A look of mock dismay appeared on the staff nurse’s face.
‘Oops, but would you believe I completely forgot to tell him that?’
‘Not for one second.’ Brianna laughed. ‘But it will do Vermin no harm to kick his heels for a couple of hours.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Chris declared smugly, then her eyes lit up. ‘Your husband’s here.’
‘Is he?’ Brianna said dully, without turning round, and Chris dug her gently in the ribs.
‘Talk about dark horses. I don’t know how you managed to keep quiet about him. He’s quite something, isn’t he?’
‘You said he was scary,’ Brianna reminded her, and the staff nurse’s smile widened.
‘I still think he is, but in a very sexy sort of a way.’
Chris thought her husband was sexy. So, too, she remembered, had the wives and girlfriends she’d sat next to at the dinner parties Connor had taken her to in London. Dinner parties whose sole purpose seemed to be for the businessmen there to boast about the deals they’d struck. Networking, Connor had called it, as she’d sat in silence throughout these meals, feeling completely out of place and uncomfortable. Nobody had ever been interested in her when they’d discovered she was a nurse. Zero networking opportunities, the men had clearly thought, while their wives and girlfriends had eyed Connor up, and tried to flirt with him.
‘Couldn’t you at least try to make conversation?’ Connor had said impatiently after one of the dinners. ‘The other wives, and girlfriends. They always seem to be able to find something to say, but you just sit there like a little frightened mouse.’
And she’d wanted to say that most of the wives and girlfriends’ conversations seemed to involve flirting with him, but she hadn’t.
‘Your head’s still sore, isn’t it?’ Connor declared as he walked across to her and Chris bustled away.
‘It’s better now,’ she lied, and saw his left eyebrow lift.
‘Yeah, right. How’s everyone doing?’ he continued, glancing at the incubators around them. ‘How’s the baby who was abandoned?’
‘His name is Harry, Connor,’ she said irritably. ‘He seems quite content.’
Quiet, you mean, Connor thought, and quiet doesn’t mean the same as content, you know it doesn’t, but you won’t accept that.
‘Brianna—’
‘The little girl with jaundice is progressing well,’ she said.
She was deliberately changing the subject, he knew she was, but he knew better now than to push.
‘Should the soles of her feet, and the palms of her hands, be quite so yellow?’ he asked, and saw Brianna smile.
‘They’re that colour because she had pretty severe jaundice. Every newborn has elevated bilirubin—it’s a byproduct of haemoglobin, which is usually eliminated from the body as waste—and it’s that excess bilirubin which makes so many babies’ skin look yellow. Normally, the baby’s liver will start functioning at full speed within a few days, but sometimes they need a little help, which is what we’re giving her.’
‘And the baby who has congenital hypo…hyper…’
‘Congenital hypothyroidism,’ she finished for him. ‘It occurs when a baby’s thyroid gland is absent or underdeveloped at birth.’
‘That sounds serious.’
‘It used to be. In the past, a baby could end up with permanent mental retardation, and development delay, but we can now give a synthetic thyroid orally.’
‘Fascinating,’ he said, meaning it, and she laughed.
‘There have been an amazing number of medical advances in recent years, and what is even more marvellous is scientists keep on discovering more and more treatments, more and more cures. Although…’ The light in her eyes suddenly dimmed. ‘Not for everything.’
He knew what she was thinking, and he didn’t want her to be thinking of their son, and this time it was he who changed the subject.
‘Little Amy. Mrs Renton’s daughter—’
‘Mrs Renwick,’ Brianna corrected him. ‘She’s progressing well, too. Naomi isn’t doing quite so well but I’m hoping Jess will be able to help her.’
‘Maybe we should have seen someone like Jess,’ he murmured. ‘After Harry…you know.’
‘Died,’ she prompted. ‘Just say it, Connor. Nothing awful is going to happen if you say that word.’
But he didn’t.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t have thought we could go it alone, cope alone,’ he continued, his face bleak. ‘Maybe if we had accepted the help the hospital offered, things might have been…easier.’
