by Lola Keeley
Table Of Contents
Other Books by Lola Keeley
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About Lola Keeley
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
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Other Books by Lola Keeley
The Music and the Mirror
Dedication
For Lande.
For her generous soul, and for being a better friend than anyone deserves.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who has chatted, provided caffeine, listened to me ramble, and offered feedback during this busy process of a second book.
Thanks to my wife, Kaite, who always finds time to encourage and support. Who inspires me with her own hard work and dedication. Thank you for surrounding us with books and cats, and for showing me what a writer is capable of.
Lee, thank you for getting the wood out of the trees and keeping me on track. This story is infinitely better for your guidance and correction. Astrid, thank you for continuing to let me unleash words on the world.
As always, my first line of idea bouncing and feedback are my writing buds: Sus, Luce, Rach, Marissa, and Rachel. Thank you for playing in the same sandbox every day.
JJ, Gabby, Laura, Sarah—thank you for making me laugh and sharing in the salt. Thanks to the Woolf pack regulars for showing up and for being an endless source of wisdom.
Haley, thank you for making my dream come true!
Big thanks to my parents for supporting me in so many ways, whether it’s my old bedroom to crash in, or tracking down the best lunch in Lanarkshire.
My dear bezzer, Lisa-Marie, not least for always providing the tunes.
Finally: to all four cats, without whom this book would have been ready sooner and with much less wrestling over the keyboard. Franklin, Orlando, Nora, and Collins, you are a bunch of adorable idiots.
Chapter 1
The knife comes as something of a surprise.
Not because they’re in a busy central London hospital, where knives of every blade and sharpness are a common accessory to any number of plunging stab wounds or aggressive patients refusing to be treated. Not even because they’re in the entrance corridor of the Acute Medical Unit, first stop for non-trauma patients being admitted after rocking up to Accident & Emergency. Which is the actual spiritual home of knives, expected and otherwise. The sharps bins there overflow with cutlery as often as they do used needles.
No, the unexpected nature of this knife is that it’s being wielded by a slender blonde woman, in her late thirties. Where Veronica’s own complexion retains the brown hues of her father and grandparents, lady-with-the-knife is porcelain pale.
The knife itself isn’t even especially tricky. Who knew anyone still carried a Swiss Army knife? Though the famous red casing seems to have considerable mileage on it, the chosen blade is immaculate as it gleams under their sickly fluorescent lighting.
“Stop right there!” Veronica barks, an order that would have any of her foundation-year doctors scurrying for cover. The blonde, who’s currently straddling an injured cyclist lying on a gurney, drops the blade next to the injured man’s arm. Order restored.
Except her next move is to brace herself and pick up the knife again. This will not do.
“Put. That. Down.” Well, at least there’s a pause before the re-enacting of Psycho. “Pauline, call security. Lea, can you find out whether Mr Wickham is planning to grace us with his presence anytime soon?”
Peter Wickham, her second-in-command, should be off preparing to face his promotion panel today, but his sporty strength does come in handy at times. Veronica intends to get best use out of the consultant she’s trained since he first emerged, blinking, from the hallowed halls of Oxford.
“There’s no need for security.” Veronica’s surprised when the woman finally speaks. Her voice is like aural lidocaine, smooth and comforting, entirely unflappable. It’s the bedside manner Veronica’s been trying to capture for more than fifteen years. “There is a distinct need for an emergency splenectomy.”
Veronica’s head says she’s some kind of fantasist, but her gut recognises a fellow professional.
“Last I checked, the Swiss don’t include a ten-blade.”
“This is for the Lycra.”
She promptly snags the collar of the man’s cycling leotard—Veronica assumes it has a considerably more butch-sounding proper name—and slices it like a strip of wallpaper, straight down the middle. Pulling it apart, she starts to palpate the upper left quadrant of the patient’s abdomen. Despite being mostly out of it, he hisses through his teeth at first contact.
“See? And a moment ago he was clutching his shoulder.” The blonde looks triumphant. “Where’s your nearest general surgeon?”
“That would be me, but I’m not in theatre today. Let’s get him to Imaging—without a passenger if you please. Then we’ll see who’s on the board.”
“He doesn’t have time.”
“You’re not a CT scanner, so you can’t possibly know that!” Veronica’s notoriously short patience is close to snapping. “So if you could get off our bloody patient, Dr…?”
“Taylor,” she corrects, spine straightening. “Major Cassie Taylor, in fact. Trauma surgeon. But I’d much rather get him open and see if we can’t save part of this spleen, rather than letting him bleed out until we have to remove the little bastard.”
“But…you can’t do that!” Veronica is relieved to see the two bumbling security guards from A&E, a modern day Tweedledum and Tweedledee in scratchy black wool jumpers, ineffectual rubber batons clipped to their belts. At least they’re built like brick shithouses. This slip of a thing won’t be a match for them, Major or not. Which branch, anyway? Army, navy, air force? Veronica blinks a few times to stop picturing her in uniform. Or Action Man fatigues.
