Dr Mathieson's Daughter Read online

  ‘Let them,’ he replied grimly. ‘It’ll give them a chance to see that care in the community means more than simply leaving psychiatric cases to fend for themselves. Charlie, you and Flo take the boy. Jane, I’ll need your help with the girl.’

  He was going to need his skill a whole lot more, she thought when she helped the paramedic wheel the girl into cubicle 2.

  The teenager was a mess. Countless lacerations to her face and arms, compound fractures to the right and left tibia and fibula which would require the services of both orthopaedics and plastics, but it was her laboured, rasping breathing that was the most worrying. If she wasn’t helped—and quickly—not enough oxygen would reach her brain and she’d be in big trouble.

  ‘ET, Jane,’ Elliot demanded, though in fact there had been no need for him to ask. She was already holding the correct size of endotracheal tube out to him, and gently he eased it past the girl’s vocal cords and down into her trachea. ‘IV lines and BP?’

  ‘IV’s open and running,’ she replied, checking the drip bags containing the saline solution which was providing a temporary substitute for the blood the teenager was losing. ‘BP 60 over 40.’

  Elliot frowned. Too low, much too low, and the girl’s heartbeat was showing an increasingly uneven rhythm.

  Quickly he placed his stethoscope on the injured girl’s chest. There were no breath sounds on the left side. She must have been thrown against one of the front seats in the crash and her left lung had collapsed, sending blood and air seeping into her chest cavity.

  ‘Chest drain and scalpel?’ Jane murmured.

  He nodded and swiftly made an incision into the upper right-hand side of the teenager’s chest, then carefully inserted a plastic tube directly into her chest cavity. ‘BP now?’

  ‘Eighty over sixty,’ Jane answered.

  Better. Not great, but definitely better. The chest drain had suctioned the excess air and blood out of the girl’s chest. She was starting to stabilise at last.

  ‘You’ll be wanting six units of O-negative blood, chest, arm and leg X-rays?’ Jane asked.

  Elliot’s eyebrows lifted and he grinned. ‘This is getting seriously worrying.’

  ‘Worrying?’ she repeated in confusion.

  ‘Your apparent ability to read my mind.’

  Just so long as you can’t read mine, she thought, and smiled. ‘It comes with working with you for two years.’

  He was surprised. ‘Has it really been that long?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  He supposed it must have been, but Jane…Well, Jane just always seemed to have been there. Skilled, intuitive, able to instinctively predict whatever he needed whenever he needed it.

  But even she couldn’t get him out of his current predicament, he thought, watching her as she inserted another IV line to take the O-negative blood they would use until they’d made a cross-match. Nobody could.

  If his mother hadn’t just left for Canada to stay with his sister Annie for the next three months to help her through what was proving to be a particularly difficult first pregnancy, she would have taken Nicole like a shot—he knew she would. Or if the agencies he’d phoned could have provided him with a nanny or a housekeeper immediately, but none of them could supply anybody until the beginning of April, and that was a month away.

  Which meant that not only was he up the creek without a paddle, he was sitting in a leaking boat as well.

  How could Donna have done this to him? She’d known the hours he worked, that everything could alter in an instant if a bad accident like this came in. What had she expected him to do with Nicole, then? And what about after school, at weekends?

  It probably hadn’t even occurred to her, he decided bitterly. Live for today—that had always been Donna’s motto. Live for today, and don’t think about tomorrow.

  Which was what attracted you to her in the first place, his mind pointed out. Her vitality, her lust for life, not to mention a husky French accent and a face and figure that had done irreparable damage to his libido.

  But it hadn’t lasted. Within three short years the marriage had been over, leaving him bitter and disillusioned. And now Donna was dead, killed in a car crash. And he had a daughter arriving tomorrow and no earthly idea of how he was going to cope.

  ‘Elliot, are you quite sure you’re OK?’ Jane said, her gaze fixed on him with concern when the teenager was wheeled out of the treatment room towards the theatre after Radiology had confirmed that the patient did, indeed, have compound fractures, but no other major damage. ‘You seem a bit, well, a bit preoccupied this afternoon.’

