by Joanna Neil
Allison went and found her bag from behind the central desk and brought out her front-door key. 'Take this,' she said, 'and go and make yourself at home.'
'Thanks,' Rhea said. 'You're an angel. I really hate to burden you like this.'
'It isn't a problem.' Allison glanced down at the watch on her wrist. 'I'm going for my lunch-break in a while, so why don't we go together? I said I would meet up with Nick and Ben for a coffee and something to eat. Perhaps one of them would go back with you to your house, and then, if the coast's clear, you can pick up a few things.'
Rhea thought about it. 'That's a good idea. I think I might do that, if one of the men will come with me.' She hesitated, and her face crumpled momentarily. 'I'm going to have to find myself a new place, aren't I? I had hoped that I'd finished moving around, but if he's in the area, I don't see how I can live in that house any more. I daren't risk it.'
Taylor had been quiet for a while, but now he said, 'Are you sure about that? How long do you plan to keep on running? Perhaps it's time to settle this problem once and for all.'
Rhea shook her head. 'I don't know how I can do that. I wish it didn't always have to come to this, and I hate to have to move Poppy all over again, just as we were getting settled, but I can't think of any alternative. She worries if she thinks Steve is anywhere near. I don't want her to be upset, and I don't want to spend my life living in fear.'
'I realise this must be really difficult for you.' Taylor threw her a sympathetic glance.
Allison could see that he was thinking things through. 'You know, Rhea,' he said at last, 'you should think about it some more, and not make any snap decisions, but if, after a while, you're still determined to move away, I might be able to help you. I inherited some properties from my grandparents, and mostly they've been rented out to tenants, but I could have a word with the agent to see if we've anything that would suit you.'
'Would you?' Rhea's eyes brightened. 'Oh, that's brilliant, thanks. That would be such a weight off my mind.'
Taylor gave her an encouraging smile. 'It might be possible to find you a secure place that's close to the local police station...and in the meantime, you could apply for an injunction to keep him from harassing you. The police might set you up with an alarm call system so that they could get to you quickly in case of trouble. If things work out, you might not need to move.' He paused to gauge her reaction to that, and when she gave a slight nod, he said, 'Leave it with me, then, and I'll make a few enquiries so that you'll know what your options are. You don't have to make up your mind about anything right now. Go and enjoy lunch with Allison and the children, and try to stay calm.'
'Thanks. I'm beginning to feel a bit better already.' Rhea attempted a smile. 'I haven't been able to think straight since I saw him. My first reaction was to come here.'
'That's understandable,' Allison murmured. 'I'm glad you came to us.'
Rhea looked over to the waiting room. 'I'd better go and see to the children,' she said.
She moved away from them and Allison glanced at Taylor. It was heart-warming that he was so ready to step in and try to help but, then, she had always known that he was a compassionate, caring man. It was one of the qualities that had endeared him to her years ago.
Perhaps it had also been her downfall, because when he had come to her aid on that snowy night so long ago, she had gone into his arms without a second thought, driven only by a need to be close to him, wanting to submerge herself in the kisses he gave so passionately.
He glanced at her now and she hoped that the warm colour that must show in her cheeks would not give her thoughts away. 'It was good of you to offer to do that for Rhea,' she murmured. 'Do you really think you'll be able to find her somewhere safe to stay?'
'I'll do my best. My grandparents bought properties in good areas. They had an eye for safety issues, so I expect we'll be able to come up with something suitable. She really needs to deal with the situation, though, and get him off her back once and for all. That means involving the police.'
He frowned, giving her a long look. 'Besides, she has two young children in her care, and it's important that they should be safe. You must be worried for your son, knowing that Steve might come around.'
'I am.' Allison pressed her lips together. 'I hadn't realised that Connor had seen him hanging around Rhea's place, but that explains a lot about his behaviour. At school, they said he's been distracted lately, and not his usual self, and now I think I have a good idea as to what was behind all that.'