Patient. Spleen. Intruder riding his gurney like a hobby horse. Focus, Veronica chides herself.
“Ms Mallick?” Lea comes sprinting back, Peter Wickham in tow. He’s wearing one of his nicer suits, Boss or Armani no doubt, and his sandy blond hair is ruffled already. “Mr Wickham’s here.”
“I can see that, Lea. Peter, if this woman—sorry, Major—won’t get off my patient, I’d like you to lift her. Bodily.”
“I wouldn’t try it,” Cassie Taylor warns, her pale cheeks getting pinker. “But someone can wheel us into the nearest available operating theatre, and get me some scrubs.”
“Oh, I don’t think so—” Veronica begins.
“Since none of the surgeons here seem interested in much other than paperwork,” Cassie accuses, nodding at the stack of files under Veronica’s arm and then the papers in
Peter’s. “Listen, I’ve got my GMC card in my bag, so if someone wants to root around in there, I can get on with this.” Sure enough, there’s a nondescript black leather bag by her foot.
“Listen—” Peter tries turning on the charm, moving close, but Cassie turns away in apparent disgust.
“You!” She barks at a passing orderly, one Veronica only vaguely recognises. “Get a hold of this trolley and get us into the surgical wing. Can you do that?”
The orderly, six-foot-something and muscular, looks at the gaggle of doctors and nurses, before shrugging. He positions himself at the head of the cyclist’s portable bed and starts wheeling them off, at pace.
“Did she just…” Peter watches them go. “Steal a patient?”
Veronica is half-inclined to chase after them, but the surgical staff will soon deal with it. She gestures for security to follow them, and they huff and puff, but they do it.
“Do you really care?” She cranes her neck to look after them. Should she go and physically intervene? All the training says don’t engage, but Veronica will be damned if patients can be picked up on a whim, like takeout coffee. Still, no point in stressing out Peter before his hour in the spotlight. “How’s the panel prep? Ready to be grilled?”
“Well, that’s the thing; she’s just come out of the panel.” He points after the patient-pinching Major. “She must have been first up.”
“That lunatic is up for Head of Trauma?” Veronica looks at him like he might have lost his mind, too. “Well, I’d say that makes you even more of a sure thing, Peter.”
“Taking it a little personally, Vee?” says a familiar voice behind her.
Veronica turns to see her brash and brilliant best friend, Edie, whose attention has already switched to Peter.
“Best of luck, darling.” With a kiss to his cheek, Edie dispatches him back to wherever the panel is being held.
“Thanks. I’ll just check that someone has actually verified her,” Peter says. “Do me good to stretch my legs before I face the firing squad.” He lopes off, those easy athletic strides of his eating up the long corridor.
“Edie.” Veronica greets her properly with a brisk hug. “You choose the worst Monday mornings to show up like a bad penny, you know that?”
“Well you were all standing around staring as I approached. Who was putting on a show? And was she your type?”
Veronica dismisses Edie with a wave. Forever trying to set her up, regardless of who the other woman actually is in any given equation. Just when the morning can’t get any more frustrating, the new Deputy CEO comes barrelling along the hallway towards them. Veronica has got to stop hanging around at the intersection of hospital corridors. These interruptions happen less when she’s tucked away in her broom closet of an office.
“Oh Christ, here comes Travers,” she groans, patting Edie on the shoulder. “You should run while you still can.”
“Ms Mallick!” Wesley Travers shouts at Veronica, as though she can’t see him charging towards her like a bull separated from the herd at Pamplona. If bulls wore tweed and too much spiced cologne. “Have you seen my email about—”
“I’m just getting in, Dr Travers.” Despite outranking her in the management hierarchy, Wesley never trained as a surgeon. In fact, some days Veronica has her doubts as to whether he finished his medical training at all before jumping wholeheartedly into management. She quite fancies his job title for herself one day, without the ‘Deputy’ in front for good measure. She intends to get there with the understanding and experience of a great surgeon under her belt. “I’ll respond just as soon as I’m at my desk.”
Veronica ignores completely that she’s usually glued to her phone and could respond just as readily from there. She learned long ago to set boundaries with superiors and direct reports alike, lest they try to tell her how she should be spending her time.
“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Wesley turns the good-old-boy act on Edie, offering his permanently clammy hand to shake hers. While they both share the redhead genes, his is a weak sort of strawberry blond, the few strands hanging on arranged in a combover of sorts. Edie is the fiery red of Ireland-via-Hollywood, salon perfect on every strand.
Veronica seizes her chance to cause trouble, because frankly why she should be the only one on the receiving end?
“Oh, this is just one of Peter’s one-night stands we can’t seem to get rid of,” she says, poker face firmly in place.
“Yes,” Edie confirms, energetic in her handshake. “Only that was about nine years, a wedding, and two children ago. Dr Hyatt-Wickham. So pleased to meet you, Dr Travers.”
