The Doctor's Secret Family. Alison Roberts

a.m. so she could leave before 5 when she wasn’t on call and get a few hours with Livvy before bedtime. She could take her paperwork home with her. It might take a while to find an appropriate way to document her suspicions about Jadine Milton, and a quiet hour late this evening would be a lot easier than trying to do it here, with the inevitable interruptions that would occur.

      It would also mean she didn’t have to appear overanxious by ringing the child care centre with no reason other than to enquire whether her daughter looked healthy. She would find out soon enough for herself. Prompted by her desire to get away, Hannah hurriedly bundled up the paperwork she needed from her desk, stuffing it into her briefcase as she headed briskly for the door. She hadn’t quite secured her armload as she entered the corridor and turned to pull her door shut. Her movements were still swift. Far too swift to prevent a near collision as she swung around again to move towards the exit.

      ‘Whoops!’ Peter Smiley’s tone commiserated for the fact that Hannah’s paperwork was now strewn all over the floor but Hannah couldn’t have cared less about the mishap. She hadn’t even seen the shower of paper. She was too stunned to move her gaze away from the man standing beside Peter.

      ‘I was just coming to find you,’ Peter said cheerfully. ‘We’re doing the tour.’ Anything odd about Hannah’s expression was apparently being dismissed as embarrassment due to a clumsy moment. ‘This is our new consultant surgeon for Paediatrics, Hannah…Jack Douglas.’

      Suddenly Hannah knew that her premonition had had nothing to do with her job application. Or any challenging case. Or her daughter’s state of health.

      She had been right to trust her instincts because the premonition of disaster had been spot on.

      The disaster was standing right in front of her. As large as life. And its mouth was moving. A rich, deep rumble of words sent reinforcements to enhance the paralysing visual effects Hannah was still experiencing.

      ‘Hello, Hannah,’ Jack Douglas said. ‘This is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?’