Chapter 1: Emergency

In the three months she had lived in the quiet seaside resort of Sandmouth Bay, Dr Rebecca Simons had completed a dozen shifts in the Accident & Emergency Department at the local General Hospital. This particular shift was different though, and likely to be busier than a normal Saturday night in this off-season period. For a start it was Christmas Eve and well after the pubs had finally ejected their merry patrons out onto the darkened streets. Dr Simons glanced at the clock, having finished stitching the wound a youth who’d had a broken glass pushed into his face in an argument, he’d said, with his recently new girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.

To her surprise it was already ten past one, it had been Christmas Day for seventy minutes and she hadn’t been aware of it! Just four more hours, she thought, and she could go home to her new house, hardly worthy of the name “home”, it was almost empty of furniture and she would be alone at Christmas for the second year running.

She left her patient in the capable hands of nurse Beth Sharp and exited the cubicle to check out the main waiting room, to see who was next in line. Surprisingly, the waiting room was empty. Nurse Jennifer Carter on the welcome desk shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

“Merry Christmas!” Jen said cheerily, standing up behind the counter and putting out her arms for a hug.

Dr Simons repeated the greeting with a warm smile and bent over to embrace her short, blond, amply-built colleague.

Dr ‘John’ Mohammed, the grizzled hospital registrar, emerged from the back office and gave the young doctor a welcome squeeze, too. His name wasn’t really ‘John’, but when he started working at the hospital twenty-odd years earlier that was the best pronunciation the West Country locals could come up. The name stuck, even down to his official photo-nameplate pinned to his green PPE tunic.

“I’m gonna take the opportunity to freshen up and then take the weight off my feet for a few minutes.” Dr Simons said.

“Don’t be long, Rebecca,” John said, “The Starlight Club kicks them out at one-thirty and this might have been Christmas Eve to us, but to some of the locals it is just another everyday common or garden Saturday night!”

The doctors’ restroom in the Accident and Emergency Department had a bathroom attached and Dr Simons examined her reflection in the mirror almost as thoroughly as she had the broken skin of her most recent patient. The initial assessment was that of a brunette, of slightly above average height, athletic build, slim waisted (with long legs, she added with a slight smile, though the mirror only showed her head and shoulders), and she was quite broad-shouldered. She leaned into the mirror, her hazel eyes looked tired with dark rings below them. It was only to be expected, she had done full morning and afternoon surgeries at her practice during the day, making several house calls between and after, and had been busy in the casualty department since six. That’s seventeen hours straight and she had four more to go.

“Becks, you look a mess,” she told herself out loud as she tried to tuck a rogue hank of hair behind her ear, which fell back to where it was again almost immediately. She ignored it. Her face was pasty, it wasn’t just the exhaustion or the winter season of the year. Her life was full of work, yet empty at the same time. If only Justin hadn’t been such a disappointing husband, she might still have been happily married.

“I am looking forward to a long sleep before having a go at those living room curtains!” she promised herself. With so little time to herself, what with work and home visits to see her mother and sister, she had determined to use the holiday to get her house at least looking as though it was lived in, after almost three months in a hotel room and only four, now five very busy days in her first very own house.

It would be a strange, lonely but purposeful Christmas Day. And she could do with any positives in her life right now.

She ran water into the sink until it was almost too hot for her hands and washed her face, dried it by gentle patting with the rough paper towels and looked at herself from as many angles she could move her eyes and head to view. Not bad, she thought, the hot water having restored some healthy colour to her skin. Not bad for someone just the wrong side of 30, having recently been divorced from the only man she had ever allowed into her life, until he decided to betray her trust and got found out. Bastard!

At least there were no children, and there was still plenty of time for her in that direction, just about though, starting from scratch. Her face was a strong one, more like her father’s than her mother, unfortunately.

Not that she remembered her father much, not having seen him for 25 years, but she had all the photos. It was a long face with strong brown eyebrows and long dark brown lashes shielding rich brown eyes. Her nose was long and straight, giving her a serious expression, which came in handy when as a doctor she needed it. She had high, well defined cheekbones but her cheeks were very much thinner than they used to be.

The shock of the end of her relationship had destroyed her appetite, the anger had increased her killer exercise routine and made her lose an excessive amount of weight in quite a short time. Her lips were thinner than she would like and she felt they made her look even gloomier. Her face ended with a wide jaw, which she needed to accommodate her amazing set of teeth. She smiled at that thought and her lips parted, her mouth widened and upturned at the ends to reveal her neat rows of pearly whites. Her eyes crinkled, emphasising the dark bags under them, but what the hell, she insisted, it’s Christmas and she deserved to smile, however old and more world-weary she thought it made her look.

