‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN—gone missing?’
‘We can’t find her. I came up to see her and check that everything was ready for her to go to Theatre and she’s not in her room. She’s nowhere in the ward.’
Thomas had already turned away from the view and from any thoughts remotely personal. His stride, as he headed back to the door leading to the stairwell, was verging on a run.
‘I don’t understand. How could she have gone anywhere? Who was with her?’
‘That’s just it. No one.’
‘What?’ Thomas hit the button to release the automatic door with the flat of his hand.
‘It was only for a minute or two, apparently. Peter had gone to Reception to meet Penny’s grandparents. Julia had dashed to the loo and Rosie responded to an alarm that signalled an emergency in the treatment room. She wasn’t needed, in the end, and went straight back but Penny had disappeared. Rosie thought she’d gone to find her mum in the loo but Julia hadn’t seen her.’
‘She can’t be far away. She’s probably visiting one of her friends.’ Thomas was taking the stairs, two at a time.
‘She’s not in the ward. We’ve checked. Everybody’s looking for her. Rosie’s beside herself. She thinks it’s her fault but it was a cardiac arrest alarm and she said Penny promised to stay in bed.’
‘Have you called Security?’
‘Yes. They’ve been all over it for the last ten minutes. Nobody’s seen her.’
Maybe Thomas hadn’t completely banished personal thoughts. Penelope Craig was still his patient, even though her care was to be in Rebecca’s hands for the next little while.
He could understand why Rosie was feeling so bad but Penny’s safety was ultimately his responsibility.
Like keeping her family safe from the intrusion of that television crew had been, especially today of all days.
To see Angela and her camera and sound people milling around the space near the stairs as he exited on the floor of the cardiology ward was like a slap in the face. The lens of the camera was like a giant eye, swivelling to point straight at him as his presence was noted.
‘Dr Wolfe? Is it true that a little girl’s gone missing? One that was about to have a heart transplant?’
‘No comment.’ Thomas pushed past the reporter. How on earth had the news been leaked so quickly?
How hard should it have been to have stopped these strangers finding out anything about Penny? It felt like a personal failure.
And there was a list of other personal failures that it could be added to.
Like not having this special patient in the place that she was supposed to be in order to receive her life-saving surgery.
Like not having been in the right place at the right time to keep his own daughter safe.
And, above all, like not having been able to keep his marriage safe.
He hadn’t even heard the last question Angela was calling after him but he raised his hand in a silent ‘no comment’ gesture. He could see Rebecca in the ward corridor through the double doors. She was amongst a cluster of people that included Penny’s parents and grandparents and a man he recognised as Jim, the head of Paddington’s security team. Rosie was also there, her face pale and desperately worried.
And, no matter what the odds had been for Penny surviving the surgeries and setbacks she’d already had in her short life, he’d never seen Julia Craig looking this terrified.
‘She’s probably just found a place to hide,’ Jim was saying as Thomas joined the group. ‘I expect she was frightened about having to go to Theatre again. We’ll find her, Mrs Craig. Please try not to worry too much.’
Julia shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t just run away—it’s not like her at all. And she said she’d stay in bed, didn’t she?’
Rosie nodded. ‘I was gone such a short time, Julia. I’m so sorry...’
‘It’s not your fault. I would have left her to go to the loo if you hadn’t been there. I’ve done that a million times.’
‘She hasn’t been able to run anywhere before this,’ Peter put in. ‘Because she’s been too sick. But now... Who knows how far she could have gone?’
‘Somebody will have seen her,’ Jim said. ‘How many little girls do we see wearing a pink tutu and a princess crown? I’ve got my men everywhere. We’re combing the entire hospital.’
‘But what if she isn’t in the hospital any more?’ Julia whispered. ‘What if someone’s...?’ Her breath hitched. ‘What if someone’s taken her?’
‘I’ve got someone reviewing CCTV footage right now. And we’ve started with the main doors. We’ve also called in the police.’ He turned towards Rebecca. ‘How long have we got? When does her surgery have to happen by?’
