Whatever it was about, it wasn’t simply a misunderstanding or disagreement. There was a language barrier as well. He could hear English being spoken by a forceful, female voice.
‘Stand back. Don’t move him yet. Call an ambulance. Ambulanza.’
More shouting. In Italian. Had someone called an ambulance? Where was it? Why wasn’t it here yet? They were right beside the Grand Canal, for heaven’s sake. Practically a highway in Venice. Where were the police? Where was a doctor when you needed one?’
‘Sì.’ The English woman had understood something in the furore. ‘Dottoressa. I’m a doctor. Let me get close. I have to find out if he’s breathing.’
‘He’s not,’ someone close to Nico muttered. ‘He’s dead. He has to be, falling off the roof like that. He must have broken his sorry neck. Who does that English woman think she is? An angel who can work some kind of miracle?’
‘It’s almost Christmas,’ a black-clad Italian grandmother said sagely. ‘A good time for a miracle to happen.’
‘Scusi.’ Nico schooled himself not to show any personal frustration as he recognised the inevitability of what he had to do. He raised his voice and spoke in Italian. ‘I’m a doctor. Let me through. What’s going on?’
Charlotte Highton heard the commanding male voice that overrode the almost hysterical barrage of Italian around her. She could also hear the faint sound of a siren. Please, God, she breathed. Let that be an ambulance.
Getting caught up in an accident scene had been the last thing she’d needed after getting lost in the back alleys of Venice, trying to take a shortcut to her destination near St Mark’s Square, but what could she have done? She’d seen the man fall from the scaffolding. More than that. She’d been caught by the way he had been doubled over and clutching at his chest seconds before he’d fallen. There was no chance of him surviving any injuries the fall might have caused if he’d already been in cardiac arrest before it had happened.
But they wouldn’t let her near and precious seconds were being lost. One of the man’s workmates was probably the first-aid officer for the building company and he’d decided that the fall had caused a spinal injury. He was holding the victim’s head still and shouting at anybody who so much as bumped the unconscious body.
Now he was shouting in response to a query from the newcomer, who Charlotte couldn’t see because other people were also trying to tell him the story and some were gesticulating madly—pointing to the roof of the house and circling their arms in the air to represent the fall. For a crazy moment Charlotte almost smiled.
Here she was in this beautiful, ancient city with the water of a canal lapping almost at her feet. Surrounded by the sounds of a language she loved but had never had the time to learn. Caught by the passionate involvement of people who were, for the most part, probably complete strangers to the unfortunate man who had fallen. This would never happen in England. It was so Italian.
Then a single, curt word from the newcomer and everybody fell silent. And shifted enough to make an opening. The man who stepped in to fill the gap was as Italian as everything else. Tall and dark. Strong featured and exuding a masculinity that was supremely confident. Such a stereotype that, for another crazy moment, Charlotte was sure she’d met him before.
Or maybe she just recognised that kind of confidence. It didn’t come from any awareness of his effect on women. This kind of quiet power came from being in a situation where he knew exactly what needed to be done.
‘You’re a doctor?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you speak English?’
‘Yes. I’m a specialist in emergency neurology.’ He was bending over the unconscious man now. ‘Did you see the fall? Has he been moved at all?’
‘Yes, I saw the fall.’ Charlotte was right behind the man and she was reaching for the victim’s neck. The newcomer caught her wrist in a grip that was as powerful as everything else about this man. His confidence. His voice. The eyes that were locked on hers right now.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I saw him fall.’ Charlotte spoke the way she would to anyone who was preventing her doing her job. Or some unfortunate junior doctor who was getting the basics dangerously wrong. ‘I saw him before he fell. He clearly had severe chest pain. He didn’t trip. He collapsed. I need to see whether he’s got a pulse.’
For a stunned heartbeat the dark eyes continued to hold hers. Charlotte could see how swift his comprehension was. She actually felt the moment when he stepped back from confronting her action and they became a team. He let go of her wrist.
Rapid instructions in Italian followed. The Italian specialist took over holding the man’s head and guided a log roll that had the patient on his back with his airway opened in an admirably short space of time. The nearby siren was getting louder but it wasn’t yet close enough. Charlotte was crouched with her cheek against the patient’s mouth, one hand on his neck with her fingers searching for a pulse and the other resting gently on his diaphragm seeking the movement that would indicate breathing.
‘Nothing,’ she snapped. She wasn’t exactly dressed for performing CPR. She had to hoist up her slim-fitting skirt so that she could kneel on the rough cobblestones of the alleyway. Her equally neat-fitting blouse beneath the skirt’s matching blazer hadn’t been designed for vigorous movement either. Charlotte felt a seam ripping within the first seconds of pushing her body weight down hard enough to depress the chest of the large man.
Her unexpected medical colleague was still communicating in Italian to those around him. Explaining what was going on perhaps. And then he was showing the person who’d been guarding his patient so effectively from Charlotte how to support the man’s cervical spine but do a jaw thrust at the same time.
As she stayed in position, with her body weight directly over her straight arms, Charlotte could look sideways. She saw the way he demonstrated the required position, with his large hands splayed, the palms pushing against the angle of the man’s jaw and his thumbs resting on his cheeks. She knew the pressure required to keep that kind of hold and yet he made it look like he was being gentle with the critically ill patient.
And then he let the first-aider take over the hold and shifted so that he was kneeling right beside Charlotte. The shafts of pain from the movement of her knees on the cobblestones seemed to fade as his body lined up so close beside hers their arms were touching.
That eye contact was extraordinary. Reassuring and encouraging at the same time. The almost invisible movement of his head told Charlotte that he was in sync with what she was doing. That he was ready for her to pause so that he could deliver a breath. With an equally subtle nod, Charlotte began counting aloud. She had no idea how many compressions she’d done already but it was standard international protocol to deliver two breaths for every thirty compressions and a lead-in was given so that minimum pumping time was lost.
‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…thirty.’ Charlotte raised her hands and sat back on her heels as her CPR partner bent down, pinching the man’s nose and covering his mouth with his own. She watched the man’s chest rise and fall. Twice. And then she was back in position and the compressions continued smoothly.
Wow. Not only could this guy get air into someone without disturbing the protected position of a C spine, he was prepared to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a stranger. A risk very few medical people would be prepared to take these days. And compressions were deemed the more important component of CPR now. If an ambulance was on its way and the compressions were effective, you had a window of ten minutes or so before the lack of extra oxygen would cause irreversible brain damage.
Charlotte was impressed. She was also sweating despite the deep chill of Venice in December, and her knees felt as if someone had attacked them with