Only Connor remained. He hung the helmet over a handlebar by its chinstrap and kicked the stand up. With a movement that made the heavy machine look weightless, he turned it and began to wheel it back down the corridor, leaving a new set of track marks on the floor. The young girl with a mop and bucket and the uniform of the cleaning staff merely smiled shyly as he went past, ducking her head with pleasure as he made some apologetic comment about the mess. He looked up then in the direction he was travelling and that was when he saw Kate. A curiously guarded expression came over his features as he closed the distance between them.
Busted!
By no less than Princess Prim and Proper from Pathology.
The alliteration was pleasing enough to tease a quirk of his lips but Connor wasn’t about to allow a real smile to form. Partly because he knew he could be in for some serious flak if some the rule-makers around here heard about this morning’s stunt but it was more because he was facing someone who clearly didn’t have the compassion to have been as moved by what had just occurred as everyone else was.
The lump in his own throat was only just beginning to melt now and it was being replaced by another kind of constriction. One that had its roots in much darker emotions. The kind he’d grown up with. Feelings of sadness and frustration and … failure.
Attack might be the best form of defence.
Connor smiled. Always a good diversionary tactic. He raised his eyebrows as well, to suggest a pleasant surprise.
‘Kate, isn’t it? Fancy meeting you here.’
The subtext wasn’t very subtle. This was his patch. With the kids that deserved all the help they could get and their families who needed it just as desperately. This woman with her palpable air of disapproval belonged in the basement of St Pat’s. Along with her test tubes and microscopes and the bodies of those unfortunate enough not to make it out of hospital.
She didn’t smile back. No surprises there.
‘Not everyone delivers urgent samples to the pathology department in person,’ she said.
Her subtext wasn’t exactly subtle either. Connor met her glare steadily.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘you find yourself in a situation that requires a bit of lateral thinking. Going the proverbial extra mile, if you like.’
His gaze travelled slowly over Kate. Her hair was glossy and black and had the potential to be attractive but it was scraped back into the tightest ponytail ever with its length braided into a very solid-looking rope. Her eyelashes were visible, despite the thick rims of her glasses, and they were also thick and black. God given, no doubt, because Connor couldn’t see any evidence of make-up being applied.
There were sensible, flat shoes on the other end of her body and, in between, he could see a small amount of a plain, straight skirt. She wore a white coat, for heaven’s sake. Who did that these days? And even the people who felt the need to advertise some kind of clinical status would never, ever be uncool enough to button it up like that.
When he lifted his gaze to her face again, he found Kate staring back at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. He suppressed a sigh.
‘No, I don’t suppose you would ever feel like doing that, would you?’
‘If you mean I wouldn’t feel like bringing a motorbike indoors and puffing poisonous exhaust fumes around a whole lot of sick children, you’d be right. I can’t believe that you thought it was—’
Her outraged admonition was interrupted by someone hurrying towards them.
It was the mother of the little boy from the back of the bike. She’d courageously managed to hold back her tears earlier but they were flowing freely now.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her words choked.
‘Hey …’ Connor held the weight of the bike with one hand, using his other arm to draw the woman close as she wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘It was nothing, Jeannie.’
Jeannie gave an enormous sniff. ‘I have to get back. It … it won’t be long now.’
‘I know.’ The lump was back in Connor’s throat. He needed to find a space by himself for a few minutes. Preferably with a bit of speed involved. Maybe he’d take the bike for a quick spin on the motorway.
Jeannie stood still for a moment, taking a huge gulp of air to steady herself. ‘I just had to say thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Liam … went to sleep with the biggest smile on his face.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘I don’t think he was even aware of any pain when he was sitting on your bike. The photos are … are …’
‘Something you’ll treasure.’ Connor had to swallow hard. ‘Go and be with Liam, Jeannie. He needs his mum.’
Her face crumpled again as she turned away. Connor had to take a very deep, slow breath because he was suddenly aware that Kate was still there and that she’d heard every word of that emotional exchange. Surely she couldn’t have missed the undercurrent? The reason why Connor had been prepared to break so many rules here?
She hadn’t. He could see it in her face, which had gone a shade paler. And in the way her eyes seemed to have grown a lot bigger. He hadn’t noticed how blue they were before.
‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ she stammered awkwardly.
‘Don’t say anything, then,’ Connor advised wearily. He had to get away. If he was going to cry, it had to be out on the motorway where the moisture could be attributed to the wind getting in his eyes.
He got the motorbike moving again with a jerk. Kate was still standing there, opening and closing her mouth as though she really wanted to say something but couldn’t think what. She looked like a stranded fish.
And she was still giving off a disapproving vibe. Maybe she still intended to do something about his misdemeanour. Connor felt sandwiched between the constraints of the establishment she represented, with its inability to do enough for someone like Liam, and the weight of grief he could feel emanating from that private room down the end of the ward where a mother would be cradling her dying child.
He had to push back against one of those barriers or he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
‘You know what?’ Connor shook his head. ‘You need to get a life. You’re about as buttoned up as that ridiculous coat you’re wearing.’
Her coat?
What was wrong with her coat?
Kate collected the samples that needed urgent testing to see whether a two-year-old girl had meningitis. The nurse who handed them over had clearly been crying very recently. Other staff members were huddled at the central station, clutching handfuls of tissues. One took a sheet of paper emerging from the printer in the corner and held it up. Someone else stifled a sob.
Kate craned her neck a little to see what they were looking at. It was a large copy of a photograph. A small boy, his head almost obscured by the oversized helmet he was wearing so that what jumped out at the viewer was his grin. And what a grin. Bright enough to make anything else in the image irrelevant, even the tangle of IV lines that were coming from the central line just under his collar bone.
She turned and walked away with something close to panic nipping at her heels. The emotions were so raw here but what was she hurrying towards?