‘We’ve got a bit of time,’ Rebecca answered. ‘But that’s not the point. What matters is finding Penny—as soon as we possibly can.’ She ran her hand over her head. ‘I can’t just wait here. I’m going to start looking myself.’
Her gaze snagged Thomas’s as she turned away and his own concern ramped up into real alarm as he saw the fear in her eyes.
Was it at all possible that someone had taken Penny? Had she wandered far enough away from the ward for some random predator to spot an opportunity?
It was so unlikely that he would have dismissed the notion as ridiculous up until now.
But, a long time ago, he would have said the same thing about a random car going out of control and mounting a footpath, wouldn’t he?
Nothing was impossible, however horrible it might be.
And the fear in Rebecca’s eyes was impossible to ignore. As much as he knew he couldn’t allow her to depend on him for what she needed, he had to help.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
‘We’ll try the playground again,’ Peter said. ‘In case she’s come back.’
‘And I’ll check under every bed,’ Rosie added. ‘And in every cupboard. She’s got to be somewhere.’
Jim looked up, ending a call he’d been taking on his phone.
‘CCTV from every exit has been checked. There’s no sign of her having been taken anywhere and we’ve got every door covered by security now. She’s here. Somewhere...’
* * *
They started in the wards closest to Cardiology and talked to everybody they encountered.
‘Have you seen a little girl? Wearing a pink tutu?’
‘No...sorry... We’ll keep an eye out.’
‘Do you mind if we have a look in the storeroom? She could be trying to hide.’
She was such a little thing, Rebecca thought, moving a laundry bag in its wheeled frame to one side in that storeroom. She’d be able to squeeze into the smallest place.
‘I don’t understand why she wanted to run away,’ she said to Thomas. ‘It’s not as if this is her first operation. I’m sure I didn’t make it sound scary.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ he agreed. ‘But who knows what might make a six-year-old kid feel nervous?’
A six-year-old kid?
Just another child?
Thomas didn’t seem to be feeling anything like the level of anxiety gripping Rebecca.
‘This is Penny we’re talking about, Tom.’
‘Mmm... Maybe the wards are the wrong place to be looking. I wonder if anybody’s checked an outpatient area like Physiotherapy. Or the X-ray department?’
He was already walking away from her and Rebecca stared at his back. It felt like she was being accompanied in this search by a member of the security team. Someone who hadn’t known Penny for her entire life and had no personal involvement in her case.
The chill hit her like a bucket of icy water.
Thomas was running away again. Hiding behind those self-protective barriers. Pretending he wasn’t involved so he could distance himself from the discomfort of anxiety—or worse. Because he felt guilty? Okay, Penny was his patient but it was ridiculous to assume responsibility for something that had happened when he was nowhere near her. When other people had accepted that mantle of responsibility.
That hadn’t stopped him from blaming himself over Gwen’s death, though, had it?
It hadn’t stopped him believing he had failed as a father.
But how could he do this, when they’d been so close again only last night? When they’d talked about exactly how it hadn’t been his fault?
Fear stepped in then. How could she have allowed herself to resurrect and sink into those feelings for Thomas? To dream about a shared life again?
This was a tough moment in their professional lives but she needed his support and he was creating a distance that hurt. If they got together again, how long would it be before something important went wrong and she really needed him again?
She couldn’t do this.
Because—maybe—she couldn’t trust Thomas enough.
But now wasn’t the time to think about any of that. Not only was Rebecca desperately worried about the state of mind of a patient she loved dearly, there was a clock ticking. Penny wasn’t going to be the only recipient of one of Ryan’s organs and there were retrieval teams already arriving at Paddington’s. Ryan’s surgery would be going ahead whatever happened. If Penny couldn’t be found, his heart might have to go to the next person on the waiting list.
Minutes flashed past as they raced along corridors and into every space that might be accessible to a newly mobile little girl. Thirty minutes and then sixty.