  ‘Perils of being a new and very inexperienced special reg,’ he replied, managing to dredge up a smile. ‘Too much to think about.’

  She didn’t press the point, though he knew she wasn’t convinced, and with relief he strode quickly down the treatment room to check on the other casualties. He didn’t want to talk about his problem—didn’t even want to think about it. All he wanted to do right now was to bury himself in work and forget all about his daughter, and he managed to do just that until late in the afternoon when the sound of children crying caught his attention.

  ‘What on earth’s going on in cubicle 8, Flo?’ he asked curiously. ‘It sounds like somebody’s being murdered in there.’

  She sighed. ‘It’s a case of child neglect. Two girls and a boy, aged between one and four. The police brought them in ten minutes ago for a medical assessment before they contact Social Services. Apparently their dad’s in jail, their mother is God knows where and a neighbour phoned the police because she hadn’t seen them out and about for a week.’

  ‘Medical condition?’ Elliot demanded, his professional instincts immediately alert.

  ‘Excellent, considering they’ve been living in an unheated flat for the past week, and the oldest child told the police they haven’t had anything to eat for two days.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Honestly, some people should never have children.’

  People like him, Elliot decided, but it was too late to think about that now, too late to regret that night in the hotel in Paris. ‘Who’s with them?’

  ‘Jane. Charlie’s checked them over, and there’s nothing we can do for them except clean them up and give them some food, but…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’

  He supposed it was as he strode into the cubicle to find Jane sitting on the trolley, holding the youngest of the three children in her arms while the other two clung to her, wide-eyed and clearly terrified.

  ‘Need any help?’ he asked.

  She shook her head and smiled, apparently completely oblivious to the overpowering smell of dried urine and faeces emanating from the trio. ‘No, thanks. I’ve sent down to the kitchens for some food, and Kelly’s organising a bath for them all.’

  ‘What about clean clothes?’ he suggested.

  ‘Flo’s phoned her husband and he’s bringing some of their twins’ old things over.’

  There was nothing for him to do here, then, Elliot realised, but still he lingered, watching in admiration as Jane managed to eventually coax some smiles from the children.

  She was good with kids. Actually, she was quite amazing with kids. He’d seen her get a response from even the most traumatised of children simply by sitting with them, holding them, murmuring all kinds of nonsense.

  And suddenly it hit him. He had the answer to all his problems sitting right in front of him. Jane. Jane would be perfect for Nicole, just perfect.

  But would she do it? Would she be prepared to move into his flat to help him out until he could get a nanny or a housekeeper in a month’s time?

  Of course she would. Jane helped everybody, and it wasn’t as though he was asking a lot. Not much, he observed sourly. Just for her to take over your responsibilities, that’s all. Nonsense, he wasn’t asking her to do that. He wasn’t even thinking about himself at all. He was simply thinking about Nicole.

  And Jane clearly thought he was, too, when he whisked her into hi
s office and explained what had happened after the police had collected the three abandoned children and taken them off to Social Services.

  ‘Oh, the poor little girl!’ she exclaimed, her eyes full of compassion. ‘Why on earth didn’t Donna tell you about her before?’

  He’d wondered about that, too, but all he could think was that she must have been so angry with him when they’d parted that this had been her way of punishing him.

  ‘You’re going to have to go very carefully with her,’ Jane continued, her forehead creased in thought. ‘Not only has she lost her mother, but coming to a strange country, to a man she doesn’t know…She’s going to need lots of love and attention.’

  ‘But that’s the trouble,’ he declared. ‘How can I give her lots of love and attention when I’m hardly ever going to be there? Janey, you know what our hours are like—’

  ‘We’ll all help out,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s a nuisance Mr Mackay being away, but when he gets back I’m sure he’ll agree to letting you work days for a while. In the meantime, we could ask Charlie if he’d mind doing most of your night shifts—’

  ‘I don’t want Charlie to do my night shifts!’ he snapped, then flushed as Jane’s eyebrows rose. ‘Janey, I’ve got to be honest with you…’

  He paused. How to explain? How to say that it wasn’t just a question of the day-to-day complications of taking care of a child that was worrying him, but that he didn’t want this girl because she would remind him of a time in his life he preferred to forget. Jane would ask why. She’d ask questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer.

