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He'd phoned John's wife and told her, 'It's sorted, Mary. An ambulance is on its way to take John to the hospice.' Then he'd gone to make breakfast for Fenella and himself.

'Ugh!' she groaned when she went into the bathroom before eating. Her mascara was smudged around her face like boot polish, the dress crumpled and tacky-looking. This wasn't how she'd wanted it to be, she thought glumly.

'I look a mess,' she said when she came out.

'Yes, you do,' he agreed whimsically. 'Talk about the morning after the night before.'

With the mention of the night before, the memory of their visit to the Oakes house came back, and on the point of biting into a piece of toast she asked, 'What about John Oakes?'

'Done. By now he'll be on his way to the hospice.'

'I might have known.'

'What?'

'That it would be already sorted.'

When they'd eaten, with Max perched on the side of the bed, he said, 'Feel free to go and have a soak if you want
to clear away the aftermath of last night. I can soon find you some of Will's gear to go home in again.'

Fenella managed a smile but it was an effort. She felt totally sick that she'd ended up looking such a mess on such a night.

'No, thanks. I'll sort myself out when I get home as long as you don't mind giving me a lift.'

'Not at all,' he said smoothly.

Max was aware of her mortification and could have told her that she was beautiful to him no matter how she looked, but he thought it might fall on stony ground, so he kept silent.

Max's first patient
of the day on the Monday after the festivities was the vicar, who had hit his thumb instead of a nail when they'd been putting up the marquee and now it was looking nasty.

'I'm not sure whether you haven't broken it,' Max told him. 'How painful is it?'

'It hurts all right!' the robust cleric told him. 'I couldn't sleep with it last night.'

Max nodded. 'I'm afraid that a visit to A and E is required. It needs to be X-rayed to see if the bone is broken and there is some infection there that they'll need to have a look at.'

When he'd gone his wife, Polly, followed him in and Max exclaimed, 'You've just missed your husband.'

She grimaced and seated herself gingerly on the chair opposite. 'That was my intention,' she told him.

'Right. So what's the problem, Polly?'

'I've got a huge splinter in my...er...buttocks,' she said uncomfortably. 'I can't see to get it out, and didn't want to ask Eustace to do it.'

'Of course,' he said with suitable gravity. 'I saw you sitting on the edge of the wooden platform after the ceremony on Saturday. Is that where you got it?'

'Yes. Do you think you can remove it for me?'

'Why don't I send you in to the nurses?' he suggested tactfully. 'They have the facilities for something like that and will cover the affected area with antiseptic cream and a sterile dressing once the splinter is out.'

'Oh, yes!' she said thankfully, as if he'd offered her an escape from a fate worse than death, and off she went to the nurses' room, while Max was left to wonder how many more casualties from Saturday would be appearing.

In the room next to his Fenella was patiently and capably coping with her own share of the sick and suffering. So far she'd avoided having to ask Max anything, but wasn't expecting it to last as there was always something she didn't know, something for which she needed the benefit of his experience.

While she'd been having a long soak in her own tub after he'd taken her home on Sunday, she'd kept thinking about him asking if she'd ever slept with anyone, and what he'd said when she'd told him she hadn't. His voice had been deep and tender, yet he hadn't done anything about it when he'd woken up to find her in his bed.

But there had been something else to remind herself of. Something that he'd said some time ago, to the effect that when he took someone to his bed she would have his ring on her finger. When she'd raised her own hand out of the suds there'd been no sparkle of gems there, no glowing symbol of togetherness, so she supposed that there she had her answer.

It came eventually, a consultation that she wasn't sure how to proceed with. Gaynor, the cheerful, thirty-plus post- woman, had come with a lump in her breast.

Fenella knew that as well as being cancerous it could be a cyst, a benign tumour, calcium or other things that she wasn't qualified to advise on, so she went to find Max.

'Could you spare a moment?' she asked when he looked up from his desk.

He got to his feet. 'Yes. What's the problem?'

