IT HAPPENED IN a flash. One second Paige McLeod was on her feet, the next she was flying into a wall, smashing against it and landing on the floor.
For a few seconds her brain didn’t really compute what had happened. A&E was crazily busy—had been for the last few hours. The waiting room was packed, every cubicle full, and two ambulances were still waiting to offload their patients in the receiving bay.
She tried to breathe, and immediately realised her mistake. The air had been knocked clean out of her. Trying to breathe was a limited possibility. Her hand went to the back of her head, rubbing the spot that had hit the wall.
She was surrounded by feet, familiar voices, shouts and a scramble on the floor next to her.
Leo’s face appeared in front of her. He muttered an expletive as he grabbed her around the shoulders and leaned over her, clearly doing a quick assessment.
‘Paige? Are you okay?’
She could already feel his assessing eyes on her body. He looked over his shoulder to one of the black-uniformed cops—a familiar presence in a Scottish A&E on a Saturday night. ‘Have you got him?’
There was an affirmative nod. Leo sighed and concentrated his gaze on Paige. ‘Come on, let’s get you checked.’ He helped her to her feet.
She started to shake her head. ‘It’s too busy—’ Then stopped as a wave of nausea surged upwards. She put her hand to her mouth as Leo steered her into the nearest sluice room and pulled her hair back from her face as she was sick. His muttered expletives told her just how angry he was.
Then there was another. ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.
She lifted her hand to her head and pulled it back. Sure enough, her fingers were smeared with blood. Before she had a chance to speak she felt something pressed against her head. Leo had her in a cubicle, a quick clean of her head wound and some paper sutures applied.
She was only glad he hadn’t had to shave part of her scalp in order to put some proper stitches in. The wound must be superficial. It would be okay.
A few minutes later she was seated in the comfortable chair behind his desk, a glass of water in one hand, a sick bowl on the desk, as he shone a pen torch in her eyes.
She sighed and leaned back in the chair. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ll get back out there in a minute.’
‘No, you won’t.’
She blinked. She’d been struggling recently but hadn’t spoken about it, and didn’t really want anyone to know. She thought she’d kept her feelings hidden. But maybe she hadn’t fooled Leo.
The comfortable chair didn’t feel quite so comfy. She sat up. ‘What do you mean?’
He let out a huge sigh and settled in the hard chair opposite. She’d never really thought about it before, but Leo’s chair was immensely comfortable, and the chair at the other side of the desk was hard and unyielding—almost as if he didn’t want any guest to stay too long. Clever guy. He’d been the head of this Glasgow A&E for as long as anyone could remember. There was a lot to learn here.
His voice was deep. ‘Paige, this is the third time you’ve been assaulted at work in six months. Last time with your head injury I...’ His voice cracked.
She leaned towards him and put her hand over his. ‘That was not your fault.’
Leo lowered his head for a few seconds. Everyone knew the punch that had caused Paige’s head injury had been aimed at Leo. For an older guy he was light on his feet and had ducked sideways to avoid it, not realising Paige was directly behind him.
His dark grey eyes looked at her. There was an air of resignation about him. ‘Attacks on NHS staff are increasing. We both know that. And they’re entirely unacceptable. We all know A&E bears the brunt of this. We have the drunks. The confused. The upset, and the angry. You’re a brilliant doctor, Paige. I don’t want to lose you. But I also don’t want you to accept this as part of your job. None of us should.’
Paige blinked back tears that had formed in her eyes. Things were starting to catch up with her. Her ribs and shoulder were aching a little, and her head was pounding. She lifted one hand. ‘But you need me. We’re slammed out there.’
Leo nodded. ‘We are. But I trust our colleagues. Everyone has been triaged. Those who need immediate care are getting it. Those who can wait, will wait.’
He leaned back and folded his arms. Then she watched him swallow. Oh, no. This was serious.
