Chapter 7
‘Where’s Dr Graham?’
‘In the morgue.’ The technician was one of the reduced number of people who worked in the laboratory to do the work that couldn’t fit in to the busy day shift. Most of the benches in the area were deserted at the moment and the whirr of electronic machinery was no more than a background hum.
‘Is she busy?’ Connor knew that Kate was getting involved in the forensic side of pathology. Maybe there’d been a suspicious death that needed urgent investigation.
‘Something to do with a research trial. She said she didn’t need any help. Go on in. Kate won’t mind.’ The technician smiled at Connor. ‘She might be glad of some company.’ The smile turned into a grimace. ‘Company that can talk back, anyway.’
Clearly, some of the things that happened in the basement of St Pat’s were well out of the comfort zone of this young girl. Autopsies were out of the comfort zone of most people.
Including himself?
Yes. Connor walked slowly through the laboratory to the back entrance of the morgue, where bodies were stored in their refrigerated cubicles.
This wasn’t an area he could enter with any great enthusiasm.
If he stopped to think about it, it was downright weird that he was drawn to a person that was more than comfortable with it all. Someone who had a passion for it, even.
But drawn he was. The piece of news he had, that the sparkly new microscope had been delivered upstairs, could easily have waited until tomorrow.
It could have been passed on with a phone call or an email.
But Connor had seen it as a compelling reason to go and see if Kate was still at work and, if she wasn’t, he would have headed straight for her house.
And he would have felt surprisingly comfortable turning up unannounced on her doorstep, he realised.
Almost as if they were dating. Except they weren’t, of course.
They’d been spending a lot of time together setting up the mini pathology lab in Theatre.
There’d been lots of coffees and even a dinner, but Connor was still treading carefully, at a loss as to precisely what direction he was treading in.
It wasn’t heading away from Kate, though, was it?
He walked through the chill of the room where the bodies were stored. Empty to all outward appearances but Connor felt far from alone. He looked through the wide glass window of the partition into the next area.
A body lay exposed on the stainless-steel table in the centre of the room.
A middle-aged male with an open chest that suggested the autopsy was well under way.
Kate, bent over the body and completely focused on her task, was dressed in what looked like theatre gear with a heavy-duty plastic apron over the gown.
The clothing was baggy and made Kate look smaller somehow.
Or was that because she was working alone in a place that already made Connor feel isolated and uncomfortable?
Even from this distance he could sense the clinical detachment with which Kate was working.
She had learned how to deal with this environment by closing herself off from reactions that were at an emotional level.
She was good at that, wasn’t she? A lesson she had probably learned as a child and a big part of who she was.
And thank goodness there were people who could do that because this kind of work might be distasteful to many, but it was a vital part of the world of medicine.
‘Hey…’ He poked his head through the door. ‘Is it okay if I come in?’
Kate looked up, surprised. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Do I need to put any gear on?’
‘Some booties would be good but you don’t need anything else, unless you want to get your hands dirty.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘It’s okay, I’m almost done. I won’t ask you to help.’ She was lifting an organ from the body. The heart. ‘This is the bit I was after.’
Connor was already hating the smell but he went closer, following Kate as she took the heart to a set of scales hanging over a bench. His gaze skittered past the body on the table. ‘Interesting case?’
‘Part of a research trial.’ Kate activated a recording device to dictate the weight and external appearance of the organ and then took the heart from the bowl of the scales and laid it on a dissection board that had an impressive array of scalpels and other surgical instruments laid out beside it.
‘It’s looking at sudden death in patients who are known to have heart failure. ’
‘How come?’
‘Well, it’s commonly thought that many of the deaths are due to an irregular heart rhythm that becomes fatal, but it appears that a high percentage – maybe up to 75 per cent – of these people have actually had a heart attack and if that’s the case, different drug therapy may well protect them.’
‘Hmm. International trial?’
‘Yes. They’re looking at thousands of cases. I’m going to present data on our contribution in a couple of months’ time. In Zurich.’
‘Cool.’ Connor was watching the meticulous dissection Kate was doing on the coronary arteries of the heart. ‘You would have made a great surgeon.’
Kate’s smile was crooked. ‘Can’t kill anyone in here. And… I like working alone.’