'Gaynor, the postwoman, has a lump in her breast and I'm not sure how to proceed.'

'So you want me to examine her?'

'Yes. If you would.'

'Morning, Gaynor,' he said in the relaxed tone that he used for those who might be apprehensive. 'Dr Forbes has asked me to examine you. Is that all right?'

'Yes, of course,' she said immediately. 'I've always had lumpy breasts but the lumps have been benign until now. Yet it's always at the back of my mind that one day they will be malignant.'

Max nodded and as he carried out the examination that Fenella had asked for, she thought that Gaynor hadn't told her that she'd had non-malignant lumps before. She would have appreciated being told about the lumpy breast tissue. In the light of recent events it felt as if someone else was out to treat her like an adolescent.

'There is certainly a lump there,' Max said after he'd told the postwoman to get dressed, 'and we can't take any chances, Gaynor, even though the others have been benign. Dr Forbes will make you an appointment for the necessary tests and when we get the results we'll take it from there.'

'Do you think that carrying a heavy postbag on my shoulder could have anything to do with it?' she asked. 'When I start out on my round it weighs a ton.'

'I don't think so,' he told her. 'The weight of the postbag would be more likely to cause muscle strain, but it might be worth thinking of changing your job to something lighter.'

When she'd gone there was silence between them until Max broke into it by saying casually, 'So have you recovered from Saturday night? The ups and downs of village life?'

There was no mention of finding her beside him when he'd woken up, so she said distantly, 'Yes. I'm fine, thanks.'

She'd had a feeling right from the start that he was always going to be just out of reach, until Saturday night at the ball, when she had seen the future opening out in front of them, enchanted and secure, as they'd laughed and danced inside their own charmed cocoon. But Max's role as police surgeon had been the first thing to break into it, and her falling asleep the moment she had been alone with him had been the second.

If he was aware that there was a chill in the atmosphere, he didn't show it and went on to say, 'The next-door neighbour of the old couple that we went out to on Saturday night has been in for a repeat prescription this morning. She had to see me as it has been some time since she'd been checked over by a doctor.

'Needless to say, I asked her how he was and she said that Social Services have been to see him this morning and they are going to send a carer round each day to see to his needs. Apparently he had refused that kind of help before, but now he's glad to have it as he's so tired. The postmortem findings won't be available yet, but I've asked them to let me know the results when they are, and I'm pretty sure it will be natural causes.'

'I'm glad that Social Services are on the job so soon,' Fenella said gravely. 'That poor old man will have saved them thousands by looking after his wife himself.'

As they were going out to their cars a woman who looked vaguely familiar came towards them. She smiled and stopped in front of them and when she spoke it became clear who she was.

'Caroline is home,' she said. 'She was discharged from hospital last week and we are going to have a party next Saturday to celebrate her homecoming. I'm here to invite you both to join us. We owe you a lot.'

'How's the arm?' Max asked.

'She hasn't got full use of it as yet, but we are told that it is too soon to make a judgement as to what the final result will be.'

He turned to Fenella. 'Are we free next Saturday night, Dr Forbes?'

'I am,' she said, with a smile for Caroline's mother.

'And so am I,' he told her. 'We'll be happy to join you on such a special occasion.'

When she'd gone on her way he was smiling. 'That's good news, to know that our young motorcyclist is back in circulation. Though "circulation" in another form could be the problem as she waits to see how functional her arm is going to be.'

Fenella nodded. It had been a ghastly accident. She could still remember how afraid she'd been of doing anything wrong, but with Max beside her she'd coped. Together they had saved a life and it had been something she would never forget.

She was looking forward to the party at Caroline's home, but before Saturday dawned there were happenings less joyful to be faced regarding Alice. She hadn't sent for them, but the farmer who delivered her milk had rung in to say that the previous day's delivery was still on the step.

'I'll go, if that's all right with you,' she said to Max. It was only eight o'clock in the morning so there was time before surgery.

'We'll both go,' he told her. 'There's nothing urgent needing our attention here at the moment.' He knew how fond she was of the old lady and if anything serious was wrong with Alice, he wanted to be there for both their sakes.

