are you doing this far from home, and what are you doing with a strange man?’
Jessica made a faint gulping sound. ‘He asked me for your number and said he would get in touch with you. I didn’t have any credit left on my phone, you see, and then the battery went flat and I’d used up all my money, and anyway I’d already tried to reach you on your home phone and you weren’t there.’
‘No, that’s because I’m at work. That still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing out at Windermere.’
‘No, I…I know it doesn’t…but I promise I’ll explain everything when I see you.’ Jessica’s voice trailed off awkwardly, and Katie guessed she hadn’t told this man the full truth of the situation. ‘Will you come and fetch me?’
‘Yes, of course I will. Let me speak to this man.’
Jessica handed the phone back to her rescuer, and Katie forced herself to take a slow, calming breath. ‘Perhaps you could tell me exactly where you are and I’ll come over to you,’ she said briskly.
He gave her directions, and added on a cool note, ‘I hope you’ll drop everything and come straight away. I was on my way to a meeting and I’d still like to be able to get there some time before it ends if it’s at all possible.’
He didn’t sound as though he had very much faith in her, and Katie stifled a sharp response. ‘I’m sorry about your meeting,’ she told him in a strained tone. ‘I have a twenty-minute or so drive ahead of me, but I’ll be there as soon as possible.’
Clearly the man had a busy schedule. So had she, up until now, but from what Mandy had been saying that had all come to an abrupt end. There was little doubt that she was going to be out of work from today.
In the staff kitchen, Mandy had already poured the tea, but Katie hurriedly swallowed it down and went to find her bag. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘An emergency just cropped up and I need to go and pick up my young sister.’
‘Your sister?’ Mandy raised a brow. ‘I didn’t know you had any family around here.’
Katie’s expression was rueful. ‘Neither did I.’ She glanced across the table at her friend. ‘Will you be all right here?’
Mandy nodded. ‘We’ve done about as much as we can with the clearing-up operations, so I’ll probably just send the rest of the staff home.’ She made a wry face. ‘I don’t think there’ll be much point in any of us coming in for the next few months. I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’ Katie touched her shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. ‘I’ll give you a call later on,’ she murmured.
Mandy nodded, and Katie hurried out to her car.
Her mind was racing as she drove towards Windermere. What on earth was Jessica doing out here? The shock of this news, coming on top of everything else that had happened today had left her feeling thoroughly churned up inside. She had hoped to put all this kind of stress behind her, but now she was going through the same kind of anxiety she had experienced back in Humberside in those last months when her contract at the hospital had come to an end. Her emotions were all over the place.
Caught up in traffic a few minutes later, Katie had time to reflect on all that had gone wrong at her former hospital post. Everyone had expected that her position as Senior House Officer in A and E would be made permanent, but after what had happened in the operating theatre there were some who believed she had made a mistake, putting her patient’s life at risk, and from then onwards her career progress had been in question.
It hadn’t helped that her consultant had been unapproachable and stiff-lipped. ‘The patient might have bled to death,’ he said.
‘But he didn’t. At least I managed to stem the bleeding.’ She frowned as the nightmare situation came back to haunt her. ‘The man was in a bad way when I first saw him, and I tried to get in touch with you before he went to Theatre. I needed back-up, but your answering service said you weren’t available.’ As a junior doctor, she ought to have been able to call on her consultant for guidance.
He had turned on her. ‘I hope you’re not going to use that as an excuse,’ he’d said tersely. ‘I should be able to rely on the competence of the members of my team. If you’re not up to the job, I think you should start to look for another post.’
It was a devastating blow to her hopes and dreams but, worse than that, what had happened in Theatre had thoroughly shaken her up. The patient had been critically ill to begin with, and the massive bleed into his lungs could have killed him.
The nurse who had been assisting took her to one side. ‘These things happen,’ Helen told her. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It’s well known that there are sometimes complications with the type of catheter you were using, and when the worst happened you did everything you could to pull the man through. You saved him.’
‘But his recovery is going to take much longer than it should,’ Katie whispered, still shaken in the aftermath of events.
Her boss hadn’t been in Theatre with her when the patient’s pulmonary artery had been punctured, and when the patient’s family had asked about the man’s condition he had brushed their concerns to one side, telling them that he had suffered an unexpected bleed. Of course, questions had followed after that.
‘You should pray that they don’t sue,’ he had told her.
Whatever the eventual outcome, it was clear to Katie that he wouldn’t be supportive of her. He would watch his own back and by making sure that her contract wasn’t renewed he could rest easy.
And now she was out of work once again. It was distressing, to say the least, because she had come to the Lake District in the hope of putting all that upset behind her once and for all.
It had taken her a while to get over the upheaval of having to change her job, she had tried her hand at various kinds of work back home before settling on this post further afield.
The change of scene would do her good, she had hoped, and it would give her the boost she needed to help her to get back into the swing of things. Now that dream, too, had come to an end, and she was left with yet another problem to contend with.
The miles swept by as she drove towards Windermere, and soon she could see the vast stretch of the lake spread out before her. There were boats dotted about on the water that sparkled in the sunlight, and all around were hills and valleys swathed in green, with pretty villages of stone and slate houses nestled against the backdrop of trees.
It was a beautiful, tranquil setting, and she ought to be glad that she was here and able to appreciate its peacefulness, but as she headed towards the railway station and parked her car, she was hardly aware of that.
She walked over to the café the man had mentioned. Tables and chairs had been set up outside on a terraced area in front of the building so that customers could enjoy the summer sunshine. A few people were relaxing there, sipping coffee or cold drinks, and as she scanned their faces, she discovered that her sister was amongst them.
Jessica was sitting tensely upright next to a man who was wearing a crisp blue shirt and immaculate dark-coloured trousers. His discarded jacket was placed casually over the back of his seat.
Although he was partially turned away from her, Katie could see that his hair was black and close cut in an attractive fashion, so