Rebecca answered a phone call that informed her that there had still been no sighting of Penny. And then another that confirmed that Ryan would be on his way to Theatre very soon.
‘We’re running out of time,’ she told Thomas as they waited for an elevator to get down to Reception. It had been someone in X-ray who’d thought they’d seen a girl in a pink dress in the toy shop.
Rebecca had to close her eyes tightly to hold back tears of despair.
Surely Thomas could see how upset she was? Just a touch on her arm or an encouraging word would be enough. Maybe even enough to dispel the horrible feeling that he was as distant now as he’d been when he’d first come back to Paddington’s.
But he hadn’t moved any closer when she opened her eyes as the lift doors slid open.
And he hadn’t said a word.
A very pregnant woman, with long, glossy dark hair, stepped out of the lift. She stared at Thomas for a moment and then smiled as she obviously remembered who he was.
‘It’s Thomas, isn’t it? We met in A&E the day of the school fire.’
‘And don’t I know you?’ Rebecca said. ‘You’re a paramedic, aren’t you? And you and Dominic were a big part of the early publicity in the campaign to save Paddington’s?’
The woman nodded. ‘Victoria,’ she said. ‘Victoria Christie—but soon to be MacBride. Dom’s persuaded me to marry him.’
She was smiling, but the smile suddenly faded. ‘I’ve just come in for an antenatal check,’ she said. ‘But what on earth’s going on around here? There are police officers and reporters all over the place. Reception is crazy...’
Rebecca glanced at Thomas. ‘Maybe the toyshop isn’t the best place to check, then. If there are already so many people down there, someone would have spotted a little girl in a pink tutu.’
‘A pink tutu?’ Victoria’s eyes widened. ‘Are you talking about Penny?’
Thomas had been holding the lift doors open by keeping his hand on them. A malfunction alarm began to sound.
‘You know her?’
‘I’ve transported her so often she’s like a part of the family. And she’s the only kid I know who would sleep in her tutu if she was allowed to.’
‘She’s gone missing,’ Thomas said.
‘And she’s due in Theatre,’ Rebecca added. ‘We’ve got a heart available for her. A perfect match.’
‘Oh, my God...’ Victoria was looking horrified.
‘We’ve got to go, but can you keep an eye out for her? I’m not sure if anyone’s checked Ultrasound or Maternity, yet.’
‘Of course I will. I’d spot that tutu a mile off.’
‘She’s got a crown on today, as well.’ Rebecca had to swallow past the lump in her throat. ‘She’s being a princess for the day.’
Victoria nodded, moved out of their way so they could get into the lift, but then swung back towards them.
‘That reminds me of something. Have you checked the turret?’
‘What?’ Thomas put his hand back into the gap as the doors were closing and they opened again with a jerk.
‘We were talking about the turret one day in the ambulance. The big one over Reception? I told her about how, when I was a kid, I’d always thought that a princess lived there but that, actually, it’s only a dusty old storeroom full of ancient books and bits of paper.’
‘I didn’t even know you could get into it,’ Rebecca said.
‘You’re not supposed to,’ Victoria said. ‘But there’s a door. It looks like it’s just a cupboard but then you find the staircase. I told Penny about that door. About the staircase...’
It was Thomas who caught Rebecca’s gaze as the doors slid shut and the lift began to descend. She could see the hope in his eyes that maybe this was the breakthrough they’d been waiting for. A place that nobody would have thought to look because nobody even knew it was accessible?
The glance was unguarded only for the time it took for Thomas to blink. And then he was staring straight ahead at the blank metal of the doors.
‘Don’t get your hopes up too much,’ he murmured. ‘It would be a miracle if she’d found that door and hadn’t been spotted by someone in Reception.’
As Victoria had warned, the area around the main reception desk was crowded. They showed their official IDs to a police officer who was directing the general public towards a temporary information kiosk that had been set up outside the pharmacy.