Taylor put an arm around her and lightly squeezed her shoulder. 'It can't be easy for you. I know my sister worries about what goes on in the children's heads sometimes, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with those kinds of problems. I have enough concerns already, trying to get to grips with issues at work.'
Allison's nerve endings jumped in response to his touch. His nearness sent her defences into overdrive, and for a moment or two she didn't know how to counteract the dizzying effect of his gentle caress.
Then common sense took over and she made an effort to bolster her resources. It didn't mean anything to him. It was just a casual embrace, a closeness that was meant to cheer her up and let her know that she wasn't alone.
'I'll get by,' she said, and he let his arm drop to his side. She knew then that she had been right all along not to tell him about Connor. Why was she trying to delude herself? He didn't want a child in his life. Neither did he want any meaningful relationship with her. Work was his mistress. It fuelled his ambitions and she was a poor second, left waiting somewhere in the wings.
CHAPTER FIVE
'Would you come and take a look at Mrs Francis for me?' Sarah asked, coming over to the desk and glancing at Taylor. 'She fell down the stairs and injured her spine, but she's back from X-Ray now. I would say that she's all right, but I'd like a second opinion.'
'OK, I'll be right with you.' Taylor headed towards the examination room with the nurse, leaving Allison to tie up any loose ends before she went out to lunch with Rhea and the children. She handed over the care of her patients to the registrar, leaving note of her whereabouts with the desk clerk who was on duty.
'I'm on call, so I might have to leave you all at short notice,' she told Rhea, 'but Nick and Ben will be there with you if that happens.'
'Do you think you'll get called out?' Rhea asked.
'It doesn't happen that often. It's mostly when something major happens in the City, or there's an event going on and trouble breaks out.' She made a face. 'Like the march that's going on today, but with any luck nothing untoward will happen. That's the reason why I don't want to stray too far from the hospital, though.' She smiled. 'It's lucky that we all like pizza.'
She was glad to be with Rhea and the children. Any moments that she managed to spend with her son were precious to her, like gold dust.
Nick and Ben were already waiting at the restaurant, seated at a table by the window that looked out onto the street, and soon everyone was gathered around, eating their fill. Allison chose a pizza that was spread with a thick tomato paste and topped with cheese, sweet corn and peppers, and Connor had his favourite.
'I like the pieces of ham in it,' he said, his eyes widening, 'and the mushroom. It tastes yummy.'
The children had ice-cream milkshakes to wash the food down, and were soon showing off strawberry moustaches where the froth had settled around their mouths.
Rhea told the men about her temporary move to Allison's house. 'I'm not sure how long I'll be staying there,' she said, looking anxious. 'Taylor said he would try to find me a place if I should decide to leave my own home for good, but I've no idea how long that will take.'
'I'm sure he'll find you something,' Nick murmured. 'He wouldn't have said it if he didn't have something in mind.'
'He's always had an interest in being a landlord,' Ben added. He was about the same age as Nick, in his early thirties, and he had crisp black hair and grey-blue eyes that were open and honest. 'Everyone expected him to sell the pr
operties that he inherited, thinking that they would be too much trouble for him, but he kept them on. That's how we came to rent the premises for our business when we first started up. It was local and we had a lot of contacts in the area, and we thought everything would be plain sailing.'
Nick made a face. 'Until he gave us notice to quit.' He glanced at Rhea. 'I'm sure he won't do the same with you,' he added hastily. 'He told us he wanted to sell the unit and only keep residential properties on the books. Something to do with the rating system, he said, but I think it was just an excuse. For some reason, he backed off from having anything to do with the business, and he seemed to want us out of there. He refused to renew our lease, and things went downhill for us from then on.'
