IT HAD BEEN a hell of a night in the A & E department of the Royal Victoria Infirmary. Since midnight there had been a steady stream of walking wounded, as well as emergency admissions brought in by ambulance, some with blue lights flashing and sirens screaming, the whole works. At last count, a hundred-plus cases had been booked in: heart attacks, strokes, a small child rushed in with meningitis, casualties from multiple RTAs. Bursting at the seams, the department had coped – but only just. Then it all went quiet.
Totally spent, Senior House Officer Valerie Armstrong glanced around the waiting room, sipping cold tea she’d been given half an hour ago, relieved to have survived the general mayhem in the run-up to the August bank holiday weekend. Apart from one confused old man who’d just taken a seat, there wasn’t another punter in sight. The place looked as if it had been burgled: wheelchairs abandoned at the door, chairs tipped over, food wrappers and polystyrene cups discarded everywhere, a baby’s nappy dumped on the floor next to, of all things, an empty vodka bottle. She couldn’t remember a night like it.
Behind a thick glass screen to her left, the department’s twenty-year-old temporary receptionist looked done in. Louise was leaning on the counter, head propped up in the palm of her right hand, ID clipped to the pocket of a tight-fitting white shirt, a pretty silver chain around her neck.
Stifling a yawn, she took in the clock on the wall.
‘What time you due to knock off?’ she asked.
Valerie checked her watch. ‘’Bout an hour and a half,’ she said. ‘I’m ready to crash.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed an unattended patient lying on a trolley in the corridor, just his head showing above the covers. To be fair to Louise, he was only partially visible from where she was sitting. But still . . .
The SHO pointed at the trolley. ‘Whose patient?’
The girl shrugged. ‘Maybe Dr Suri’s . . . or Dr Templeton’s.’
She was blatantly guessing.
Valerie didn’t think much to either suggestion. Both doctors were long gone. She’d passed them in the corridor as she came back in after collecting her breakfast from her car. On call since midday, they’d had their coats on and were on the way out of the building.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They’ve gone off duty.’
‘Roger’s then?’ Another guess.
A staff nurse appeared, a manila folder under her arm, calling out to the old man. As the two shuffled off behind a brightly coloured curtain, Valerie glanced at a box on the wall where patient records were kept for those awaiting treatment. Curiously, it was empty. Her eyes shifted from the box to the man on the trolley, then back to Louise.
She tried not to sound cross. ‘Any idea how long he’s been waiting?’
‘I’m sorry, no.’ Louise looked worried.
Valerie attempted a smile of reassurance.
If in doubt, ask the patient.
She set off to do just that. But as she drew closer, her steps faltered, an inexplicable feeling of dread eating its way into her subconscious. Seized by panic, she stopped short of the trolley and glanced nervously over her shoulder at reception. Louise barely acknowledged her. Valerie’s gaze shifted back to the patient. Steeling herself, she stepped forward, placed index and middle fingers on his neck. His skin was cold to the touch. No pulse. No need to call for the crash team. He was as dead as a stone.