Emergency At Inglewood

‘What? But you’re a keynote speaker at the conference, Sean.’

‘I’m on a six-month probationary period with the ambulance service. I couldn’t take time off halfway through.’

Meaningful glances were exchanged around her and Kathryn sighed inwardly. The good humour engendered by the dinner party had just been negated by the reminder of yet another point she and Sean had argued about. Climbing into the sleek BMW convertible, Kathryn tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Only six hours to go and she would be heading back to the only place she wanted to be. It didn’t matter that she felt too tired to think straight. She’d cope.

She had always been able to cope.

It was patently obvious that someone wasn’t coping.

Kathryn heard the muffled sound of sobbing coming from the back of the ambulance parked beside her own vehicle as she came out of the emergency department. One of the back doors was slightly ajar, as though someone had tried to close it but hadn’t latched it properly. Kathryn paused, creating a tug on the end of the stretcher being pulled by Tim.

She tilted her head towards the sound. ‘Is it a patient, do you think?’

Tim’s face creased into the lines of concern that Kathryn could recognise so easily now. She knew that the concern would be genuine and that Tim would not share her own reluctance to intrude. When he pulled the door open far enough for her to see the young ambulance officer hunched on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance, Kathryn’s hesitation also vanished.

‘Jo—whatever’s the matter?’ In a second, Kathryn was sitting beside the woman with her arm around the heaving shoulders.

‘I can’t do this job,’ Jo sobbed. ‘I hate it.’

Kathryn looked up as Tim climbed into the ambulance and pulled the doors closed behind him. ‘This is Jo, Tim. She was in my class.’ Her hold tightened on her colleague. ‘It’s only been a few shifts, Jo. Is it really that bad?’

‘Yes!’

‘You’re working with Bruce Stanton, aren’t you?’ Jo nodded as Tim pressed a wad of tissues into her hands. He sat down on the opposite stretcher, still holding the tissue box. ‘And you just had an unsuccessful arrest case?’

‘You heard him, didn’t you?’ Jo blew her nose vigorously but her tears hadn’t stopped. ‘Telling that doctor how useless I am? Saying how he expected a few more trips to the morgue if he had to keep working with someone like me?’

‘What a jerk,’ Kathryn said indignantly. ‘As if it was your fault!’

‘But I did everything wrong,’ Jo said with a fresh sob. ‘Bruce expects me to know what to do and then he gets angry when I’m not fast enough and I get flustered and make some stupid mistake. Like putting the leads on wrong, like I did this time.’

Kathryn caught Tim’s gaze and a corner of her partner’s mouth quirked ever so slightly. They could both remember the day Kathryn had made precisely the same error. She had stared in consternation at the peculiar rhythm on the screen and Tim had said, very mildly, ‘You might like to swap the left arm and leg leads over when you’ve a second, Kat.’

His tone was just as mild now. ‘Bruce isn’t known for his tolerance, Jo. Don’t let him put you down.’