The television reporter, Angela Marton, was speaking directly into a camera.
‘From what we understand, a child—a small girl who is desperately in need of a new heart—has gone missing, only minutes before her surgery was due to take place.’
At least they hadn’t revealed her name, Thomas thought. He put his hand up to shade the side of his face. Angela knew he was a cardiologist and she certainly knew that Rebecca was a transplant surgeon after interviewing her at the Teddy Bears’ Picnic. If she spotted either of them, they would have to fight their way through a media scrum to get where they needed to go.
But Angela seemed oblivious to any movement around her.
‘This is what it’s about, folks. This emergency situation—even more than the tragic fire at Westbourne Grove Primary School—is showing us what this hospital is all about. There isn’t a single member of staff here who isn’t searching for this little girl right now. Hoping that—any minute now—there will be an end to the dreadful worry her family is experiencing. Everybody cares...so much...’
The tiny break in her voice suggested that Angela cared as much as everybody else but Thomas knew that she would lead the pack that would snap at their heels if she sensed a new lead in the unexpected drama she was in the middle of. He tried to shield Rebecca with his body as he led them through the press of people and around the far end of the reception desk.
And there was the door. Inconspicuous enough to be simply part of the wall and tucked far enough behind a rack of filing cabinets that it couldn’t be seen from the other side of the reception desk. It wasn’t impossible that nobody would have noticed a small girl going through this door. A glance behind him showed Thomas that nobody was watching them as he waited for Rebecca to slip through the gap and then followed her.
The attention of the film crew—and everybody else—had shifted to a group of uniformed people, one of whom was carrying an insulated box. It had to be a retrieval team from another hospital but Angela made a very different interpretation.
‘Oh, my... Could that be the heart arriving?’
How long would Ryan’s family be able to remain anonymous? It was a blessing that the assumption was being made that the heart was arriving from an anonymous donor somewhere else in the country but Thomas could still feel the tension ramping up sharply as he shut the door behind him. Ramping up as steeply as this narrow, spiral, wooden staircase. Round and round they went, leaving the chaos behind them. By the time they got to the top, it was so quiet, they could have been miles away from Paddington’s. In a forgotten library, perhaps, with a circular room stuffed full of archived paperwork. The tension was still there but it felt different. As if the whole world was holding its breath.
Dust motes floated in the shafts of light coming through small, latticed windows. The floor was thick with dust, as well, but it had been disturbed. There were tracks in it.
‘They look like adult-sized footprints.’ Rebecca was whispering as if she, too, felt like she was in a library. ‘Who could have been in here? I didn’t even know it was possible.’
‘Victoria did.’
‘Mmm...’ Rebecca was staring at the floor. ‘Oh, my God, Tom! Look...’
And there it was.
A tiny footprint. Of a bare foot. He could even see the outline of where small toes had left their mark in the dust.
He took a step further into the round space. And then another. Far enough to see past a tall stack of boxes. And there, curled up in the corner and fast asleep, was Penny. She had her head cushioned on one arm and her tiara was so lopsided it was almost covering one eye.
His overwhelming relief was echoed in Rebecca’s gasp as she came past the tier of boxes but then it evaporated as fast as it had appeared.
Was Penny unconscious rather than asleep? Or worse... What if the device helping her heart to pump enough blood to the rest of her body had malfunctioned in some way because of an unexpected, additional stress—like climbing those steep stairs?
Thomas could feel the moment his own heart stopped because he felt the painful jolt as it started again with a jerk. He was crouching by then, his hand smoothing back one of Penny’s braids to feel for a pulse in her neck.
A strong pulse...
Penny’s eyes flickered open as she felt the touch. She looked up to see both Thomas and Rebecca bent over her and she smiled at them.
‘Did you come up to see where the princess used to live, too?’
‘We sure did.’ It was hard to speak through the tightness in his throat. ‘But it’s time to go back now, sweetheart.’
