Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid

pipe,’ he said.
    ‘No pain?’
    He shook his head. ‘Nothing the morphine can’t take care of.’
    ‘But you’re not feeling any pain once the morphine kicks in?’
    ‘No. Should I be?’
    Mrs Chakrabarti smiled. ‘It’s not our preferred option. I’m going to take you off the morphine drip tomorrow morning, see if we can achieve the pain management by other means.’
    Tony felt the clutch of apprehension. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
    The smile grew positively predatory. ‘Just as sure as you are about the advice you give your patients.’
    Tony grinned. ‘In that case, let’s just stick with the morphine.’
    ‘You’ll be fine, Dr Hill.’ She replaced the chart and studied his leg, angling her head round to see the twin drains carrying bloody fluid away from the wound in his knee. She turned to the students. ‘You’ll see there’s not much coming off the wound site now.’ Back to Tony. ‘I think we might take the drains out tomorrow and get this splint off so we can get a sense of what you’re going to need. Probably a nice cylinder cast.’
    ‘When can I go home?’
    Mrs Chakrabarti turned to her students with the perennial condescension of the surgeon. ‘When can Dr Hill go home?’
    ‘When he can bear weight on his leg.’ The speaker looked as if he should be delivering newspapers, not clinical judgements.
    ‘How much weight? His whole body weight?’
    The students exchanged covert glances. ‘When he can get around with a Zimmer frame, another offered.
    ‘When he can get around with a Zimmer frame, do a leg raise and climb stairs,’ a third chipped in.
    Tony could feel something inside his head stretch to its limit. ‘Doctor,’ he said forcibly. When he had
her attention, he spoke very clearly. ‘That was not an idle question. I need to not be here. None of the important things in my life can be accomplished from a hospital bed.’
    Mrs Chakrabarti wasn’t smiling now. This, Tony thought, must be what a mouse feels like eyeball to eyeball with a raptor. The only good thing about it is you know it’s not going to last long. ‘That’s something you have in common with the vast majority of my patients, Dr Hill,’ she said.
    His blue eyes glittered with the strain of not showing his frustration. ‘I’m perfectly aware of that. But unlike the vast majority of your patients, nobody else can do what I do. That’s not arrogance. It’s the way that it is. I don’t need two functioning legs to do most of the things I do that matter. What I really need is for my head to function, and that’s not happening very well in here.’
    They glared at each other. None of the students fidgeted. They barely breathed. ‘I appreciate your position, Dr Hill. And I understand your sense of failure.’
    ‘My sense of failure?’ Tony was genuinely puzzled.
    ‘It was one of your patients who put you here, after all.’
    He burst out laughing. ‘Good God, no. Not one of my patients. Lloyd Allen wasn’t one of mine. This isn’t about guilt, it’s about giving my patients what they need. Just like you want to do, Mrs Chakrabarti.’ His smile lit up his face, infectious and compelling.
    The corners of her lips twitched. ‘In that case, Dr Hill, I’d say it’s up to you. We can perhaps try a leg brace rather than a cast.’ She eyed his shoulders critically. ‘It’s a pity you don’t have better upper body strength, but we can try you on elbow crutches. The bottom line is that you have to be mobile, you have to be committed to your physiotherapy and you have to be off the intravenous morphine. Do you have someone at home to take care of you?’
    He looked away. ‘I share the house with a friend. She’ll help.’
    The surgeon nodded. ‘I won’t pretend the rehab isn’t tough. Hard work and a lot of pain. But if you’re determined to get out of here, we should be able to free up your bed early next week.’
    ‘Early next week?’ There was no hiding his dismay.
    Mrs Chakrabarti