More Than Time. Caroline Anderson

       CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS a typical April Fool’s Day joke, Lizzi thought disgustedly—and a sick joke at that.

      Having caused havoc overnight, the unpredicted snow had now turned to slush, and a steady gentle rain was washing away the last traces. The white mantle that had fallen silently over the countryside on Sunday afternoon had had its fun. Now, on Monday morning, everyone was making their way to work, the mayhem forgotten.

      As she turned into the hospital car park, Lizzi wondered what she would find on her ward as a result of the weather’s little games. No doubt orthopaedics would have come off worst, but there were bound to have been a fair smattering of internal injuries resulting from the inevitable car pile-ups. With a little frown she wondered how they would find room.

      Her mind on her work, Lizzi turned sharply into a space and then gasped in disbelief as her obedient little car ignored her explicit directions and sailed gracefully into the side of the vehicle on her right.

      As it ground to a halt, Lizzi sat stunned for a second and then wriggled out of the passenger side and walked reluctantly round to inspect the damage.

      Ouch!’ she winced. Her front wing was scraped and the light cluster was cracked, but that wasn’t what was worrying her. It was what it had scraped itself on that made her heart miss a beat.

      She walked round to the rear of the car and read the badges. ‘Daimler Double-Six. Damn. Wouldn’t you know?’ A further inspection revealed that under the layers of road dirt the car was the same dark forest green as her own, but, unlike hers, it was a mess inside and out, with crisp packets and apple cores scattered all over the back seat on the otherwise immaculate cream leather. Whoever owned it didn’t deserve to, she thought with a sniff, looking proudly at her well-kept Metro. She had bought it in August, and it was still in showroom condition—or it had been until a few minutes ago!

      With a heavy sigh, she slid back into her car, worked her way across behind the wheel, and reversed carefully out of the space, slotting herself in again with rather more accuracy.

      As she stepped out, her feet shot out from under her and she slithered awkwardly into a pile of slush. She muttered something distinctly unladylike under her breath.

      Someone had obviously been here over the weekend and had recently cleared the snow off his or her vehicle, leaving it in a pile—the pile she had just happened to hit as she drove in.

      Picking herself up, she brushed off her coat and, ignoring a twinge in her shoulder, reached inside the car for a notepad.

      Then she looked for the staff permit on the windscreen.

      Nothing.

      Well, would you believe it? she thought. Seizing her pen, she wrote her telephone number, instructed the owner of the car to contact her that evening, and added a cryptic note to the effect that if the car had been in the visitors’ car park where it rightly belonged the accident wouldn’t have happened.

      Shaking the crumbs out of an old sandwich bag, she slipped the note into it and tucked it under the Daimler’s windscreen wiper before locking her car and headed for the entrance.

      She was too late now for a cup of coffee in the staff canteen, so she headed straight for her ward.

      As she passed the entrance to the ward, she noticed almost absently that there were several new faces, and an obvious reshuffle of patients around the ward. She frowned. She liked her patients to get used to one station, keeping them there if possible at least for the duration of their convalescence, if not from immediately post-op. Too much change just confused them and slowed down their recovery, and that wasn’t to anyone’s advantage. She knew that the night sister agreed with her, so there must have been something fairly drastic going on to necessitate the changes.

      She went into the staff cloakroom and hung up her coat, then rolled up her sleeves, straightening the white cuffs automatically. Glancing in the mirror, she frowned at the light mist of raindrops which clung to her blonde hair. A few fair strands had escaped and curled in damp tendrils round her neck, softening the severity of the look. She tucked them firmly back into the bun she wore at the nape of her neck, and pinned her lace cap on absently, her thoughts still on the patient reshuffle.

      Her wide violet eyes troubled, her soft mouth set into a firm line, she strode briskly into the ward kitchen and came to an abrupt halt.

      It seemed to be full of people, although on closer inspection there were only two. Still, they filled it. A tall man in theatre greens waved a coffee-pot at her and smiled wearily.

      ‘Hi. Coffee, Lizzi?’

      ‘Please, Oliver. I didn’t have time. What’s happened to you? You look as if you’ve been run over by a truck!’

      ‘God,