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'Am I...what?' To her relief he looked more puzzled than angry, and that gave her the courage to continue.

'You must be very tired,' she insisted. 'You've been up practically all weekend. You must need rest. Can't your paperwork wait?'

'Merrin...'

She took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry, Professor, I don't mean to be rude, but I think you look very tired.'

'What?'

'I think you should go straight home and sleep,' she added abruptly, knowing she'd gone too far to back down now. 'No, I think you should get some food and then go straight home and sleep,' she amended. 'It doesn't make any sense to work till midnight all the time, especially not after your late night last night. You don't seem to be looting after yourself very well.'

'No.' To her surprise, instead of reacting as she might have expected from the academic meeting that morning, he merely sighed heavily. 'No, perhaps not.'

Merrin knew she was right, and was relieved that he could see it too. 'Imagine what would happen to everyone here if you got sick,' she pointed out. 'The place would fall apart.'

'I wonder.'

'I've only been here one proper day and I can already tell that much,' she murmured. 'Goodnight, Prof.' There was much more she wanted to say—an apology for her behaviour the night before for a start—but tomorrow would do. She'd already pushed her luck as far as she suspected it would stretch tonight. 'Have a good night.'

She didn't have a particularly good night herself. She slept, of course—she couldn't have not slept after the trauma of her weekend—but it was a dense, unsatisfactory, dream-disturbed sleep and the stuffy heat of her room with its jammed-on radiators and jammed-shut windows left her heavy-headed and dull-eyed the next morning.

A bath and washing her hair went some way towards making her feel better and a brisk walk through cold air and a heavy frost across to the hospital took care of the rest.

After her tardiness the day before she'd taken care to arrive early for the round and she had time to collate most of the previous day's laboratory results into the notes before the others arrived just before seven-thirty.

'Mrs Mason's potassium level was low yesterday afternoon,' she told Lindsay, while the older doctor was busy swapping a heavy overcoat for her white doctor's coat. 'Not too bad, just three point three. I know I should add some more to her drip but I'm not sure how much.'

Lindsay peered over her shoulder at the intravenous fluid chart Merrin held. 'How much is she having at the moment?'

'Three bags of fluid a day with twenty milligrams in each,' Merrin told her. Mrs Mason had been admitted on Saturday with abdominal pain and shock secondary to a ruptured bowel diverticulum and their boss had operated on her immediately. 'Should I add another twenty?'

'That sounds fine.' Lindsay nodded her approval. 'After the third day post-op we tend to use sixty milligrams a day as maintenance and add more if it's needed. What was her haemoglobin yesterday?'

'Ten point eight,' Merrin told her. 'So she didn't need any more blood. She had a temperature last evening— thirty-eight point one—so I took blood cultures and the nurses organised a urine culture but this morning her temperature's normal again.'

'You have been busy.' Douglas had come in and had obviously caught the end of what she'd been saying because he grinned at her. 'The boss is here,' he announced. 'Mr Sanderson's got him bailed up in the corridor, talking about some surgical audit thing he's supposed to be organising, but Profs getting that impatient look about him so he won't hold him for long.'

They went immediately out onto the ward but, in line with Douglas's prediction, the professor was already waiting at the main desk. 'Ready?' To her relief, Merrin saw that he looked completely bade to normal, his face alert, his regard keen again. His grey eyes scanned them, not lingering on Merrin although she felt his gaze like a physical brush across her cheeks. 'Let's move,' he said crisply. 'The orderlies are already up, collecting our first case for Theatre, so we haven't long. Any problems overnight?'

'None we've been told about,' Douglas told him, sending Lindsay and Merrin each a quick look as if to confirm that. 'Simon D'Souza's looking good. The nurses say he's been for his first walk.'

'Good.' The Professor nodded briskly as they marched to the end of the ward. 'Celia, any news on his victim?'

'She's OK,' the charge nurse told him. 'They say she'll probably be in hospital two months or so but she's doing OK.'

'How's Mr Sanderson's patient, the man with the thyroid from last night?'

'They took him back to Theatre,' she told him. 'He's fine this morning. He had two units of blood overnight but the bleeding's obviously been stopped.'