‘Maybe,’ she murmured, and she looked so suddenly lost that he longed to reach for her, to put his arms around her, but he’d tried that last night and she clearly hadn’t wanted his touch.
Was it too late for them? he wondered as he saw her smile past him, and he turned to see Mrs Renwick had arrived. He didn’t want to believe it was, but he never seemed able to say the right thing, never seemed able to do the right thing, to give her what she wanted, needed, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. It wasn’t in him to give in without a fight, and this fight involved the highest stakes he’d ever played for. This was one he simply couldn’t lose.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said in a low undertone as Mrs Renwick walked towards them. ‘I have notes to copy over to my laptop, and I think Amy’s mother looks as though she needs you.’
Naomi did, Brianna thought. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her face was white, and pinched.
‘I think you should go home to bed, Naomi,’ she said as Connor slipped away. ‘Forgo your visit today.’
‘I’m fine,’ Mrs Renwick replied. ‘I just had a very bad migraine yesterday, the third this week, and they tend to wipe me out.’
Stress, Brianna thought. Mega-, mega-stress.
‘Your daughter had an excellent night, and is currently moving all over the place inside her incubator,’ Brianna declared with a smile. ‘Every time I put her to the top, she manages to make her way to the bottom. In fact, I reckon you’ve got a future long-distance walker there.’
Naomi didn’t even attempt to raise a smile.
‘You’re very kind, Sister, and I know I must seem like the most negative person in the world to you—’
‘Of course you’re not.’
‘But sometimes it’s so hard to keep on being positive. My daughter is the most wonderful, precious, joy to me, but…’ Naomi bit her lip. ‘I told my husband last night she’s going to be our only child. I can’t go through this again—I just can’t.’
‘And statistically you won’t have to if you decide to give Amy a little brother or sister,’ Brianna said gently. ‘Though having had one premature baby does put you at a twenty to forty per cent risk of having another one, look at it another way. It also means there’s a sixty to eighty per cent chance you won’t.’
Naomi nodded, but Brianna could tell she hadn’t convinced her, and she wasn’t surprised. Having a premature baby was so emotionally draining for parents. All too often, every day seemed to bring with it a new challenge, a new worry, but if anyone could reassure Naomi it would be Jess.
And the counsellor was as good as her word. She arrived midafternoon, and bore Mrs Renwick off to the parents’ room, smoothing over Amy’s mother’s protestations of not having time by insisting she needed a cup of coffee but hated drinking it alone.
‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ Megan observed when Jess and Mrs Renwick had gone. ‘I wish we had the time to do what Jess does, but we’re so constantly snowed under with all the medical procedures we need to perform on the babies that the emotional needs of the parents far too often get overlooked.’
‘She’s one of a kind, that’s for sure,’ Brianna agreed. ‘And…’ She looked over her shoulder to make sure there was no one near, least of all Rita. ‘I think her job is safe. Connor hasn’t said so—not in so many words—but he did say she was very capable so.’
‘It’s looking good.’ Megan breathed with a
sigh of relief. ‘He didn’t…’ She grimaced. ‘Look, I know I shouldn’t be asking you this, but he hasn’t given you any indication of which department he might be recommending for the chop, has he?’
‘I’m afraid Connor doesn’t talk about his work,’ Brianna said ruefully. ‘Actually, Connor’s not big on talking, full stop.’
‘One of the strong, silent types, eh?’ Megan smiled, but Brianna didn’t.
‘You could say that,’ she murmured, then cleared her throat. ‘I’ve not seen Josh today.’
‘Hopefully he’s finally remembered which department he’s actually supposed to work in,’ Megan replied tersely.
Which pretty well ended that conversation, Brianna thought, but she couldn’t leave it there even though she knew she probably should. The specialist paediatric registrar looked as ragged as she felt.
‘Megan, I know this is none of my business—’
‘His wife’s left him, Brianna.’
‘Josh’s wife?’ Brianna said faintly. ‘But…’
‘Yes, I know,’ Megan said, her lips twisting slightly. ‘Rita must be really beginning to lose her touch if she hasn’t managed to pick up that juicy bombshell yet.’