‘Okay.’ Still smiling, Penny held up her arms. ‘But I’m tired. Will you carry me?’
‘Sure will,’ Thomas managed.
‘And I’m really, really hungry.’
‘So you haven’t had anything to eat? Or drink?’
His gaze caught Rebecca’s as Penny’s head was shaking a very definite and rather sad ‘no.’ At least that was another obstacle to getting her to Theatre that they wouldn’t have to worry about.
By the time he’d scooped the little girl into his arms, she was sound asleep again. He stood up and turned and then stopped because he knew that Rebecca needed to touch this child herself—so that she could really believe that this crisis was over.
She had a tear rolling down the side of her nose and Thomas had to blink hard to hold back the prickle in his own eyes. And then Rebecca raised her gaze to his.
‘You do care,’ she whispered. ‘As much as you ever did. You try and shut yourself away but it’s not who you really are, is it?’
He could see more than relief in her dark eyes. He could see hope.
Hope that he couldn’t allow to grow. But how could he destroy it?
‘Of course I care,’ he said quietly. ‘Penny’s my patient.’
‘And she’s fine. We’ll get her to Theatre now. Everything’s going to be all right.’
Thomas started moving towards the staircase. He would have to go very slowly and carefully. The stairs were narrow and steep.
It might not have been all right, he thought as they neared the bottom. And it would have been my responsibility. My failure...
‘What?’ Rebecca was ahead of him, her hand on the door handle, but her head turned sharply. She stopped moving.
Good grief! Had he spoken those thoughts aloud?
But Rebecca shook her head, as if she didn’t believe what she might have heard. She turned the handle and, a moment later, he was stepping back into the real world of Paddington’s. Penny stirred in his arms as she heard the exclamations of people around her that rapidly morphed from surprise to become a cheer. Undaunted by all the attention, she was beaming when she caught sight of her mother coming towards them and seemed oblivious to the flash of cameras around them.
‘Make way, please.’ Thomas held out his arm to clear a path towards the elevators. ‘We don’t have time for this...’
A hugely relieved Rosie was waiting in the ward to help give Penny a thorough check and get her ready for her trip to Theatre. Thomas and Rebecca worked together until they were both satisfied there was nothing to stop the surgery going ahead. Until the pre-surgery sedation had taken effect.
And, like she had after the VAD had been inserted, Rebecca touched her forefinger against her lips and then touched Penny’s cheek to transfer the kiss.
‘See you soon, pet,’ she said softly. ‘Sleep tight.’
It broke his heart how much he loved her for that tiny gesture that spoke of how much she cared, a promise that Penny wasn’t going to be alone in what was to come.
It broke his heart to realise just how much he loved her...
And how much he was prepared to sacrifice to keep her safe.
Today’s crisis could have had a very different ending and, even if it was irrational, he would still feel that at least part of it was a failure on his part.
He couldn’t risk failing Rebecca again. Somehow, he had to tell her that but not yet. Not just before she was heading into Theatre for a surgery that was so crucial.
But he caught the glance she threw over her shoulder as she headed for the door and he knew she was picking up this new tension between them. He couldn’t let her scrub up with that hanging over her, could he?
‘Walk with me?’
‘Sure.’ Thomas walked by Rebecca’s side towards the operating theatre locker rooms. He felt her glance at him more than once but it wasn’t until they reached the storeroom that she finally said something.
‘I can’t leave it like this,’ she said. ‘I heard what you were muttering under your breath and I can’t go into this surgery without saying something.’
Thomas had to lick his suddenly dry lips. ‘About what?’
He got a loaded glance as a response to his being deliberately obtuse. Rebecca pulled supplies from the labelled shelves. A small-sized scrub tunic and pants, a cap and shoe covers.
‘It wasn’t your fault that Penny went missing,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to stop blaming yourself for things that you have no control over.’
This was it. A chance to say what he needed to say. Maybe Rebecca would understand.
