The Consultant's Italian Knight. Maggie Kingsley

room wall reminding all visitors that mobile phones must be switched off within the hospital confines.

      ‘Oughtn’t we to at least introduce ourselves to that woman on Reception?’ Ralph demanded. ‘Tell her why we’re here?’

      ‘The fewer people who know who we are, the better.’

      ‘I guess so.’ Ralph turned in his seat as the waiting room door opened, and grimaced as a girl with a badly cut knee limped in. ‘I hate hospitals.’

      ‘Really?’A glimmer of a smile creased Mario Volante’s lips. ‘I never would have guessed. Look, will you relax?’ he continued as Ralph opened his mouth to protest. ‘I’m trying very hard not to draw attention to myself, but you’re squirming around as though you’ve sat on something.’

      ‘Sorry. I just—’

      ‘Hate hospitals,’ Mario finished for him, his smile widening. ‘Yeah, so you said.’

      ‘It looks like something might be happening,’ Ralph declared, sitting up straighter in his seat and nodding in the direction of the reception desk. ‘That blonde-haired nurse with the glasses looks worried, and so does the pretty little nurse with the auburn hair.’

      ‘The chubby, auburn-haired one is a doctor not a nurse.’

      ‘Mario, she only looks chubby to you because you usually date toothpicks,’ Ralph protested. ‘To me she looks like a real woman. A woman with her curves in all the right places.’

      ‘And does Jenny know you’re looking at other women and deciding whether they have their curves in all the right places?’ Mario said with a quizzical glance.

      Ralph looked smug. ‘My wife trusts me.’

      ‘Uh-huh. Plus, I distinctly remember her saying at your wedding that if you ever cheated on her she’d nail your butt to the wall and use it as a dartboard.’

      ‘She did, too,’ Ralph said with a splutter of laughter. ‘But I stand by what I said. That girl has all her curves in the right places, and she’s pretty, too.’

      But not happy, Mario decided as he stared across at the auburn-haired girl. In his work it was his job to read people, and this girl—woman—was definitely not happy. There were shadows under her large grey eyes, and her face was white and drawn as though she hadn’t been sleeping well recently.

      ‘That’s what you need,’ Ralph observed, seeing the direction of his gaze. ‘A good woman in your life.’

      ‘And just when did this paragon become not just a real woman, but also a good one?’ Mario protested, and Ralph shook his head, clearly amazed at the question.

      ‘She’s a doctor, Mario. It stands to reason she’ll be the caring, nurturing type.’

      With a backbone of steel if he was any judge of character, Mario decided as he watched the auburn-haired doctor reply to something the nurse had said. Medicine was a tough profession for a woman, and for this woman to work in A and E she had to be no pushover, and from the stubborn tilt of her jaw he knew she wasn’t.

      ‘What you need is some stability in your life, Mario,’ Ralph continued, ‘starting with a proper, grown-up relationship.’

      ‘You’ll be trying to fix me up with your kid sister next,’ Mario said dryly. ‘Or your cousin from Glasgow.’

      ‘I wouldn’t trust you with either of them, but that girl looks as though she could handle you.’

      ‘You think I need handling?’ Mario declared, amusement plain on his face, and Ralph raised an eyebrow.

      ‘Mario, you discard women with as little thought as you change your socks. Now, that girl—’

      ‘Enough, Ralph,’ Mario interrupted, his patience clearly at an end. ‘I’m not interested.’

      ‘Then you should be,’ Ralph insisted. ‘Hell, mate, you’ve been divorced for four years, and, OK, so divorce is never pleasant and Sue hurt you badly, but it’s time you moved on, time you buried the hurt.’

      He would have done, Mario thought grimly, if Sue really had hurt him, but the trouble was she hadn’t. If she had hurt him he would at least have known he was still able to feel, to care, but when she’d left all he’d felt was an overwhelming sense of relief that the arguing was finally over.

      ‘Mario, listen to me—’

      ‘Madre di Dio!’ Mario exclaimed, and Ralph held up his hands in defeat.

      ‘OK—OK. When you start speaking Italian I know it’s time to shut up. You’re happy as you are. Fine. Great.’

      And he was happy, Mario thought as he watched the auburn-haired doctor fiddle with her hair. Lovely hair it was, too. The kind of hair that should never be tied back but allowed to flow loose and free, and Ralph had been right about the curves. They were definitely in all the right places, but he wasn’t interested. He had a job that he loved, the career he’d always wanted, and it was enough for him. OK, so there were times when he was lonely, but if he’d been looking for a new relationship—and he wasn’t—the girl standing at the reception desk wasn’t for him. He preferred his women quiet, placid and accommodating, and he suspected the auburn-haired doctor was anything but.

      ‘Sounds like it might be show time,’ Ralph declared as the distant wail of a siren split the air.

      It did indeed, Mario thought, as he saw the nurse and the auburn-haired doctor disappear back into the treatment room. It also meant their man was still alive, and with a sigh he stretched out his long, denim clad legs. It was going to be a long night.

      ‘According to his passport, his name’s Duncan Hamilton, and he’s nineteen years old,’ one of the paramedics declared, desperately trying to restrain the arms and legs of the young man who was thrashing about wildly on the trolley. ‘When security at the airport said they suspected he might be a body-packer, we just bagged him, and did a scoop and run.’

      ‘Symptoms?’ Kate asked.

      ‘Severe agitation, BP 160 over 90 and rising and he started fitting just as we pulled up outside.’

      Kate bit her lip. Absorption of large amounts of cocaine caused agitation, hypertension and seizures, but Duncan Hamilton’s symptoms could be due to other conditions, too. If she knew for certain that it wasn’t a leaking cocaine packet she would immediately have started him on naloxone, but the drug would have no effect on a patient suffering from a massive overdose.

      ‘Did he have anything else on him apart from his passport?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Maybe a medic alert disc detailing a preexisting medical condition?’

      The paramedic shook his head, and Kate swore under her breath.

      If Duncan Hamilton was a body-packer then it certainly sounded as though one of his packets had burst, but she needed more than a suspicion. She needed certainty.

      ‘Mr Hamilton—Duncan,’ she said, leaning as far over the young man as his writhing body would allow. ‘Do you know where you are, and what’s happening to you?’

      A low moan was her only reply, and she gave up on the preliminaries and went for the straight approach.

      ‘Duncan, how many packets of cocaine did you swallow?’

      ‘I didn’t…I haven’t swallowed anything,’ the young man gasped as Terri finished cutting off his clothes and began placing plastic suckers on his chest to link him to the heart monitor.

      ‘Duncan, if one of your packets has burst you could die,’ Kate persisted, ‘so tell me the truth. How many did you swallow?’

      For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer, then he muttered, ‘Hundred. Swallowed a hundred.’

      Hell-fire, and damnation. The average lethal dose of cocaine hydrochloride was 500 milligrams. Body-packers commonly swallowed packets containing