She was panicking inside. Those words. I don’t want to lose you. It was as if he’d reached inside her head and seen all the thoughts she’d been having. Her feelings of self-doubt. The early mornings her alarm had gone off and she’d woken with a sensation of dread. The near belief that the last few attacks in A&E had been because she hadn’t been completely on her game, and she’d probably deserved what had happened. She’d been thinking about leaving. About handing in her notice. But it made her feel like such a failure. Six years of university, followed by six years of working as a doctor. What an absolute waste. Didn’t everyone want to be a doctor?
‘Paige, when did you last have some time off?’
The words seemed to come out of nowhere, pulling her back from her thoughts. She blinked and pressed her lips together. She knew the answer to his question but didn’t want to say it out loud. She’d willingly cancelled her first lot of annual leave when a fellow colleague had problems in her pregnancy. She’d cancelled her second lot when another colleague had come down with a short-term acute illness. It was what any reasonable human would do.
She lifted one hand. ‘We’re coming up on Christmas—our busiest time. I’m due to work. There’s no way I can have time off right now.’
Leo gave a sad smile. ‘Dr McLeod, as the head of this department, I’ve let you down. You’ve been assaulted in my department three times in six months, and you’ve cancelled holidays to cover for colleagues. Your dedication and expertise is not in question, Paige, but your wellbeing is.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn’t quite sure what to say. Now she really thought that Leo might know what she’d been thinking.
Leo continued. ‘I’m giving you this week as sick leave, then four weeks as annual leave. By the time you come back, the new security staff I’ve requested for over a year will be in place, and our two new medics from Spain and Ireland will be in post. We’ll have a full complement of staff, and we should be safer.’
She swallowed and looked around Leo’s office. His walls were decorated with awards he’d been given, and photos of him with his arms around colleagues. All of the colleagues looked at him with admiration in their eyes. He was probably one of the best doctors she’d ever work with. She was tired. She was feeling a bit jaded. And all she really wanted to do was curl up in her bed. She was so used to clocking in every day, of doing extra hours to ensure that an elderly patient got a bed in the ward they needed, or waiting for a set of blood results or X-ray to come through so she could finish her care.
She knew exactly what she was doing. It was easy to push the memories of the assaults from her brain and stick them in some kind of box where they could be hidden and ignored. No member of healthcare staff should be assaulted. The whole world believed that. But it did happen. And Leo was right. It was time to take stock and ask questions. That was why he was in the job.
She looked down. Her hands were shaking. She hadn’t even realised. Her voice shook too. ‘What will I do?’ she asked.
Work was her life and that was part of the reason she was so scared about the thoughts that had been circulating in her brain. If she didn’t have her work, what would she have left? Her family was scattered across the country. Her close friends were all in the health service. All would be working over the next few weeks. She had a very nice flat, but lived alone. She didn’t want to be alone right now.
Something flickered across Leo’s eyes. ‘You ski, don’t you?’
She nodded. Paige had always been a sporty kind of girl, and had skied in a number of resorts around the world.
Leo flipped open his laptop and made a few keystrokes. He spun the laptop around. ‘What do you think of this place?’
Paige’s eyes widened. It was like a scene from a film. A snow-set chalet with large windows, perched on a hillside somewhere.
‘It...it’s magnificent,’ she said simply. ‘Where is it?’
Leo nodded. ‘Switzerland. It belongs to a friend. He loans it out frequently. Usually to medical staff, or people who need some respite. It’s right next to a ski resort. Perfect for you, really. Let me check the dates with him.’ He tapped furiously.
Paige frowned. ‘What?’
Leo waved his hand. ‘You can go.’ Then he looked up, and frowned. ‘Do you have other plans? Am I overstepping?’
She shook her head as tears welled in her eyes. ‘No, I don’t have other plans. But...how much is it?’
She hadn’t been skiing in two years. She would absolutely love to go, and had never skied in Switzerland before.
