and work as a team.’
He noticed that Guy and Abby exchanged very meaningful glances. Had Andy been an internal candidate and had he deliberately stayed away today? In that case, Sophie, as Andy’s registrar, was showing solidarity with the head of her firm. They were the ones who really needed to hear this speech.
Ah, well. He’d make his peace with them both later. He had some other rumours to squash first.
‘Secondly, I know what hospital rumour mills are like, so you’re probably expecting a toff who spends more time with a string of blondes in little black dresses than with my patients, and who only does face lifts. I’m not planning to live up to those expectations. I’m here to do a job, I don’t have a string of girlfriends, I answer to “Charlie”, not “Your Lordship”, and I don’t do face lifts or nips and tucks.’ He smiled. ‘So. I hope we’ll get used to each other pretty quickly. My door isn’t always open because I think that’s intimidating—but I’m always happy to talk through any problems between seeing patients.’
A few murmurs, but no outright hostility. Good. He could build on that.
‘And, finally, so I can get to know people who aren’t here today or are on a different shift, I’m planning drinks on Thursday night—my tab. If anyone can recommend a good bar, I’m all ears.’ And, please, please, any minute now the emergency department would bleep him, he’d have to go to Theatre and he could just relax and do the job he loved.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ Abby said.
‘Guy? Yeah, you already told me. Several times,’ Sophie said with a grin.
‘No. I mean Charlie.’
‘Charlie?’
Her puzzlement must have shown on her face, because Abby added, ‘The new director of surgery.’
Ah. The baron. ‘How nice for him,’ Sophie said coolly.
Abby frowned. ‘Don’t be so hard on him. He’s a nice bloke.’
He was upper class—and Sophie knew from experience just how not nice they could be. ‘Yeah. I bet,’ she said sarcastically, before she could stop herself.
‘He is. He’s buying drinks for everyone on Thursday night, and he’s included the auxiliary staff and the cleaners,’ Abby protested.
Sophie shrugged. ‘So? He’s a baron. Rich. He can afford it. It’s an empty gesture, Abby.’
Abby frowned. ‘He’s not a snob, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s genuine.’ She added what she clearly thought was her trump card: ‘Guy likes him.’
‘Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it?’ Sophie