When they arrived the curtains were drawn and there were now two pints of milk on the doorstep. Fenella was out of the car in a flash and running up the path before Max had switched off the engine.

They were friends, Alice and herself, she was thinking. If Alice couldn't pick up the phone to ring the surgery she must be very sick.

Knocking on the door and ringing the bell brought no response and Max said, 'Let's go round the back. If I have to, I'll break one of the small windows at the side of her back door so that I can get my hand in to unlock it.'

Their knocking on the back door brought no more signs of Alice than their onslaught on the one at the front, so Max did as he'd said—broke a window and managed to open the door.

As they hurried inside Fenella gave a gasp of dismay.

Alice was lying on the stone floor of the kitchen with her leg twisted awkwardly beneath her and she was blue with cold.

'Get an ambulance out here fast, Fenella,' he said, 'and make sure they have space blankets on board to wrap her in. We need to get some warmth into her with all speed.'

He was taking off his jacket and motioning for her to do the same and when they'd covered Alice's frail form with them he told her, 'Look in the drawers for a towel or something similar to cover her head. That's where the most heat loss comes from. The leg looks as if it might be broken but, worse than that, Alice is suffering from hypothermia. She must have been lying here for hours.'

He was sounding Alice's heart and checking her pulse, and as Fenella watched she was fighting back tears. This could be the end of Alice's independence, she was thinking as she took her cold hand in hers. She wanted to take her in her arms and hold her close, get some heat into her, but she couldn't move her because of the leg.

'Took you long enough!' Alice croaked drowsily through cracked lips. 'There's enough money to bury me in the top drawer of the sideboard.'

'You are not going to die,' Fenella told her. 'I'm not going to let you. We've only just got to know each other.' She dredged up a smile. 'You've got to be around when I get married. You made the flower queen a beautiful dress, and I want you to do the same for me.'

Alice's bleary gaze was resting on Max. There was a question in her eyes and they both knew what it was.

'There's no rush, Alice,' she told her gently. 'I've got to find a bridegroom first.'

If Max was tuning into that comment he didn't show it.

The old lady's eyes were closed now and he bent over her anxiously and said, 'Where is the ambulance, for goodness' sake? She's drifting off into unconsciousness again.'

'I can hear it coming up the hill,' Fenella told him, holding Alice's hand against her cheek, and now she was sobbing openly.

'Don't cry,' he said gently. 'If Alice is meant to stay with us she will, and if it is her time to go.. .she will. But after what you said about a wedding dress, and her being a tough old dear, I somehow think she might be around to plague us for a bit longer...once the paramedics arrive.'

The paramedics
had
arrived and Alice was wrapped in the foil that would help to bring her body heat up again. Fenella wanted to give her a hot drink but Max shook his head. 'If she gets warm again too quickly it could do her as much harm as her being so cold,' he explained. 'It would be too much of a shock to her system.

'Go with her, Fenella. I know how worried you are about her. We can manage without you at the surgery for once, and while you're gone I'll get someone to repair the window.'

She gazed at him with red-rimmed eyes. 'I can't believe that I didn't like you when I first joined the practice,' she told him with one foot on the step.

'Is that so? And why would that be? But you'll have to tell me about it another time—these guys are waiting.' He closed the door behind her and she went to sit beside Alice.

It went without saying that Alice would be admitted and as Fenella sat beside her bed later, faint colour had come back into Alice's withered cheeks.

'It's a good job you found the old lady when you did,' the doctor in A and E had told her. 'If she'd been lying there much longer, it could have been fatal.'

'We owe it to the milkman,' she'd told him and he'd smiled.

'They come in handy, these daily delivery people. The postman, the newsagent, the milkman, and anyone else with their wits about them are invaluable in cases like this, and with a couple of caring GPs thrown in... If you come back tonight you could see a big improvement in the old lady. We'll be monitoring her all the time and as she gets warmer the drowsiness will disappear.'