‘Leo, I don’t want to go to hospital. I don’t want anyone seeing me like this.’
He would not be swayed. Buzzing through to Gwen, he asked her to order a private ambulance for the short trip to Kate’s as, behind a curtain, Lizzie helped Francesca into a gown and onto the examination table.
‘I’m a stupid old fool,’ Francesca said, as Lizzie pulled off her boots, but a very agile Francesca needed no help swinging her legs up.
‘I think you’re amazing,’ Lizzie admitted.
‘You just say that to be kind.’
‘No.’ Lizzie shook her head, forgetting that Leo was listening as she did her best to put Francesca at ease. ‘Even before my mum got ill, my parents were always acting older than they were—always set in their ways. My father won’t even go for a walk. At least you do things,’ Lizzie said. ‘You live your life and make mistakes …’ She said it so nicely and gently that even Francesca smiled. ‘I think you’re glamorous and wonderful and everything I’d like to be when I’m—’
‘Careful!’ came Francesca’s friendly warning.
‘Fifty-two,’ Lizzie said, and both women laughed.
‘What’s wrong with your mum?’ Francesca asked, but just as Lizzie went to answer, the other woman started to cough. ‘Here,’ Lizzie said, ‘let me help you sit up.’
‘I can’t …’ Francesca was struggling to get in air.
And just at the moment Lizzie thought that she had a handle on her job and knew more or less what to expect, she was in the middle of an emergency. ‘Leo …’
He must have heard the concern in Lizzie’s voice because he was behind the curtain in an instant.
‘It’s okay, Francesca,’ he said immediately, and he sounded so calm that for a second Lizzie wondered if he’d actually noticed that Francesca’s lips were blue and her skin a deathly grey.
‘I can’t breathe …’ Francesca gasped.
‘I know,’ Leo said, his fingers taking the pulse on her neck as his other hand reached for his stethoscope. ‘Don’t try and speak. Just nod or shake your head. Do you have pain?’ Leo asked.
She shook her head. ‘Leo …’
‘Press the intercom,’ Leo said once Lizzie had put on a probe to read Francesca’s oxygen levels—and they were dire. ‘Gwen!’ His voice was calm and clipped. ‘Call 999 and see who else is around.’
Lizzie slipped an oxygen mask on Francesca as Leo inserted an IV. Despite his calm demeanour, Lizzie could see the flare of worry in his eyes as more and more it looked as if Francesca was suffering from a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism—a complication that sometimes happened after surgery when a clot deep in the veins of the leg flicked off and travelled to the lung.
‘What have we got?’ Mitchell Cooper, an American surgeon who Lizzie had had few dealings with, came in with the crash trolley and set to work pulling up emergency drugs.
‘Query PE in a seventy-two-year-old, three days post facelift and fillers. The wound looks infected …’
‘When was she last seen?’ Mitchell glanced up from the syringe he was filling.
‘I’m not sure.’ Lizzie saw Mitchell frown at Leo’s irregular response because post-operative care was taken very seriously at the Hunter Clinic.
‘What do you mean, you’re not sure when she was last seen?’ Mitchell demanded—he clearly had no qualms questioning Leo about something as serious as this.
‘I didn’t do the surgery,’ Leo said.
But he was dealing with the consequences of it.
Still, they didn’t think of that now, they just concentrated on keeping Francesca as comfortable as possible until the ambulance arrived. Francesca was gripping tightly onto Leo’s hand as she struggled to get air in. ‘It’s okay, Francesca.’ He just kept saying it over and over and from the way she was holding onto him, it was clearly helping. ‘The ambulance is here.’
The paramedics were skilled and calm and soon had her on the stretcher.
‘Who do you want me to contact?’ Leo asked Francesca. ‘Your niece?’
‘No.’ An exhausted Francesca shook her head, still determined that no one must ever find out.
‘Francesca, your family need to know what’s happening. This could be serious. Amelia would want to know that you were ill. It would be awful not to know …’ Lizzie looked up as Leo fell silent, surprised because he seemed to be struggling, but he soon regained his composure. ‘You must let me tell her.’
Clearly Francesca trusted Leo because she gave a weary nod.
