Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Then a name leapt out at her.

  Charlie, Baron Radley.

  She stared at the photograph. He was dressed up to the nines—expensive dinner jacket, dress shirt, bow-tie. Tall, dark and handsome—and he looked as if he knew it, too. A woman in a little black dress—a dress she must have been poured into, and she was dripping in diamonds as well—was hanging off his arm. Her blonde hair was cut fashionably, her make-up was flawless and they really looked like the ultimate ‘golden couple’.

  The caption beneath, gushing about his fabulous wealth and his partner’s equally fabulous modelling successes, didn’t make Sophie feel any better about it. If anything, it convinced her even more that the board had made a terrible mistake. This man—one of the jet set, who went to all the best parties, probably only ever drank champagne and, for all she knew, might join the rest of his crowd in snorting the odd line of coke—was going to be the new director of surgery at the Hampstead General.

  ‘This,’ she predicted grimly, ‘is going to end in tears.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SAMMY and I can’t wait any longer,’ Sophie said. ‘We’ve got a patient prepped for Theatre and a huge list to get through.’ It was all very well R.C. Baron Radley wanting to meet the team—but, if he couldn’t even be bothered to turn up on time, why should their patients have to suffer?

  ‘Sophie, don’t you think you ought to give him another five minutes?’ Abby said. ‘I mean, Andy’s off duty so you’re the most senior one here from your firm. He’s probably with one of the big cheeses—you know what they’re like when they start talking. Give him five more minutes.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘My patients come first. And if that gives me a black mark in Baron Radley’s book, tough.’ She curled her lip. ‘I’m a doctor, not a serf who needs to bow down to the nobility.’

  Guy whistled. ‘Wow, Soph, I never knew you were so against titles.’

  ‘I just don’t see why an accident of birth makes one person “better” …’ she emphasised the speech marks with two curled fingers on each hand ‘.than another. I’ll just have to catch up with His Lordship later.’

  ‘We’ll give your apologies to him, Soph,’ Abby said.

  ‘I think,’ Sophie said crisply, ‘he should be the one apologising to us—and to our patients—for wasting time. See you later. Sammy, let’s go scrub up.’ Together with her house officer, she left the staffroom and headed for Theatre.

  Something didn’t look right, Charlie thought. The kid posting something through the neighbour’s letterbox didn’t have a bike with him or a bag full of newspapers. So just what was he stuffing through it?

  Then there was a loud bang, and Charlie realised exactly what the boy had posted. A firework. It looked as if he had just taken another from his pocket. Hadn’t anybody told him why it was stupid to play with fireworks? It was an explosive; it could go off in his face. And the one he’d shoved through the door could have done a lot of damage, too, if someone had been close to it when it had gone off. And you never, but never, lit fireworks with an ordinary match.

  ‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.

  The boy looked up, curled his lip, flicked a V-sign at Charlie and lit another match.

  ‘Put that match out, you idiot! You’ll get h—’

  But before Charlie could finish, there was a loud bang and the firework in the boy’s hand exploded.

  Charlie forgot the fact that he was on his way to work—his first day in his new role as Director of Surgery, when he really shouldn’t be late—and years of training took over. He grabbed his mobile phone and punched in the number for the emergency services as he ran towards the boy. ‘Ambulance, please.’ He gave them the location. ‘We have a firework injury involving a child. Major burns.’ Burns to the hand or feet were always classified as major. ‘Better call the fire brigade, too—he was stuffing fireworks through a letterbox.’

  The boy was screaming, and he’d dropped the match. Luckily the ground was still wet, so the flame would have been extinguished—if any loose powder from the fireworks was lit, the boy could end up with flash burns to his legs as well as the damage to his hand.

  Charlie pushed through the open gate just as the door to the neighbouring house opened.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the elderly man demanded.

  ‘Firework went off in his hand,’ Charlie said swiftly. ‘I’ve called the emergency services. I’m a doctor. Will you let me take a look?’ he asked the boy.

  Shaking, the boy held out his hands. ‘It hurts!’ he wailed.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘L-Liam,’ he choked.

  ‘Bloody little hooligan! He’s always causing trouble round here,’ the neighbour said in disgust. ‘We should just hand him over to the police.’

  ‘Right now, my priority’s to stop him losing blood. Have you got a first-aid kit?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Only plasters and headache tablets.’ The neighbour shrugged. ‘The wife might have a bandage in there.’

  Probably one that wasn’t sterile, Charlie guessed. ‘Do you have a clean, dry cloth—a teatowel or something? Please?’

