Secrets to Keep Read Online Free PDF Page A

all.’
    The condition of this young woman’s mother didn’t sound good to Ty either. From what she had informed him, he was already fearing what he’d find. He made to grab his bag then thought he had better take a look at her notes first, to familiarise himself with her past medical history in case it affected the medication he prescribed for her now.
    ‘Name?’ he demanded.
    The woman looked at him dumbstruck. ‘There’s no time for that.
Will you just come now
?’
    She was indeed infuriating. ‘Name?’ he snapped again.
    She shot back, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, if you must have it … Aidy.’
    While she waited impatiently, he twisted around in his seat and pulled out the drawers labelled A to C, praying that for once James McHinney had filed a patient’s records in the correct location. He hurriedly flicked through all the As, then the Bs and Cs for good measure, but could find no sign of a Mrs Aidy at all. Swivelling back round he said to the young woman, ‘Has your mother ever visited this surgery? Only I can’t find a trace of a patient with the surname Aidy.’
    The young woman gawped at him. ‘Eh? Oh, me mam’s not called Aidy – that’s my name. Aidy Nelson. You should have made it clear whose name you wanted. Hers is Jessie … Jessica Greenwood.’
    Why on earth had she thought he’d be asking for
her
name when it was her mother that was in need of him? Ty refrained from telling the young woman how stupid he thought her for wasting precious time in this situation. Swivelling back in his chair to face the drawers again, he yanked open the one marked G to I and, lo and behold, found Jessica Greenwood’s record card filed where he would have expected it to be. From quickly scanning the spidery writings, it appeared that Jessica Greenwood, like his previous patient, was only an infrequent visitor to the surgery. The last time she had sought the help of a doctorhad been twelve years ago, in 1918, for glandular fever.
    Jumping up from his seat, Ty grabbed his bag, saying to Aidy. ‘I’ll just inform those in the waiting room I have an emergency to attend, then you can take me to your mother.’
    She ran him through several miserable terrace streets until she turned down an alleyway to enter the back yard of a dilapidated three-bedroomed house, set in a long row of equally decrepit two- and three-bedroomed abodes.
    As he followed her into the kitchen, he couldn’t fail to notice the pungent smell that hit him as soon as he stepped over the threshold. Something had been cooked earlier, but it wasn’t food. What exactly it was he hadn’t time to work out. Like other houses he had been inside since arriving in his new post, it was evident this was a lower-class dwelling. But unlike most of the others he’d visited, this one was spotlessly clean and tidy. He noticed it only fleetingly, though.
    As soon as he clapped eyes on Jessica Greenwood, Ty knew she was dead. Regardless, he went through the process of checking thoroughly for any vital signs.
    Finally he stood up and addressed Aidy. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this but there is nothing more I can do for your mother.’
    She blurted out, ‘What do you mean, there’snothing you can do for her? You’re a doctor! If you can’t then … Oh, we need to get her to the hospital, is that it? They’ll make her better, won’t they? You’ll be wanting to hurry back off to yer surgery to telephone for an ambulance, won’t you? You will tell them to come quick …’
    She made to cross to her mother’s side, fully expecting him to dash off and summon the ambulance, but he stopped her. ‘I’m afraid you misunderstand. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I or anyone else can do for your mother. She’s dead.’
    She stared at him, befuddled. Her mam, that vibrant women who had faced and dealt with more than her fair share of terrible traumas, couldn’t just be dead. In an accusing tone she declared, ‘You’ve made a mistake! My mam’s not dead. You