‘Can you text Amelia’s details to me?’ Leo looked over at Lizzie. ‘I’ll call her when we get to the hospital.’
‘You’re going with Francesca?’ Mitchell checked.
‘Of course,’ Leo said. ‘She’s my patient.’
Lizzie was shaken and terribly worried for Francesca. She turned to see Ethan and Rafael, who had just come back from the Lighthouse Hospital to the sight of a blue light ambulance leaving the clinic, and Mitchell quickly brought them up to speed.
‘Didn’t Leo do a full facelift on her just last year?’ Rafael asked, and Mitchell nodded.
‘Leo didn’t do the surgery this time.’
‘He refused to,’ Lizzie said.
‘Well, we all know what that means at times …’ Mitchell’s face was grim, in fact, all three surgeons seemed very concerned. ‘I’d better go and speak with Lexi.’
‘Why Lexi?’ Lizzie asked, as Mitchell headed off to speak to the head of PR for the Hunter Clinic.
‘The proverbial is about to hit the fan,’ Ethan said darkly. ‘Mark my words.’
CHAPTER NINE
LIZZIE DID HER best to get on with her day, but she was very worried. Not about the publicity, given Leo hadn’t been the surgeon who’d operated, but about Francesca. Late in the evening, long after the patients had gone, she was still reluctant to go home till she knew what was happing.
‘Why don’t you call Leo?’ Gwen suggested, as she headed out the door.
‘I might,’ Lizzie said, but when she tried she just got his voicemail.
It felt strange to be alone in the clinic. Lizzie tried to find something to do but there wasn’t much. She took the files of the patients Leo would be seeing tomorrow into his office and placed them on the table. She couldn’t help but walk over to the shelf and take down the ballet programme. She started to flick through it then became so engrossed she hardly heard Leo coming through the door.
‘She’s stable.’
Lizzie turned around at the sound of Leo’s voice.
‘Several clots, but small ones, thank God.’ He closed his eyes briefly. Both had worked in medicine long enough to know that had it been a large clot, nothing anyone could have done would have changed the outcome. ‘I’m just so glad she came to the clinic. Had that happened at home …’ He walked over and looked at the programme Lizzie was holding. ‘It’s not often that I question my work but on days like today …’
‘Leo, you didn’t even do the surgery.’
‘I know that, but I could easily have. There is a risk. I say it every day but on days like today you just question things.’
‘Lexi seems to think it might look bad for the clinic if it gets out.’
‘It’s already out,’ Leo said. ‘Lexi just rang and told me. She’s had two journalists call in the last hour.’
‘She’s telling them that Francesca didn’t have the surgery here?’
‘No,’ Leo said. ‘I never comment on any patients.’
‘But—’
‘No buts,’ Leo said. ‘You can’t play that card only when it suits and I’m certainly not going to put the blame on Geoff. It’s a post-operative complication—it could be any one of us.’
‘Even so,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s your reputation …’
‘My reputation can take it,’ Leo said. ‘It’s par for the course, Lizzie. If I couldn’t handle this sort of thing I’d have given up on surgery ages ago.’ He sounded so assured and confident but she could tell he was deeply concerned.
It was all just so unfair.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Lizzie offered.
‘I’d kill for a coffee.’ Leo yawned. ‘I’ll give Francesca’s niece another call and see how she is and then I’m going to ring Geoff and speak with him.’
‘I meant …’ She looked at the decanter.
‘That’s for the patients, oh, and Ethan,’ Leo said, then nodded. ‘Go on, then, if you’ll join me.’
She shouldn’t be joining him, both knew that. They were heading into dangerous territory and it had been a long and emotional day, but she wanted to talk to him more than she wanted to go home.
Lizzie poured them both a drink while Leo scrolled through his tablet.
‘Have you seen this?’
As she walked over Lizzie wondered which of their famous clients she was about to see, or whether it was something about Francesca, but instead it was an article she had read several months ago.
‘That’s how I found out about Ethan,’ Leo said. ‘From a news article. That’s why I was so insistent that Francesca ring Amelia—I know how it feels not to be told. How could the hospital not tell me?’