“That name does ring a bell,” he says, smarmy smile firmly in place as his beady eyes dart back and forth between the two women. “But you’re not on staff here?”
“No, God no! Just visiting.” Edie corrects him with her fakest, tinkling laugh. She withdraws her hand, discreetly wiping it on the hip of her pale grey Burberry trench coat. Despite the two children under five situation, she’s rarely anything other than spotless. “But if Veronica here is too much trouble, you just say the word and I can have her sectioned.”
“Ah, psychiatry,” he replies, clearly pleased to be in on the joke. “Oh no, we need our Ms Mallick. AMU wouldn’t run without her. I suspect she’s keeping certain other hellscapes from spilling over too. Still, must be getting on.”
He turns back to Veronica, who is preening just a little at the unexpected compliment. It’s true that she does her share of standing up to, and babysitting, the lawlessness of Accident & Emergency. Still, that sort of thing is acknowledged about as rarely as a female director at the Oscars around here.
“Look forward to your email reply!” Wesley strides off.
“Shouldn’t you be overcharging someone to talk about their dreams?” Veronica diverts Edie back over to a calmer exit, one that avoids A&E altogether. “Don’t worry about Peter; between the pair of us we’ve primed him perfectly. He’ll be the next Head of Trauma here, and everything will settle.”
“It better.” Edie sighs. “He’s so cheerful about his backup plan. Fancies himself a Dr Kildare, dishing out Valium and rabies shots in the countryside, while the kids go frolic with lambs and take lessons in a one-roomed school.”
“It’s just the stress talking,” Veronica reassures her. “I’ll have one of the keener juniors talk him into a squash game or something this evening, keep his mind off it.”
“You know, when we met I didn’t think you’d become my partner in keeping my marriage on track.” Edie almost looks wistful. “Speaking of the old days, I was talking to Angela—”
Veronica cuts her off right away. “My darling ex has already been on my case, thank you very much. I’m more than willing to take on my share of weekends and after school, but I won’t force our son to spend time with me when he doesn’t want to.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Edie says. “He’s a good kid. Let’s have lunch this week, okay? You can tell me what happened with this mystery woman today.”
“Assuming she hasn’t been arrested yet. Peter would have called by now if it had gotten out of hand, right? You think you’ve seen everything in this madhouse, and then people start jumping on patients.” For all her cool exterior, Veronica couldn’t help worrying about the injured cyclist. Still, between Peter, security, and the operating theatre staff, she had to trust in the system for now.
“What team does she play for?” Edie interrupts her fretting.
“I didn’t get a chance to check her sexual preferences while she was trying to perform surgery in the hall,” Veronica points out, feeling about as reasonable as she’s ever been. “She had an actual Swiss Army knife. What next? Sticky-back plastic? Anyway, I think I’m free Wednesday, but you’re buying.”
“Make it somewhere with a decent wine list and you’re on.”
Edie runs her own practice, s
o it’s easy enough for her to agree.
Veronica waves her off before turning back to the Monday-morning hum of her department. The paint might be institutional pale yellow, flaking in the corners, and the floor might have the squeak of linoleum worn down by too many trolley wheels and sensible shoes, but it’s her kingdom, her domain.
All around her the noises of the hospital continue. The low buzz of the lights overhead, the faint beeping of thousands of monitors, the constant murmur of traffic on three sides of them, and the vibration of trains running underneath.
Another week is starting. Time to get this show on the road. No amount of mysterious military blondes can get in the way of that.
Chapter 2
Cassie doesn’t ever intend to get herself into these situations; they just have an uncanny knack of happening to her anyway.
It’s not that other people won’t eventually see the same things she can—Cassie is no savant—but for most of her career “eventually” has been a luxury her patients could ill afford.
And sure, there are other ways to make a point beside climbing on people. But the critical lack of urgency in this department is what the attractive, dark-skinned doctor, with her perfect hair and her tailored pantsuit, should be yelling about. Not Cassie’s well-intentioned attempts to save this man’s spleen.
It’s a shock tactic of sorts, grabbing the nearest able-bodied helper to wheel them away, but Cassie has little choice. It’s been a bad introduction, anyway, and only going downhill from there. There’s not much chance of restoring her credibility, other than by getting this bleed under control. Still, there’s a defiant little part of her that wants to wave at this Mallick woman like Cassie’s the captain of a cup-winning football team on an open-top bus.
An even cheekier part would like to flick her the Vs, but there’s something almost too suggestive about that.
Still, at least the theatre staff are more cooperative. Maybe it’s Monday-morning lethargy, but when sufficiently barked at, they stand back and make room. They’re not entirely subservient, Cassie discovers as she goes about the business of quickly changing into the supposedly unisex scrubs that, in her size, make no accommodation for hips nor bust. She debates whether straining seams or another change is more irritating, only for another officious woman in a skirt that makes her walk like a penguin to come storming in.