“What have you got planned for today, Doctor?” Nurse Karen asked, with barely a hesitation from her constant mobile phone texting, when Rebecca got back to the waiting room.

“A long soak in the bath, a hot sweet cocoa and a warm bed, then eight straight hours with my eyes closed, in that order!” Rebecca replied, remembering that without curtains she still had to wear a mask over her eyes for daylight sleeping. “And you?”

“Oh, the family, and I mean ALL the family, are coming round my Mum’s, it’s gonna be a nightmare! Two hours’ sleep max, but after lunch we’ll all doze, I’ll get in another four and still sleep all night!”

Rebecca laughed, tossing her head in the direction of the waiting room behind her, “Does it still look quiet?”

“O-ooh!” Karen announced to the other two nurses and doctor within earshot, “She just said the... ‘Q’ word! Tin helmets on everyone!”

“Sorry, folks, wasn’t thinking,” Rebecca apologised, just as the airwave radio speaker squawked.

“Sierra-Golf-Zero-One from Sierra-Romeo-Zero-Niner, message, over!” the loudspeaker rasped.

Nurse Carter was on it like a flash. “Go ahead, Zero-Niner, over.”

The reply was immediate. “Returning to base ETA four; two casualties, stand by Zero-One ... three casualties, one neck injury, with head trauma, unconscious, breathing difficulties; one suspected fractured arm, conscious, one cut face. ETA now two-point-five, over.”

“All received, Zero-Niner, out!” Carter ended.

Karen Adler put away her phone and straightened her uniform. Everyone looked expectantly towards the door. They heard the siren before they saw the lights and everyone bar Carter moved towards the door, two trolleys with them.

Dr John spoke first, “I’ll take the head trauma with Beth. Rebecca, you deal with the arm and Karen the face cut.”

“Hold on, John,” Rebecca was determined to hold her own. “This is my shift, you’re just staying on beyond your normal time to help out. I’ll take the trauma, you set the arm!”

John replied with a salute and a smile.

The ambulance pulled up smartly at the entrance to Casualty and paramedic George jumped out of the driver’s door. He did have a surname, but the pronunciation of his Polish family name was pretty well as indecipherable as his radio transmissions, which was why he drove more often than shared duties normally dictated. The back doors swung open and it took the combined efforts of George and John from the outside and paramedic Barry on the inside to get the first wheeled trolley out of the ambulance down to the ground.

“Hell,” Beth exclaimed when she saw the occupant, “It’s Porterhouse Pete! Swaps with your face case, Karen?”

“No way!” Karen’s reply was emphatic. “I mean to enjoy my Christmas, the last person I want to work on tonight is that arsehole!”

“Damn! Thought you’d say that!” Beth moaned.

“What’s the problem, guys? He’s a big bugger, admittedly, but looks completely out of it.” Rebecca was puzzled by the nurses’ attitude.

John looked straight at her. “Still time for us to swap, Rebecca, if you want to, Pete can be a real handful when he’s awake!”

“Not on your life, let me get him to a cubicle!”

“Don’t say I didn’t offer,” smiled John shaking his grey-haired head, marvelling at the naïveté of youth over experience; ‘at least I offered’, he thought.

George and Barry wheeled the laden wheeled stretcher into Casualty while John and Karen dealt with the walking wounded. In cubicle number one, Rebecca helped the paramedics transfer the unconscious bulky form to the bed by holding the braced head as still as possible. Beth switched over the oxygen mask attached to the bottle on the trolley to the one in the cubicle.

“Gud luk,” said George, cheerily, in his heavy accent and a huge smile on his face, and Barry held up his hand in farewell as the pair wheeled their stretcher back to their ambulance. Rebecca turned back to the bed, to catch Beth finishing off putting the patient restraints on Pete’s arms, legs and chest.

“Are you sh—”

“Oh, yes,” came the reply, “You’ve not come across Porterhouse Pete before, have you?”

“Don’t think so —”

“You’d know if you had! When he comes out of it he’ll be swinging and he won’t have a clue what at. I don’t think he would hit a woman deliberately, but an accidental punch on the kisser still hurts just the same!”

Rebecca did her preliminary checks. Without sight of his medical file, she thought he was in his forties. The patient’s head and face was covered in disfiguring scars, from either several fights or a single traumatic beating. She thought he might have been handsome once, but only a mother would love him now. She removed the face mask to check his breathing. He was clearly able to breathe by himself, so Beth switched off the air and put the mask away, removing and discarding the filter and replacing it with a new one automatically.