  Better by far for her to think he was selfish, he decided. Better for her to believe he was the biggest heel of all time than for him to have to reveal the sorry details of his failed marriage.

  He took a deep breath. ‘Janey, the thing is, kids…they’re not really me. I never wanted any—never planned on having any. I’m a loner at heart, you see, always have been.’

  Oh, he was something all right, she decided as she stared up at him in utter disbelief. How could he be so unfeeling about a child? And not simply any child. His child. His daughter.

  ‘So you’re getting your mother to look after her, I presume?’ she said tightly.

  ‘I can’t. She flew out to Canada last Saturday to stay with my sister for the next three months. Annie’s been having a really rotten time with her first pregnancy—’

  ‘Then you’re hiring a nanny?’ Jane asked, her heart going out to his poor little motherless, unwanted child. ‘Or are you too damn mean to fork out the money?’

  ‘It’s not a question of money!’ he exclaimed, his cheeks reddening. ‘None of the agencies I contacted could get me anybody until next month, which is why…’ He quickly fixed what he hoped was his most appealing smile to his lips. ‘Janey, I need you to do me a huge favour. I want you to come and live with me, to help me look after Nicole.’

  ‘You want me to…’ Her mouth fell open, then she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I think there must be something wrong with my hearing. I could have sworn you just said you wanted me to come and live with you to look after your daughter.’

  ‘I did—I do. Janey, listen, it makes perfect sense,’ he continued as she stared at him, stunned. ‘You’re a woman—’

  ‘I also like pasta but that doesn’t make me Italian,’ she protested. ‘If you’re so desperate for help, why don’t you ask Gussie Granton? She’s your current girlfriend, according to the hospital grapevine, and as a paediatric sister she’s bound to know more about children than I do.’ He had the grace at least to look uncomfortable and her grey eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve already asked her, haven’t you, and she said no.’

  Gussie had. Oh, she’d been wonderfully understanding, her luscious lips curving into an expression of deepest sympathy, but, as she’d pointed out, the demands of her job simply didn’t give her the time to take care of a child.

  ‘Janey—’

  ‘So you decided that as your mother couldn’t do it, and Gussie wouldn’t, muggins here might fit the bill,’ she interrupted, her voice harder and colder than he’d ever heard it. ‘Well, you can forget it, Elliot. Forget it!’

  ‘But you’ve got to help me,’ he cried, coming after her as she made for his office door. ‘Surely you can see that I can’t do this on my own?’

  ‘You’re thirty-two years old, Elliot,’ she snapped. ‘Get off your butt and try!’

  ‘But you’re so good with kids—the very best,’ he said, his blue eyes fixed pleadingly on her. ‘And I’m not asking you to do it for ever—just for a month. Until I can get a nanny or a housekeeper. Please, Janey.’

  She’d heard that wheedling tone in his voice before. It was the one he used on women when he wanted a favour, and it usually worked on her, too, but not today.

  ‘No, Elliot.’

  ‘Look, I’m not asking you to go into purdah for the next month,’ he said quickly. ‘I have a three-bedroom flat—you can have your friends round whenever you want, go out whenever you want. All I’m asking is for us to dovetail our shifts and personal commitments so at least one of us will be there when Nicole comes home from school.’

  ‘No, Elliot.’

  ‘Janey, please. I’m begging you. If you won’t do it for me, won’t you at least do it for Nicole?’

  Blackmail. It was blackmail of the worst possible kind, and anyone who agreed to move in with him under those circumstances needed their head examined. Anyone who had secretly been in love with him for the last two years and agreed to do it needed that head certified.