They were at bed one now, and while Merrin scrambled for the curtain, pulled it around then fumbled at the notebook, Lindsay went for the notes. The Professor bared their patient's abdomen with its prominent laparotomy scar and crouched to examine him. He listened briefly with Douglas's stethoscope, then said, 'Fine. Bowel sounds present. Simon, you can start drinking today. Water to start and the nurses will bring you tea later if you're not feeling sick.'

'What about my smokes, doctor?' He sent Celia a hostile look. 'The nurses have taken them away somewhere.'

'And when you're discharged from my care they'll give them back to you,' the professor told him unsympathetically. 'At your own peril.'

Merrin was pleased that he was more sympathetic with the person in the next bed, a middle-aged man obviously nervous about the haemorrhoid surgery he was scheduled to have later that morning.

They finished the round on the children's ward, as they had the day before, although this time they only had one patient, Billy Sweet, a two-year-old who'd been admitted the week before with a twisted bowel and who was now recovering from his surgery.

'He can start eating today,' Prof announced, after examining him. 'If all goes well he can go home tomorrow,' he told the child's obviously delighted parents. 'He'll be a bit quiet for a week or two, I should think, but at this age they get back to normal fairly quickly.'

The child was staring up at him with big solemn eyes and Merrin smiled as the surgeon bent and tickled him. 'Don't be so serious, Billy,' he chided, and was promptly rewarded by a bashful grin. 'Mummy's going to take you home tomorrow.'

'Thank you, Professor.' Both parents shook his hand. 'Thank you for everything.'

'We'll take his stitches out before you go,' he told them. 'We'll be back about the same time tomorrow to give you the final word.'

The consultant's bleeper sounded as they were moving past the main paediatric desk on their way back to the main hospital and he waved for Douglas and Lindsay to go on. 'See you in Theatres,' he told them, reaching for the phone. Merrin went to join them as they left the unit but he called her back. 'Merrin, just a minute. There're some notes in my office I need you to collect.'

He punched out a number on the phone and she stood to one side while he waited for the person who'd bleeped him to answer. 'Neil McAlister,' he said, seconds later. 'Someone's bleeping me.' Merrin heard a voice say something and the professor made an impatient sound. 'All right, I'll hold,' he replied crisply. 'But not for long.'

Merrin sent him a questioning look, wondering if he'd take the opportunity to tell her what he wanted her to go and fetch, but instead she saw that his attention was on the bleeper in the side pocket of her coat.

Without saying anything he reached across and drew it out, his brows coming together as he studied the number engraved into the top. His head came up slowly, his expression quizzical, and, understanding what he'd realised, she spoke quickly.

'Yes, I'm sorry. It was me. I was going to tell you. You should have told me who you were.'

'Would it have made any difference?'

'Possibly not,' she admitted sheepishly. 'My feet were pretty sore.' She swallowed. 'I might have been less insistent, though.'

'Did you sleep long?'

'Right through till morning,' she told him weakly. 'In fact, I was late for your round yesterday. You should have woken me. You didn't need to take my bleeper.'

'It wasn't any trouble.' He was still frowning. 'Do you make a habit of asking strange men to rub your feet, Dr Ryan?'

'You're not strange.' She felt hot suddenly and she suspected it had something to do with the intensity of his regard. 'You're very nice.'

'"Nice"?' His mouth compressed briefly. 'Hmm.'

To her relief there was a voice on the phone and his attention swung back to his call. 'Yes, I'm still holding,' he said tersely. 'Tell him he's got ten seconds.'

But by Merrin's silent count only five passed before he made another impatient sound and dumped the receiver back onto its cradle. 'Merrin, Mrs Walton, my secretary, has got a bundle of notes on a patient, Toby Wiseman.'

'Toby Wiseman,' Merrin echoed as she hurried after him, opening her notebook and fumbling for her pen as she ducked through the door he was holding open for her.

'He's a twenty-year-old patient of mine with severe Crohn's disease. You'll find his history in the notes.'

'Crohn's,' she repeated, writing it down in jerky letters as she jogged to keep up with him. She knew that Crohn's disease was a type of inflammatory bowel disease.