Leo smiled at her. ‘It’s free. You just have to arrange your flights. My friend—he’s a baron, an inventor—you might have heard of him. He’s usually getting maligned in the press somewhere. His more philanthropic efforts always go unnoticed, but he actually likes that. He doesn’t want the world to know he has a whole host of houses around the world that he loans out for people who need them.’ Leo shook his head. ‘He prefers his more cut-throat image. Helps with business apparently.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said hesitantly. This whole thing was swamping her and her head was starting to pound uncomfortably, just like her shoulder. Part of her wondered if this was some kind of dream. Or a result of the head knock. Maybe she was actually still lying on the floor outside?
Leo’s brow wrinkled. ‘I mean, would you prefer New York, Bermuda, Hawaii, Gibraltar, or maybe South Africa or Brazil?’
Paige’s eyes widened. ‘He has houses in all those places?’
Leo rested his hands in his lap. ‘He has more. And it makes him sound frivolous. But this is what he does with those houses. A large number of charitable organisations use them for their clients too. The only condition is that it’s kept quiet. He doesn’t want journalists swooping in and invading the privacy of those who need it.’ Leo looked thoughtful. ‘It’s been going on for more than twenty years.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I just thought the skiing place would suit you best.’
She nodded just as there was a ping from Leo’s computer.
His face broke into a wide grin. ‘Ah, there we are. It’s free.’
‘He’s got back to you already?’
Leo laughed. ‘I told you, he’s a businessman. He uses every tool available. There’s an automatic confirmation booking system for these places. It’s yours.’
He pushed his laptop towards Paige again. ‘Take a better look and I’ll send the details to your phone.’
She really couldn’t believe this. One minute she was being knocked against a wall at work, the next, she had five weeks off and was heading to some unnamed resort in the Alps where she could ski all day and sleep in what looked like a luxury chalet at night.
She sagged back in the chair.
‘I need to observe you for the next six hours.’ Leo’s words were said as some kind of aside.
She shook her head and held out her hand. ‘No. Give me some of the paracetamol I know you have in your top desk drawer. Check my pupils again if you want. I just had an unexpected knock.’
‘You vomited,’ he said again sharply, his doctor’s eyes narrowed.
‘Autonomic reaction,’ she replied, equally sharply. ‘And Esther is off today. I can speak to her if I feel unwell.’
Leo kept his gaze firmly on her as he pulled his phone from his pocket. Esther Cohen was her next-door neighbour and a fellow medic at the hospital. They had a reciprocal arrangement, with both having keys to each other’s flats in case of emergency.
He finally looked down, pressed a few keys and sighed. ‘Okay, I’ve texted her. Asked her to check on you in a few hours.’
She might have known he would have had Esther’s number.
He pulled the painkillers from the desk drawer and tossed them towards her and she took two with the water she had. Her phone pinged and she looked down. All the details of the resort, along with details of the nearest airport.
‘Text me when you arrive,’ Leo said, coming around the desk and shining a pen torch in her eyes again, then nodding in satisfaction. ‘Equal and reacting.’
He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘How are you feeling? I was being serious. I can put you round in the Combined Assessment Unit for a few hours.’
This was actually real. It wasn’t some weird kind of daydream. She was actually being sent home.
Paige stood up, her legs feeling less wobbly now. ‘No, I’m good. I’ll just grab my things from my locker.’
Leo nodded and held the door open for her. The corridor outside was a complete and utter rabble. Loud noises, shouts for assistance, staff hurrying past.
The temptation to step back into it was strong. Like a heavy commitment hanging over her head. But Leo’s voice was right at her side. ‘Go home, Paige,’ he said quietly.
She pressed her lips together and strode along to the changing room, grabbing her thick winter coat and swapping her light shoes for winter boots.
A few moments later she was outside. It was still dark. A few ambulance personnel nodded at her as she zipped up her coat against the immediate chill in the air. Her breath steamed in front of her.
She took a few steps away from the main entrance, moving towards the orange-tinged streetlights and her home, which was only five minutes’ walk away.
As the noise dimmed behind her and flakes of snow settled on her cheeks, the tears she had been holding back for months finally started to fall.