  Tell him it’s his problem, not yours, her mind insisted. Tell him to go fly a kite, preferably on the edge of a very high cliff in the middle of a howling gale. OK, so his little girl must be grief-stricken to have lost her mother, but it’s not your problem.

  And she cleared her throat to tell him just that when an image suddenly came into her mind. An image of a little girl with big, frightened eyes. A little girl lost, and alone, and deeply unhappy.

  ‘Just for a month, you said?’ she murmured uncertainly.

  He nodded, hope, desperation, plain in his eyes.

  ‘You’ll have to do your fair share, Elliot,’ she declared. ‘Nicole is your responsibility, not mine.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely—definitely,’ he replied, nodding vigorously.

  Only an idiot would agree to this, she thought as she stared up into his handsome face. Only a fool would ever say yes. And yet, before she could stop herself, the words ‘All right, then, I’ll do it’ were out of her mouth.

  And as a broad smile lit up his face, and her heart turned over in response, she knew that she wasn’t simply an idiot. She was completely and utterly out of her mind.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SHE’S arriving this evening, then, on the nine o’clock plane from Paris?’ Floella declared as she helped Jane carry a fresh supply of medical dressings out of their small dispensary into the treatment room. ‘Poor little soul. Losing her mother like that. My heart goes out to her, it really does.’

  And I don’t know why MI5 doesn’t simply throw in the towel and hand over all its surveillance work to St Stephen’s in future, Jane thought ruefully.

  How did they do it? She’d told nobody about Nicole, and she was pretty sure Elliot hadn’t told anybody either, and yet it had taken the staff less than twenty-four hours to discover not only that he had a daughter but what time her plane was arriving as well.

  ‘I bet Gussie’s spitting nails about you moving into Elliot’s place.’ Floella chuckled. ‘I hear she’s been itching to become his live-in girlfriend.’

  ‘I’m not exactly moving in with him, Flo,’ Jane said quickly. ‘Simply helping out until he can employ a housekeeper.’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ the staff nurse said dismissively. ‘We all do.’

  Which was another thing that was beginning to seriously annoy her, Jane thought, putting down the boxes of Steri-Strips she was carrying with a bang. The way everyone had instantly assumed t
here wasn’t anything personal about the arrangement.

  OK, so there wasn’t, but that didn’t mean she had to like the idea that nobody thought there might be. She wasn’t that plain, and was it really so unlikely that she and Elliot could have become an item? Apparently it was.

  ‘Elliot, we were just talking about your little girl.’ Floella beamed as he strode down the treatment room towards them. ‘You must be really excited at the prospect of meeting her.’

  Jane didn’t think he looked even remotely excited, but to his credit he managed to mumble something suitably enthusiastic in reply.

  ‘You must bring her into the hospital one day, so we can all meet her,’ the staff nurse continued. ‘And, don’t forget, if you ever need a babysitter, I’ll be only too happy to oblige.’

  Elliot smiled and nodded but as Floella bustled away he shook his head wryly. ‘You know, this has got to be the worst-kept secret in the hospital.’

  ‘Do you mind everybody knowing about Nicole?’ Jane asked.

  He shrugged. ‘She’s a fact of life. Whether I mind or not is immaterial.’

  Which sounded very much as though he did mind. As though he’d far rather she didn’t exist.

  She’d thought—hoped—that since last night he might have had time to see what a great gift he’d been given, how lucky he was, but nothing, it seemed, had changed. He still saw his daughter as a nuisance, an unwelcome intrusion into his life.

  ‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said abruptly, but before she could move he suddenly clasped her hands in his.

  ‘Jane, what you’re doing for Nicole—for me—I just want to thank you again. It’s really good of you to help me out like this, and I do appreciate it.’

  Like hell you do, Elliot, she thought sourly, trying very hard not to notice the way her skin was traitorously reacting to the touch of his fingers. You just think you’ve got it made. You just think you’ve managed to offload your responsibilities onto someone else. Well, you’re going to find out very quickly that I’m not a complete pushover. You’re going to do your full share of taking care of your daughter, or my name isn’t Jane Halden.