'He was supposed to be coming in tomorrow afternoon for surgery Thursday morning but he called me last night about some football game he wants to go to so I've told him to come to the ward to see you this morning instead. Do a normal admission and get his bloods organised but then he can go home and come back Thursday morning pre-op.' They were back at the main
hospital now
and he opened the door and she darted ahead of him towards the stairs. 'Make sure he remembers nothing to eat or drink from midnight.'

'Nil by mouth from midnight,' she murmured, writing that down too.

'Come to Theatre later if you get a chance.' At the sixth floor he veered away from her towards the main theatre suite, and although she was puffing now she saw that the exertion didn't even have him breathing quickly. 'Theatre one,' he said. Over his shoulder he called back, 'That is, if you're interested.'

Interested? Merrin stared after him, bemused. Just try and keep her away.

By working
late the night before, Merrin had managed to familiarise herself with most of their patients and get the routine daily house officer chores, like requesting blood tests and X-rays, out of the way, so she was able to concentrate on dealing with the work that had come out of the professor's ward round.

'Merrin, I know you're busy but we need two more discharge letters.' Orange Ward's charge nurse put her head around the door of the doctors' office where Merrin was working at the computer and smiled at her sympathetically. 'Mr Andrews and Mary Stokes. They're ready to go.'

'I've done them already,' Merrin said absently, passing her the forms she'd just completed. 'Mr Abdullah's is there too. GP follow-up for all of them. Celia, do you know how I get histology results?'

'Ring the lab,' the nurse advised. 'For confidentiality reasons the results aren't always put on the computer. Oh, and Toby Wiseman's just arrived. We haven't got a bed yet so I've put him in the day room.'

'I'll see him now.' Merrin collected the thick bundle of notes she'd retrieved from her boss's secretary. 'Looking through these, it seems like he's had a rough few years.'

'A rough life,' Celia said feelingly. 'But you'll find he's a nice lad. We're very fond of him.'

After meeting him Merrin could see why they would be. Cherubic-faced, despite the marked thinness of his body and limbs, softly spoken and quiet, the twenty-year-old wore a striped football shirt and scarf with palpable pride.

'Prof said it was all right to go to the game tomorrow,'

he told her worriedly, as if he thought she might disagree. 'He said I could come in before the op.'

'Yes, he told me,' Merrin agreed. 'That's fine.'

'He's going to take me to Eddie's funeral on Friday.'

Merrin didn't know what he meant. 'Eddie..-.?' she asked hesitantly. 'I'm afraid I only started here this week...'

'Eddie was my mate,' he said. His eyes dropped. 'Crohn's. Same as me. He died on Sunday.'

'I'm so sorry.' Merrin saw his hand clench around the arm of the chair and she covered it with her own. 'I didn't know Eddie and I didn't know he'd died. Would it help to talk about it or would you rather not?'

'He did it himself.' Toby's shaggy head came up again and she saw that his eyes were swollen. 'I thought the infections had got him but they didn't. Prof told me last night.' He lifted one frail hand and wiped one of his eyes. 'He did it himself.'

'Oh.' Merrin felt tearful herself. 'He must have been very unhappy.'

'You wouldn't have known it,' Toby told her hoarsely. 'He was always the joking one.'

'I'm very sorry.' Merrin felt upset and inadequate. She didn't know what to say. There had to be appropriate, kind words of comfort but it seemed too terrible a thing to have happened for her to be able to think of any, and instead she just put her arm around his thin shoulders and let him weep.

Celia looked in a few minutes later and she raised her eyebrows when she saw what was happening. 'Eddie?' she mouthed to Merrin, and when Merrin nodded she came into the room.

'Toby?' The nurse crouched beside them and took his hand. 'Toby, it's all right. Everything's going to be all right. Eddie was very unwell. You know how bad he was. You're going to be fine.'

With a smoothness that suggested long experience, Celia
nodded for Merrin to make way for her and they changed places. The nurse stroked his hair soothingly. 'It's all right. I'll stay here, Merrin,' she said quietly. 'Give us ten minutes.'

Later, once she'd admitted Toby and organised his pre-op tests so that he could go home, she asked Celia about Eddie. The nurse explained that he'd been a long-term patient of the professor's and that he'd died in Casualty on Sunday night. 'He was dying already,' Celia told her sadly.