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      CHAPTER TWO

      BY THE time she staggered back to her bedsit that evening Lily was totally exhausted and wondering if she was ever going to be able to keep up with Razak’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy.

      Things had started off calmly enough as the two of them had first examined an apparently endless series of patients referred by their GPs, many of them needing orthopaedic surgery sooner rather than later for their painful joints. Later that afternoon they had moved on to the review of the two patients who had been admitted that day for surgery the following morning, but before they had been able to take any sort of a break for her to ask any of the questions already buzzing around in her head, Razak had been contacted for an urgent consultation on a patient in the emergency department and she had found herself running in his wake when he had suggested she come, too.

      ‘Sir, listen to this,’ exulted a very young doctor as he reached out towards the blood-spattered body on the trolley in front of him. ‘You can actually hear the bones grating when you spring the man’s hips.’

      ‘Don’t!’ snapped Razak, before he could make contact, the word like the crack of a lash. ‘How many times have you already done that?’

      ‘A couple,’ he admitted, then smiled almost innocently. ‘It’s the first time I’ve actually heard a break when I’ve done it and I—’

      ‘And you could be responsible for killing the man,’ Razak interrupted fiercely. ‘What’s his blood pressure doing? If the sharp edges of the broken bones damages one of the pelvic arteries he could bleed out in a matter of minutes. Your job here is to stabilise his condition so we can get him up to Theatre, yes?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ he agreed, clearly crestfallen. ‘Do you want to use an external fixator before he’s transferred?’

      ‘Have X-rays been taken yet to show the position of the fracture?’ Razak demanded briskly. ‘If there’s more than one break we may have to. Otherwise, if you can guarantee not to make him any worse while he’s transported to Theatre, we’ll do it upstairs while we do an open reduction and internal fixation.’

      Even as he was speaking, the radiographer was positioning the equipment above the moaning patient and there were so many members of staff noisily occupied in taking care of him that Lily wondered for a moment whether they would even hear the radiographer’s warning countdown to the first exposure.

      At the last second the last nurse whipped her hands off the body and stepped back smartly, only to step forward just as swiftly as soon as that view had been taken.

      The whole process had to be repeated several times to build up an accurate picture of what was going on inside, and all the while the members of the resus team were going about their tasks. Machines were monitoring the patient’s blood pressure and airway but one of the nurses was specifically detailed to document each dose of painkilling drug and every procedure as it was done while another was keeping up a soothing running commentary in the hope that it would make everything just a little less frightening.

      At least the hospital had the latest digital X-ray technology, so there was no long wait while old-fashioned plates were hurried away to be developed. With this state-of-the-art equipment, as soon as the shot was taken it was available for viewing on the monitor with the touch of a button.

      Razak muttered something vehement under his breath when he saw the first view, and even without knowing his language Lily could tell that he’d sworn. She certainly felt like it when she saw the damage the man had sustained.

      ‘Definitely an external fixator,’ she murmured as she stepped aside to reach for the wall phone. ‘Who should I ask for to bring the kit down?’

      ‘Can you see if Colin Wetherall’s free at the moment?’ Razak asked. ‘Tell him what we’ve got here and that I’d like him to do a demonstration for you.’

      ‘A demonstration?’she murmured under her breath, while someone up in the orthopaedic department checked to see if Colin was still in Theatre. He’d had two operations scheduled that afternoon, a knee and a shoulder. If everything had gone well, he should be nearly finished. But why should she need Colin to demonstrate the fixator kit? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t used it before, although, admittedly, not very often.

      Was calling him down Razak’s way of saying that he wasn’t impressed with her level of skill? She didn’t think she’d made any mistakes today, their only disagreements having been over matters of personal preference for various prosthetics.

      ‘I hope he is free,’ Razak said suddenly, his voice right behind her telling her that he’d come far closer than she’d realised. ‘He spent some time in Russia at the institute where this particular fixator system was developed and he’s nothing short of brilliant with it. The best in the department, I think.’

      Lily hadn’t known the man long, but she had a feeling that Razak didn’t give praise easily, so it was with an unexpected feeling of anticipation that she waited to see what would happen. For the moment, her role was more of a passive observer, but that could change at any moment.

      To the uninitiated, the external fixator kit that arrived just before Colin might have been confused with a rather sophisticated construction toy with its various shiny rods and connectors, but in the hands of someone who had obviously been taught by masters how to use it best, it was a revelation.

      Using the X-rays as a guide, Colin swiftly tightened the special screws into position in the bones then fitted the rods between them, tightening them only when the pelvis had been restored to the correct shape.