I’ve been able to do, and our patient’s response to the medication—or total lack of response—it just has to be something else, but I’ve no idea what eats away at the flesh so badly and just continues to degrade the wound.’
‘Hydrofluoric acid.’
Keanu wasn’t sure where the answer had come from, though apparently it had surfaced from some deep recess in his mind.
Which must have been working, for all he felt like a very confused zombie what with all that was happening in his personal life right now …
Sam turned to face him, grabbed his arm and steered him back out through the door.
‘What did you say?’
‘Hydrofluoric acid,’ Keanu repeated, but with more certainty this time. ‘Dreadful stuff. It just eats away at the skin and flesh and if you happen to drink it you’re done for.’
‘Well, I’m glad you kept that little bit of information to yourself until we were away from the patient. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it—though I probably did as a student—but I’ve never come across it as an acid burn. Except …’ He paused in thought. ‘Now I look at the wound as an acid burn it’s starting to make sense. But this—what did you call it?’
‘Hydrofluoric acid. It’s the only acid that eats through glass so has to be kept in plastic containers. Years ago a very small concentration of it was used in a product for taking rust marks out of clothing but I think that’s been banned now.’
‘So why on earth would anyone have any of it on the fairly isolated islands of M’Langi? If it’s as dangerous as you say, you can’t just order a gallon or two off the internet.’
‘I doubt a plane would carry it. But someone’s brought it back here in hand luggage or by boat. Apparently there are places you can buy it. I imagine it has commercial uses of some kind or it wouldn’t still be manufactured.’
Sam frowned at him.
‘But why?’
Keanu heard the plane coming in, hopefully bringing relief staff, but Sam showed no desire to go rushing off to meet it.
‘Keanu?’
Neither would he until he got an answer.
‘It dissolves glass,’ he repeated. ‘And glass is made of sand, which is very degraded quartz, and gold comes in quartz veins. You pop a piece of gold-bearing quartz into a jar of hydrofluoric and, voilà, in a couple of days you have wee nuggets of gold.’
Sam was staring at him in disbelief.
‘You’re saying men steal gold-bearing quartz from the mine?’
He hadn’t really been saying that—hadn’t wanted to mention the matter at all—but they had a patient …
‘Not all of them, and I’d say theft was rare back when the place was properly managed, but those who haven’t been paid for a while probably feel they deserve it. Some of them might pinch it anyway—no one’s perfect.’
He certainly had Sam’s attention now.
‘So, it’s possible our patient had been fooling around with probably his father’s acid and splashed some on his skin. Wouldn’t he know?’
Keanu shook his head.
‘Maybe not straight away, and when it started to hurt—from all accounts it’s extremely painful—he didn’t want to tell anyone about it because I’m sure he’d been forbidden to go near it, let alone open the lid of the container. Sniffing the fumes in close quarters can do horrible things to your lungs. No, he was hardly likely to tell his family what he’d done.’
‘Treatment?’
Again Keanu could only shake his head.
‘I was a child when I heard about it and even if the treatment was discussed it would have gone over my head. Best you get onto the internet or call the poisons centre back in Oz.’
Sam sighed, but before he could say anything a gorgeous and very pregnant young woman with short auburn curls, startling green eyes and a smile that lit up the air around her swept into the hospital.
‘Maddie!’ he and Sam cried in unison, holding out their arms and somehow gathering her in a three-way hug.
Which was when Caroline walked in.
Now was not the time to fill Caro in on his divorce; instead, Keanu made the introductions.
‘Maddie, this is Caroline Lockhart. She filled in for us this week when the FIFO nurse didn’t come.’
‘And has been doing a great job,’ Sam added.
He’d interrupted Keanu’s, ‘Caroline, this is Maddie Haddon, one of our favourite FIFO doctors.’
‘Your only FIFO doctor now you’ve decided you’ll be permanent, Keanu,’ Maddie corrected as she held out her hand towards Caroline.
The introduction was interrupted as Bugsy, obviously hearing his mistress’s voice, came hurtling towards her.
Maddie crouched awkwardly to hug her ecstatic dog.
‘So much for my walking him twice a day,’ Sam complained, ‘but now you’re here, Maddie, do you know anything about hydrofluoric acid?’
Maddie looked a little startled but she accepted Sam’s hand to help her upright again, and shrugged her shoulders.
‘That’s the stuff that melts glass so has to be kept in plastic containers,’ she offered.
‘I think we’ve already established that. Come through to the office and you can tell me all your news—check-up okay?—while I look up how to treat a hydrofluoric burn.’
They disappeared along the corridor, and Caroline followed Keanu into the young lad’s room. He could feel her closeness—aware of her in a way he’d never been before.
‘You think it’s an acid burn?’ she asked him, all business.
Keanu wasn’t sure what to feel. Last night they’d sat together and talked of love and attraction, and his body clamoured to greet her with a kiss—at least a kiss …
But work was work.
Caroline was by the patient’s bed, leaning forward to examine the wound, so Keanu joined her, pushing the swirl of emotions inside him out of his mind with the practicalities of work.
He bent over Raoul and spoke quietly to him.
‘Did you spill something on your leg?’
The slightest of head movements, but definitely a very subdued yes.
‘Can you tell me what it was?’
Another shake of the head, this one just as definitely negative.
‘You’re