  The man nodded and went back inside his house. Meanwhile Charlie quickly assessed Liam’s hand. Normally, in cases of thermal burns, you needed to cool the burn down fast with lukewarm water. But this wasn’t a normal thermal burn—it had been caused by a firework. Fireworks often contained phosphorus, a chemical that reacted with water and caused more burning, so running water over the child’s skin could do more damage.

  From what he could see under the blood, the burn appeared to be full thickness, across the whole surface area of Liam’s hand, and two of his fingertips were missing. Gunpowder residue was tattooed into the skin. They’d need to debride the wound—cut away the damaged parts—and do a skin graft. Probably more than one.

  ‘OK, Liam. I know it’s scary, but I’m going to look after you until the ambulance gets here.’ He needed to keep the boy calm and stem the blood flow. ‘Can you tell me your favourite football team?’

  ‘M-Manchester United,’ the boy stammered.

  The knot at the back of Charlie’s neck started to unravel. Great. If he could get Liam talking, it would take the child’s mind off the injury. If Liam started panicking, there was more chance he’d go into shock. Plus Charlie needed to know who or what was behind that front door. The small pane of glass in the centre of the door was opaque, so trying to look through it wouldn’t help. Had the firework set light to the carpet? Was someone lying inside, hurt?

  ‘Tell me about the players,’ Charlie said.

  The neighbour returned with a pile of dry teatowels. ‘Will these do? More than he deserves, mind. He’s been persecuting Mrs Ward for months.’

  ‘She’s an old cow. She—’ Liam began, his face screwed up in a mixture of scowling and pain.

  ‘Later,’ Charlie cut in. ‘I need to clean any chemicals from your hands, Liam. This might hurt, but I’ll try to be quick.’ He looked at the neighbour. ‘Do you know if Mrs Ward is in?’

  ‘Doesn’t go out much. Dicky ticker.’

  So the fright of a firework coming through her letterbox could upset her enough to bring on her heart condition. ‘Can you try and get her to answer the door while I clean Liam’s hand?’

  The neighbour nodded. He banged on the door and called through the letterbox, ‘Mary, it’s Bill—can you open the door?’ Charlie quickly cleaned Liam’s hand with one of the teatowels, then covered the wound with the other cloth. He pressed on it to stem the bleeding.

  ‘No answer,’ Bill said.

  ‘OK.’ It could be another ten minutes before the ambulance arrived. If Mary Ward had had a heart attack, Charlie needed to act now. ‘I’ll break in. Liam, can you press on that, hard?’ he asked.

  ‘It hurts,’ Liam whimpered.

  ‘I know, but we need to stop you losing blood. It’s important—and I need to break this door down in case Mrs Ward’s very ill.’
>
  Liam hung his head. ‘Is she going to die?’

  ‘I hope not, for your sake. I’ll tell the pol—’ Bill began.

  Charlie shook his head very slightly. They didn’t have time to discuss that now. ‘I really need to see if she’s all right. Now, Liam, you keep pressing on that cloth. And keep telling me about Manchester United—it’s really interesting.’

  ‘Really?’ Liam looked stunned, as if he wasn’t used to anyone paying him proper attention.

  Been there, done that, kid, Charlie thought. Though he’d never resorted to playing with fireworks to get the attention he’d needed. He’d just learned to become self-reliant.

  ‘Keep talking,’ he said, giving the boy an encouraging smile. If Liam kept talking, his voice would give Charlie warning signals if the boy was going into shock: the first signs would be if Liam started to sound ‘spaced out’ or his breathing became shallow.

  ‘There are a couple of fingertips missing,’ he said, sotto voce, to Bill. ‘Could you try and find them for me and put them in a bag?’ He could tell by the look on Bill’s face that the elderly man thought it served the kid right. ‘He’s only a child,’ Charlie said softly.

  ‘He’s a wrong ‘un.’

  ‘And he needs help. Please.’

  Bill’s mouth thinned, but he started to look through the weeds on the path.

  Charlie crouched down to the letterbox. ‘Mrs Ward? My name’s Charlie and I’m a doctor. I’m coming to help you, but if you can’t open the door for me I’ll need to force it open.’

  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. ‘Char
lie 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.’

  A few murmurs, but no outright hostility. Good. He could build on that.

  ‘And, finally, so I can get to know people who aren’t here today or are on a different shift, I’m planning drinks on Thursday night—my tab. If anyone can recommend a good bar, I’m all ears.’ And, please, please, any minute now the emergency department would bleep him, he’d have to go to Theatre and he could just relax and do the job he loved.

  ‘He’s gorgeous,’ Abby said.

  ‘Guy? Yeah, you already told me. Several times,’ Sophie said with a grin.

  ‘No. I mean Charlie.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  Her puzzlement must have shown on her face, because Abby added, ‘The new director of surgery.’