Bloodline-9 Read Online Free PDF Page B

North Circular and avoiding the stares from a couple at the bus-stop who had heard him shout. ‘What did they say to you?’
    ‘I can’t find anyone who can tel me what’s going on.’
    ‘I’l be there in fifteen minutes,’ Thorne said.
    She burst into tears as soon as she caught sight of him, pushing through the doors at the far end of the ward. He shushed her gently, drew the curtains around the bed and sat down to hold her.
    ‘I just want it . . . out of me,’ she said. ‘Do you understand?’
    ‘I know.’
    They heard the voice of the woman in the bed opposite coming from the other side of the curtain. ‘Is everything OK?’
    ‘It’s fine,’ Thorne said.
    ‘Do you want me to get someone?’
    Thorne leaned closer to Louise. ‘ I’m going to get someone.’
    He prowled the corridors for five minutes until he found a doctor on the next floor up and told him that something needed to be done. After shouting for a minute or so then refusing to budge while the doctor made a couple of cal s, Thorne was back at Louise’s bedside with a soft-spoken, Scottish nurse. She made al the right noises, then admitted there was nothing she could do.
    ‘Not good enough,’ Thorne said.
    ‘I’m sorry, but this is standard practice.’
    ‘What is?’
    ‘Your partner’s just been unlucky, I’m afraid.’ The nurse was flicking through the paperwork she’d brought with her. She waved it in Thorne’s direction. ‘Each time the procedure has been scheduled, another case has taken priority at the last minute. Just unlucky . . .’
    ‘She was promised it would be done last night,’ Thorne said. ‘Then first thing this morning.’
    Louise lay back on the pil ow with her eyes closed. She looked exhausted. ‘Two hours ago they said I was next in.’
    ‘It’s bloody ridiculous,’ Thorne said.
    The nurse consulted her paperwork again, nodding when she found an explanation. ‘Yes, wel , we had someone come in with a badly broken arm, I’m afraid, so—’
    ‘A broken arm ?’
    The nurse looked at Thorne as though he were simple. ‘He was in a considerable amount of pain.’
    Thorne returned the look, then pointed at Louise. ‘You think she’s enjoying herself?’

    Alex was stuffing a last piece of toast into her mouth when Greg came into the kitchen. He nodded, stil tucking in his shirt. She grunted, waved, and went back to the story she’d been reading in the Guardian .
    ‘Hope you’ve left some bread,’ Greg said, flicking on the kettle. He heard another grunt as he walked to the bread-bin, then a mumbled request for an apology as he moved to the fridge. ‘Oh, right, as if you would have scoffed it al . . .’ He scanned the inside of the fridge, looking in vain for a yoghurt he knew had been there the day before. Kieron, the flatmate who had moved out at the end of the previous year, had a habit of polishing off the last of the communal bread, milk or whatever, as wel as eating stuff that had never been his in the first place. Now Alex was shaping up to be almost as bad. But Greg was more inclined to forgive his own sister, and she did leave the bathroom smel ing a lot nicer than Kieron had done.
    She pushed the paper away when he final y brought over his tea and toast and sat down. ‘You’re going in early.’
    ‘Twelve o’clock lecture,’ Greg said. ‘Henry the sodding second. And it’s not real y what the rest of the world would cal early.’
    ‘Feels early enough to me.’
    ‘What time did you get in?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Alex said. ‘Not stupidly late. But a bunch of us ended up in some place in Islington where they were necking these lethal-looking vodka shots.’
    ‘ They were necking?’
    Alex grinned. ‘Fair enough, I necked a few.’ She pointed as Greg shook his head and slurped his tea. ‘You can’t get al big brother-ish, matey. Not with some of the things you get up to.’
    Greg blushed, which annoyed him, then he got even more annoyed when Alex giggled knowingly and he