'It wasn't just a problem with the premises that caused the slide, though,' Ben said, stopping to lick tomato from his fingers. 'We had a problem with identity theft and we lost some of our clients because of it. They bought goods from us by credit card and then found that money was being taken from their accounts without their knowledge. They assumed this happened through their dealings with us, but we had no idea it was going on until it was too late, and it made life very difficult for us. Our reputation as a company was shattered.'
He frowned. 'Taylor never mentioned that he knew anything about it, but perhaps he came to hear of it somehow. That might have had some bearing on his decision.'
'Surely he would have given you the benefit of the doubt?' Rhea said. 'I can't imagine that he would throw you out of your premises without looking into things first.'
'I guess we'll never know. He didn't ever talk to us about how we operated the business. I thought it was because he was our landlord and didn't want to pry.' Ben's expression was resigned, but then he straightened up and said in a firm tone, 'Anyway, Rhea, if you want me to come and fit special locks or safety chains in your house, or devise some system to protect you, just let me know. Whatever you decide to do, we're all here to help.'
'Thanks, Ben. I appreciate that.'
Allison's bleeper went off just then and she grimaced, swallowing the last of her coffee before pausing to check the text message. 'I'll have to go,' she said. 'There's been some trouble near Westminster, and there are a number of casualties. Taylor's on his way to pick me up.'
She explained to Connor what was happening and then gathered up her bag and jacket, preparing to leave. 'I'll be home in a little while,' she told Connor, giving him a kiss. 'Be good, won't you?'
'I will. Can Uncle Nick come home wiv us? I want to show him how my horse goes down the slope.'
'I don't know, sweetheart. He might have to work.' She sent her brother a quick look.
'I'll see if I can come over to you later on, Connor. Maybe this evening.'
Connor appeared to be satisfied with that answer for the moment. He waved his drinking straw over Poppy's milkshake. 'You've got some left,' he said.
'So have you.' Poppy retaliated, pulling her glass out of his reach.
'It looks as though Taylor's here already,' Ben said, glancing out of the window a minute or so later. 'He must have paged you as he was setting out.'
'He probably did. We don't have much time to hang about when we're on call.'
Ben saw her to the door of the restaurant and gave her a hug. 'I'll give Rhea a hand collecting her stuff from the house,' he said. 'Don't worry.'
'Thanks. That will make me feel easier in my mind.'
She hurried out to the waiting car and slid into the passenger seat, giving him a wave as Taylor accelerated away.
'I see that you two are still very close,' he murmured, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. His mouth jutted a little, as though he was deep in thought.
'I... Yes. We are.' She sent him an oblique glance. 'I don't think I ever said that we weren't. In fact...' She hesitated, thinking things through. 'Perhaps you might have assumed too much. Like you said, Ben and I have always been good friends.'
His eyes narrowed on her. 'You're right, I might have picked up on the wrong idea. A lot has happened in the last few years, and maybe things have changed for both of us.'
There was a bleak edge to his tone that she couldn't quite fathom, but by now they had reached their destination, and there wasn't any more time left to question him about it.
A large crowd had assembled in the square, and police were keeping them back by use of a manned cordon. Taylor parked the car next to the ambulance that was already in attendance, and opened the boot to bring out the medical equipment.
'You brought my bag,' Allison said. 'That was good thinking. I wondered if we might have to share.'
She sent a glance over her immediate surroundings and saw that several people were being treated for a variety of injuries. One man looked as though he had a fractured arm and another had a broken nose. There was at least one other doctor tending to the casualties and she guessed he had come along with the ambulance crew.
A police officer escorted them to their patients. 'We've had all sorts of trouble,' he said. 'People surging forward and causing crush injuries, and a bad element in the crowd looking to cause trouble. Judging from some of the casualties a few of them from rent-a-mob must have been carrying concealed weapons.'
He directed Taylor to where a man was suffering from what appeared to be heart-attack symptoms, and then he led Allison to someone who was lying on the ground.