The specialist registrar’s voice was hard, brittle, but if ever a woman was close to tears Megan was.
‘I think I saw his wife once at a hospital reception,’ Brianna said carefully, ‘but I’ve never met her.’
‘She was—is—very beautiful,’ Megan said. ‘But not happy. I don’t…’ She took a shallow breath. ‘I don’t think she was very happy.’
‘Was…?’ Oh, lord, but this was so very hard to say, but Brianna knew she had to say it. ‘Was that what Josh wanted to talk to you about yesterday?’
Megan nodded.
‘Not that it’s of the least interest, or consequence to me, of course,’ she said. ‘I mean, whether he’s married or single. It’s not like he and I…’ Her voice trembled slightly. ‘It’s not like we mean anything to one another.’
‘Oh, Megan—’
‘Don’t,’ the specialist paediatric registrar said quickly. ‘Please, don’t give me any sympathy, or I’m going to embarrass myself, and you.’
‘You could never embarrass me,’ Brianna said softly. ‘Not ever. Josh’s wife leaving him. Do you think…are you hoping…?’
‘I don’t know what I’m thinking, or hoping,’ Megan replied with difficulty. ‘I just wish…oh, how I wish…he’d never come to St Piran’s, that I’d never had to meet him again.’
Because now I have to think about things I don’t want to think about, remember things that might have been better kept buried. That was what Megan was saying, and Brianna understood exactly how she felt.
‘Megan, listen to me—’
The specialist paediatric registrar shook her head warningly, and Brianna glanced over her shoulder to see Connor approaching.
‘Great timing, Connor.’ She sighed as Megan hurried away, and her husband’s eyebrows rose.
‘I can always go away again,’ he offered, and she shook her head.
‘Too late, I’m afraid.’
And for more than one thing, she thought with dismay when she saw Mr Brooke sweeping into the ward, all smiles. If Vermin had convinced the consultant that she would be willing to give him another interview she was going to throw a hissy fit. A big one.
‘Ah, Sister Flannigan,’ Mr Brooke declared. ‘The very person I was hoping to see.’
‘Mr Brooke, if this is about Vermin—I mean Kennie Vernon,’ she began, ‘he’s had all he’s ever going to get out of me.’
‘Who’s Kennie Vernon?’ the consultant said with a frown.
‘The reporter who wanted to talk to you. The man who’s been hanging about in the corridor for the last couple of hours?’ she added helpfully. ‘Looks like a very bad eighties rock star, dressed all in black, goatee beard?’
‘I haven’t seen anyone like that this morning,’ Mr Brooke replied in confusion. ‘No, this is about you, my dear, and my offer,’ he continued, ushering her away from Connor to the side of the ward. ‘I really need your decision soon. Time and tide, remember, Sister Flannigan, time and tide.’
‘Yes. Absolutely,’ she muttered, wishing—oh, wishing so much—that the consultant would simply shut up.
He had such a very carrying voice even when he was trying to talk in an undertone, and though Connor was apparently deep in conversation with Chris he’d always been able to listen to two conversations at once.
‘As I told you, I can’t wait long,’ Mr Brooke continued. ‘You know how short-staffed we are, and, if you decide to step up to the plate and accept the nurse unit manager’s job, we’ll need to advertise for a replacement for your job.’
‘I appreciate that,’ Brianna said. Please shut up, she thought. Please just shut the hell up. ‘And I’ll give you my decision by the beginning of next week.’
‘Good. Good.’ Mr Brooke beamed, then turned on his heel. ‘Ah, Connor. A word with you, if I may? I’ve had a talk with ENT, and they say you can interview their staff next week if that suits you.’
Brianna didn’t wait to hear her husband’s reply. She was too busy heading for the ward door. She was due a break, and she intended taking it right now. Not in the canteen—with her luck, she’d probably run into Josh—but the nurses’ staffroom sounded good. A coffee, and more aspirin for her head sounded even better.
But her hoped-for peace and quiet didn’t last long. Within minutes, Connor had appeared and seemed hellbent on tearing the staffroom apart.
