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? Something even worse?
Arriving at the pathology department, Kate delivered the samples.
‘Do them immediately,’ she instructed. ‘Phone through the results but make sure a hard copy goes straight to the ward.’ She eyed an empty slot at the bench. ‘Maybe I should do it myself.’
‘They’re waiting for you downstairs.’ The lab technician’s grimace conveyed sympathy. They all knew what was waiting for Kate this afternoon. What they didn’t know was how unbearably difficult it was going to be.
‘I don’t think I can do it.’
The head of the pathology department, Lewis Blackman, said nothing for a moment. He gestured for Kate to sit down in the small, windowless office.
In his early sixties, Lewis was a quiet man. Overweight, silver-haired and thoughtful.
‘Remind me why you chose pathology as a specialty, Kate?’
Oh … Lord … was he going to tell her she wasn’t suitable? Everybody expected her to take over as HOD when Lewis retired in a few years. She expected it herself but how could she if she couldn’t handle the downside of what this job entailed?
Lewis was waiting patiently for a response. Kate’s thoughts travelled back in time. To when she’d been a nurse and had hated the frustration of being on the sidelines. Being treated as a lesser being by those who got to make the diagnoses and then treat the patients. She thought of how hard she’d struggled to support herself by doing killer night shifts while she’d put herself through medical school. Then she remembered what it had been like being a junior doctor. She’d probably had more respect than others, being a little older and more experienced in the world of medicine, but she’d still felt as though she was on the outside somehow.
‘I saw pathology as being the lynchpin in almost every critical case. Every doctor, no matter how skilled they are, can’t do their job unless they know what they’re dealing with. Sometimes they’re holding their breath for what we can tell them, like when they’re in Theatre, waiting for the result of a tumour analysis.’
Unbidden, her thoughts flashed up an image of Connor Matthews. Not in Theatre, with his scalpel poised waiting for word from the pathology department, though. Oh, no, she could picture him dressed in his leathers. Dark and disreputable and prepared to break any rule in the book to grant a wish for a dying child.
She sucked in a slightly ragged breath.
Lewis was nodding. ‘True enough. But you could stay in a laboratory to do all that. You could avoid being anywhere near the morgue and you’d never have to do an autopsy.’ Kate ‘s heart took a dive. ‘But that can be the most exciting part of this job. Finding out what went wrong … so … so it doesn’t happen again. It can be like putting together the most challenging jigsaw puzzle in the world. Finding the piece that maybe nobody even knew was missing.’
Lewis smiled, nodding. ‘Satisfying, isn’t it?’ He eyed Kate. ‘You do the neatest, most thorough autopsies I’ve ever seen and I’m including my own. You could have been a brilliant surgeon, you know.’
‘I’m happy where I am. I have my life exactly the way I want it.’
Lewis merely quirked an eyebrow. What was he thinking? That she was thirty-five years old and single? That she lived alone and had a passion for things in test tubes or on microscope slides or, worse, for dead bodies? That she was a freak? Someone to be pitied?
‘You need challenges, though, don’t you? Something to keep that sharp mind of yours intrigued? Isn’t that why you want to take over the forensic specialty?’
Kate had to nod but her teeth were worrying away at her bottom lip as she did so.
‘Coroners’ cases are often about an unexplained death that has a medical cause or trauma that’s come from an accident, but some of the most important cases are crime related and the detail we can give can make a difference to whether the perpetrator of a crime is punished. Our report can be essential for making sure a murderer or rapist or child abuser can’t do any more harm out there.’
Kate was still nodding. She knew that. She had also had a taste of the kind of excitement that came from unravelling the totally unexpected. Of not knowing what could come through the door, disguised in the heavy latex of a body bag. Sometimes the victims came directly from the scene of the crime. Often, though, they made it to hospital and lived for a short time. Occasionally, there was the added trauma of someone having to make the decision to turn off life support. Like today’s case.
Lewis was looking somewhere over the top of Kate’s head now. ‘You’re a clever woman, Kate. Do you know, it took me over a year to realise that you were actively avoiding any case that involved young children? You always had such a good reason for not being available but eventually I began to see the pattern and when you took the first sick day I’d ever known you to have, I understood what was going on. At least, I understood what. I have no idea why.’
He paused for moment as he met her gaze. ‘Is it something you want to talk about?’
Kate shook her head. Lewis nodded his, slowly, as if he hadn’t expected any other response.
‘The most vulnerable people out there are children,’ he said quietly. ‘Especially babies. It breaks my heart to have to deal with them in there.’ His hand waved in the direction of the adjacent morgue with its stainless-steel benches and buckets and the grim tools of this part of their trade.
‘But someone has to,’ Lewis continued. ‘And whether it’s medical or forensic, it has to be done. I’ve given you as long as I can to get used to the idea. I can be with you today if it would help, but this has to be make or break, Kate. If it’s something you can’t face then now’s the time to decide. If you can’t, that’s absolutely fine, but we’ll have to rethink the direction your career is taking.’
She’d known it was coming. She’d been stepping closer to the edge of the precipice for a long time. She had steeled herself for this day and she’d thought she was ready. Right up until she’d seen that desperate sadness in the depths of Connor Matthews’ already dark eyes. Until she’d felt the touch of emotions so painful they were impossible to block completely.
But if she stepped back from the edge, where would she go?
She would be trapped in a prison of her own making. Lewis was right. She had to have challenge. Something that gave real meaning to her life. Kate could almost feel the frustration now. See herself circling some vast laboratory, hemmed in by test tubes and specimen jars and thin glass slides. Ranks and ranks of them that looked like prison bars all of a sudden.
‘I’ll do it,’ she whispered.
‘Want me to stay?’
Kate raised her gaze to meet the concern in Lewis’s eyes directly. He was offering her a lifeline. A rope so that she could abseil down the precipice instead of stepping into the void alone.
‘Thanks, but I think it’s best if I do it by myself.’
She did do it.
By herself.
Hours later, Kate was driving herself home and she had never been so exhausted. Physically and emotionally. Her head was still full of it.
The