'There was a fight,' he said, 'but when we tried to intervene to break it up a man escaped into the crowd, and we found this fellow lying on the pavement. It looks like an opportunist mugging. There's always someone who will try his luck. We think the man's wallet and mobile phone were stolen, and he's been stabbed. The paramedics have been taking care of him, but it looks pretty bad to me.'
Allison knelt down to examine the man. He was around thirty years old, she guessed, and he was groaning with pain. That didn't surprise her. He had obviously tried to put up a fight and he had been kicked and punched for his trouble. There was a stab wound to his chest, causing him to lose a lot of blood.
'His breathing's shallow, respirations 38, and the heart rate is 138,' the paramedic said. 'Breath sounds are decreased on the left side. The pulse oximetry meter shows very low oxygen saturation. Whoever did this meant business. He wasn't intending for him to get up and run after him.'
'You're right,' Allison agreed. 'He's not doing too well at all.' She frowned as she examined the man and tried to locate the stab wound. 'The vein in his neck is distended, which makes me wonder if the knife penetrated the diaphragm. A tear in that position would allow the abdominal organs to move up into the chest cavity and displace the lung.'
'What are you going to do?' the paramedic asked.
'I'll put in a nasogastric tube. That should help to decompress the stomach. We'll give him saline and add a second line with lactated Ringer's solution.'
'Shall I give him pain relief?'
'Yes, please, do.'
By the time they had finished working with him, the patient was becoming a little more responsive and Allison said, 'Has the pain eased at all?'
The man nodded, but speaking was too much of an effort for him.
'We'll get you back to the hospital and do a CT scan, and then you'll need to have surgery to repair the damage,' Allison told him. He looked as though he had absorbed that information, but it wasn't too long before he started to slip back into unconsciousness. 'Try to stay with us,' Allison said, an urgent note in her voice.
Taylor came to join them. 'How are you doing?' he asked her. 'Do you need any help?'
'Yes, thanks. We need to get him into the ambulance as quickly as possible. I'm going to call ahead to arrange for the surgeon to receive him.'
The paramedics took care of the man until the doctor from their own team came and joined them inside the ambulance. Then the doors closed behind them and as she watched the vehicle move away she could only hope that they had managed to gain their patient a little time.
'Do you think he'll make it?' Taylor asked, sending her a
n oblique glance.
'I don't know. It depends what other damage was done.' She sighed heavily, and looked around. 'This is all so senseless.. .a man's life for a wallet and a mobile phone.' She felt sick inside.
'Come on, I'll take you home,' Taylor said, placing a hand in the small of her back and urging her towards the car. 'We've done all that we can here, and your shift was over a while ago.'
'Was it?' She had lost all track of time. She said, 'I should be able to get the tube from here. There's no reason for you to look after me. You'll be needed at the hospital, won't you?'
He shook his head. 'No. I've finished for the day, too. Besides, you're looking pale and a bit shocked, and I feel that I need to watch over you for a while. This has upset you, hasn't it?'
'It has, but I'm not sure why. I've seen all sorts of cases in my time in A and E, but usually there's some sort of explanation for why it happened, some way that perhaps the hurt could have been avoided.'
She waited while he stowed their medical equipment in the boot of the car. 'You feel that sometimes you can show people how to take more care,' she said, 'but there's no solution for this kind of thing. It's pure wickedness, the selfish act on the part of a stranger who cares nothing for anyone else, who simply takes what he wants and isn't bothered how he gets it. How do you fight something like that? How do you stop it from happening?'
Taylor's mouth compressed. 'The short answer is, you can't. We can't put the world to rights because we can't legislate against mankind. All we can do is to try to take care of our own. We can be thankful for the people we do manage to help. It's good when things turn out well, as they did for the man from the tile warehouse.'
'You mean James, the man with the abdominal injury?'
He nodded. 'That's right. I was concerned for him for a time, but he came through surgery all right.'
She frowned. 'The last time I checked up on him, he was feverish, and the nurses were worried about the possibility of septicaemia.'