‘Can I assume you’ve lost something?’ she said as he turned his attention to the waste paper bin after riffling through the magazines on the coffee table.
‘A memory card.’ He frowned. ‘I’ve been transferring my notes on the various departments I’ve been assessing from my phone to my laptop via a memory card, and I can’t find it.’
‘That’ll teach you to be so damned hi-tech.’ She could not help but chuckle. ‘Use a clipboard and pen next time like the rest of us ordinary mortals.’
‘Oh, very funny,’ he said irritably, and she took pity on him.
‘What does this memory card look like?’
‘About the size of a small matchbox, but wafer thin.’
Brianna stared at the abandoned magazines, the unwashed coffee cups and discarded biscuit packets that littered the nurses’ staffroom, and shook her head.
‘Yeah, well, good luck with finding something that small in this place.’
‘Maybe I left it at your cottage,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve already searched the nurse unit manager’s office, and it’s definitely not in there.’
‘Don’t you have a back-up memory card?’
He nodded. ‘I do, but I’d still like to find the original. It has a lot of sensitive data on it.’
‘Should MI5 be worried?’ She grinned. ‘Maybe we should—’
The rest of what she’d been about to say died in her throat when the staffroom door opened, and Jess appeared, her face shining.
‘You look as though you’ve just won the lottery,’ Brianna declared, and Jess’s smile widened even further.
‘It’s something much, much better,’ the counsellor said excitedly. ‘I’ve remembered something else about the girl who I think could be Harry’s mother. It came to me when I was talking to Mrs Renwick.’
‘When you were talking to Naomi?’ Brianna said, and Jess nodded.
‘Naomi was wearing an initial necklace, and I suddenly remembered that the girl I met was wearing one, too. In fact, the second she saw me looking at it, she pushed it down into her blouse.’
‘Can you remember what the initial was?’ Connor asked when Brianna said nothing.
‘M—no, N—Or was it M? ‘ Jess shook her head with frustration. ‘It was one or the other, I’m positive.’
‘So what you’re saying is we should be looking for a teenager, with blonde hair, and grey eyes, who may—or may not—have been pregnant when you saw her, and whose f
irst name could start with the initial N or M? ‘ Brianna declared. ‘Jess, apart from the fact that this girl could be a complete red herring, think of all the girls’ names that start with those initials. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
‘Not that big a haystack,’ Connor observed thoughtfully. ‘Knowing it’s either N or M would cut out a lot of teenagers in the area.’
‘And what use is that?’ Brianna said irritably. ‘Even if we made a list of all the girls in the area whose Christian names begin with the letter N or M, we can hardly phone them up and say, “Have you been pregnant recently?”’
‘Flora,’ Jess declared. ‘Flora Loveday’s the health visitor for Penhally. I could phone her—ask if she’s noticed any girl who fits my description. A girl who might suddenly have become rather plump recently.’
‘And Flora will give you a complete roasting if you ask her that, you know she will,’ Brianna protested. ‘She’ll cite patient confidentiality, and she’d be right.’
Jess grimaced.
‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just. Oh, this is so frustrating. I feel I’m so close, so very close to finding this girl. All I need is one extra piece of the jigsaw.’
‘Jess—’
‘I wonder if I could get a list of all the families in the area?’ the counsellor continued. ‘The electoral roll only gives the names of those old enough to vote—but.’
‘And what then?’ Brianna said, trying and failing to hide her irritation. ‘I don’t want to rain on your parade, but maybe you should just give up on this amateur sleuthing, and leave it to the police to track down Harry’s mother. Personally, I think she’s most likely to be someone from outside the county, rather than a local girl.’
‘No, she’s local,’ Jess declared emphatically, ‘and I still think it’s the girl I met.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, why can’t you just accept it’s not?’ Brianna said tartly, and Jess blinked.
‘Brianna…’ Connor cautioned, and she rounded on him.
‘It’s true, Connor! This whole scenario of the girl who Jess happened to meet, who may, or may not, have given her a false name, and who may, or may not, be Harry’s mother, is crazy, you know it is. I understand that Jess wants to help, but enough is enough! ‘
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