Kate Hardy - Her Celebrity Surgeon

No reply. But at least he couldn’t smell smoke either, so it seemed that the firework hadn’t started a blaze. And he hadn’t seen any orange flickers through the opaque glass or with the limited vision he’d had through the letterbox.

‘I’m going to break the pane of glass and reach through to open the door,’ Charlie said. ‘Don’t be frightened. Bill’s with me.’

He took off one shoe, shattered the pane with it, then wrapped his hand in one of the teatowels to protect him from the broken glass and reached through to open the lock from the inside.

‘Found them,’ Bill said, at the precise moment Charlie pushed the door open to reveal a couple of burned-out bangers and scorch marks on the carpet.

‘Let’s go in and see to your neighbour.’ Charlie shepherded Liam in before him. ‘She’ll probably have a plastic bag of some sort in her kitchen.’ He hoped. And from the colour of the teatowel Liam was losing blood, which meant there was a good chance he’d go into shock. Charlie needed to get the boy lying flat, with his legs raised, as soon as possible: it would help to prevent shock from blood loss.

He found Mrs Ward slumped in the kitchen, her face white and her hand clutched to her chest.

‘Mrs Ward, can you hear me?’ he asked.

To his relief, Mrs Ward nodded.

‘Mary! Oh, God, is she all right?’ Bill asked.

‘Bill, the best thing you can do to help is find a plastic bag and some ice for those fingertips. And can you get Liam to lie flat on his back with his legs raised? Try and keep pressure on that pad on his hand for me. I don’t want him to lose consciousness.’

‘But…’ Bill gestured helplessly towards Mary.

‘I’ll look after her,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘I can’t see to them both at the time same. I need you to help Liam. Please.’

Bill nodded and followed Charlie’s directions. Meanwhile, Charlie checked Mary’s pulse.

‘Can you talk?’ he asked Mary.

‘Can’t…breathe…’ the old lady wheezed.

Breathless, pale and with obvious chest pain. Bill had mentioned his neighbour’s ‘dicky ticker’. Angina? ‘Have you had pain like this before?’ Charlie asked.

‘Spray. Drawer,’ the old lady whispered.

Which meant that, yes, she had and, yes, she had medication to deal with it. Good.

But there were several drawers to choose from. Which one? Charlie stood in the middle. ‘Can you point me left or right, then put your hand up when I’m in front of the right drawer?’ he asked.

She managed to direct him left and down to the drawer where she kept her medication. As he’d suspected, she had a GTN spray. Glyceryl trinitrate, known as GTN for short, increased the flow of blood through the heart muscle and controlled the symptoms of angina.

‘Can you open your mouth and lift up your tongue for me, Mrs Ward?’ he asked gently.

She did so, and he sprayed the medication under her tongue—the quickest way to get the drug into her system. 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.’