‘What about the things I should have had control over? Like being there for you when you needed me so much?’
Rebecca paused, the bundle of clean clothing in her arms. ‘It takes two people to make a marriage work,’ she said quietly. ‘And maybe it takes two to make it fail. I didn’t understand how bad it really was for you. Maybe I was too wrapped up in my own journey. I think I do now, though. When I had to go and speak to Ryan’s parents that first time...’ She took a slow inward breath. ‘It was...really hard.’
Thomas was staring at the bundle of linen in Rebecca’s arms but he was thinking of what he’d been holding such a short time ago. He could still feel the shape of Penny in his arms. How small and fragile she was. He could still feel the aftermath of that shock wave of thinking that she might not just be asleep. That they might have been too late. And that morphed into a different shock wave that he would never be able to erase from his memory.
Of arriving in the emergency department to see Gwen when she’d been brought in after that terrible accident. Barely alive.
He’d certainly been too late, that time.
* * *
Rebecca could see that her words had triggered memories that Thomas was struggling with.
She needed to go. To get showered and changed and then start scrubbing in for the transplant surgery. Two lots of surgery, because she had to be the one to remove Ryan’s heart to ensure the best possible outcome in reattaching the vital blood vessels.
And while she knew she could block out anything personal when she chose to focus completely on the tasks ahead of her, she couldn’t leave Thomas looking so haunted. Not when it felt like she was losing him. She could feel everything they had found between them again—and everything they could find in the future—slipping away. Thomas was running again. Trying to find a safe place behind his barriers. She’d known it was happening during their search for Penny and it had rekindled all her doubts but then she’d seen the truth in his eyes when he’d been holding the little girl in his arms.
She’d seen the man she had always loved, who was capable of giving just as much love back, if only he could find a way past the burden of guilt he’d been carrying for so long. But the hope of that happening was also slipping away and what she said now might be her last chance of preventing that happening.
His next words confirmed her fears.
‘I still feel like I failed Gwen,’ he murmured. ‘I was her daddy. I was supposed to keep her safe.’
‘You were the best daddy.’ Rebecca’s voice was low but fierce. ‘It wasn’t your fault. There are no guarantees in life, Tom. We can only do our best. We can celebrate our successes and support each other if things don’t go the way we hoped.’
‘But I didn’t support you. I can’t risk that happening again.’
‘So you’re just going to give up? Run and hide?’ The pain was sharpening her voice now.
‘Maybe that’s the only way I can keep you safe. To make sure I never hurt you again.’
Rebecca’s breath came out in an incredulous huff. ‘By staying away from me? Do you really think that’s not going to hurt me?’
She couldn’t deal with this now. Later, she would have to process the idea of losing Thomas all over again but, for now, it had to be pushed aside. Through the open door of the storeroom, she could see a bed being pushed along the corridor.
Ryan’s bed.
The next few hours were going to test her to her limits. She not only had to use every skill she had to the best of her ability but she would have to ride that emotional roller-coaster from one end of the spectrum to the other.
She had to lose a tiny patient for ever.
And she had to give another one the gift of a new life.
She couldn’t do it alone. She needed support and she needed it from someone who was trying to find a way to run away from her—and he believed that, by doing that, he was protecting her?
He couldn’t be more wrong.
‘Do one thing for me, Tom. Please?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Be in the gallery. Not for this bit...’ She would never ask him to do that—not when it would be like asking him to relive the final moments of his own child. ‘Just for Penny’s surgery?’
He’d been there for Penny’s last operation. She could still remember how much confidence it had given her, knowing he was there simply to encourage her. To believe in her.
She needed him there for what would hopefully be Penny’s final major surgery.
The bed and its entourage of medics were much closer now. Thomas turned his head and saw it.
Then he turned back to Rebecca. She could see so much pain in his eyes. But she could see something else, as well.
She could see how much he loved her...
‘Yes.’ His voice was no more than a whisper. ‘I can do that. I’ll be there.’