She liked being alone. How many people, Connor wondered, had any idea of the ‘other’ Kate? The secret one that was hidden inside a respected pathologist who would probably be warmly welcomed to present data at an important international conference?
The secret Kate. The imprisoned, sensual Kate.
Connor had a sudden desire to be out on the highway, with the miles peeling away beneath the wheels of his bike. With Kate’s arms wrapped around his waist and her hair flying in the wind beneath her helmet.
No. What he wanted was to be somewhere with soft music playing and an empty dance floor so that he could have Kate entirely to himself. Soft lighting, too. Moonlight would be enough.
And then it hit him.
What he actually wanted was more than that. He simply wanted Kate. He wanted to make love to her. Slowly. Deliciously. Probably more than once.
Whoa!
Had any of that shown on his face? Thank goodness Kate was absorbed in her task.
‘Look at that.’ The hard white shell of a major blood vessel within the heart was opening slowly beneath the tip of a precisely wielded scalpel. The clot was huge and dark and ugly.
‘Pretty conclusive evidence.’ Kate sounded pleased. ‘I might get some photos.’ Stripping off her gloves, she walked away. ‘Back in a tick. I’ll just get the camera.’
Connor wanted to excuse himself as well but it would be kind of rude to walk out when Kate wasn’t there. He felt uncomfortable enough being in here in the first place, without the unwanted attraction now simmering in his gut.
Good grief. Kate didn’t even like being touched. Sex was out of the question. Wasn’t it?
He had to get out of there. When Kate came back in, carrying a digital camera, Connor opened his mouth to give her the message he’d come with so he could leave, but the intention was interrupted by his pager sounding. He glanced at the screen.
‘Can I make a call in here?’
‘There’s a phone right there.’
Kate was busy adjusting settings on the camera. She glanced up to tilt her head and indicate the location of the wall phone. Connor was wearing his leather jacket and looked as though he’d popped in here on his way home.
Why?
Because he wanted to see her at work? To see her?
They’d almost run out of reasons to spend time together under the umbrella of the joint project for Theatre and Kate had suspected that they would start spending less time together, so this was unexpected.
Nice.
She focused the camera on the evidence of the massive heart attack that had killed her patient. The sooner she finished this job, the sooner she could leave the hospital and maybe… Connor was going to ask her out somewhere.
Kate pushed the shutter button and then changed angles and pushed it again. She could hear Connor’s voice and, after a surprised-sounding introduction to his conversation, his tone became oddly intense.
‘Who is she…? How old…?’
He was being given quite a lot of information judging by the length of his listening time.
‘What’s the time frame? Okay… remind me what’s involved on my part?’
He listened again. ‘Might go for a local anaesthetic,’ he said. ‘Less down time. So, Monday, then? Seven-thirty a.m.? Got it.’
He hung up the phone but stood there staring at it for what seemed a long time.
‘Problem?’ Kate asked.
‘Not for me.’ Connor’s voice sounded curiously thick. He cleared his throat. ‘She’s not even my patient.’
‘Oh?’
‘Little girl up in the ward. Lucy. She’s seven and she’s got leukaemia.’
Kate had finished her photography. She should dictate all her findings about the coronary arteries so she could complete her paperwork accurately later, but something wasn’t making sense here. Something Connor had asked about what was involved on his part.
‘Do you know her?’
‘I’ve seen her. Totally bald from her chemo but she’s got the biggest smile you’ve ever seen. Gorgeous kid.’
Something tightened in Kate’s belly. An unpleasant sort of tightness which wasn’t the sort she was used to associating with thoughts about Connor. This wasn’t the first evidence that he liked children, was it? How had she managed to push that so far to the back of her head?
She stared at Connor and something must have shown on her face because he looked away.
‘She needs a bone-marrow transplant,’ he said. ‘The family all lined up but they found a better match on the register. Me.’
Kate’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re on a register to donate bone marrow?’
‘Yeah… Been on it for a long time.’
‘Have you ever made a donation?’
‘Nope. This’ll be the first.’
‘So you’re going to do it?’
‘Sure.’ Connor sounded surprised. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘It wouldn’t even occur to me to get tested in the first place to go on a register.’
‘Don’t you donate blood?’
‘Of course I do. But that’s nothing. They don’t have to drill holes in my pelvis to get it out.’