Stranded Read Online Free PDF Page B

more frantic, less effective.
    â€˜I’ll call an ambulance, Meg,’ John Collings said desperately, moving towards the boardroom phone. He’d organised this lunch, and I could see this was the last contract for a directors’ thrash that I’d be getting from him.
    I tried the manoeuvre again. This time, Bayliss slumped heavily against me. The dreadful retching of his breathing suddenly ceased. The heaving in his chest seemed to have stopped. ‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘He’s stopped breathing.’
    A couple of the other guests moved forward and gingerly pulled Bayliss’s still body away from me. I freed my skirt from under him and crawled round him on my knees, saying, ‘Quick, the kiss of life.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see John slam the phone down. In the corner behind him, Tessa, the waitress who’d served him, was weeping quietly.
    John’s chief accountant had taken on the unenviable task of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Somehow, I knew he was wasting his time. I leaned back on my heels, muttering, ‘I don’t understand it. I just don’t understand it.’
    The ambulance crew arrived within five minutes and clamped an oxygen mask over his face. They strapped Bayliss to a stretcher and I followed them down the corridor and into the lift. David Bromley, Bayliss’s deputy, climbed into the ambulance alongside me, looking like he wanted to ask what the hell I thought I was doing.
    â€˜It was my food he was eating,’ I said defensively. ‘I want to make sure he’s all right.’
    â€˜Looks a bit late for that,’ he said. He didn’t sound filled with regret.
    At the hospital, David and I found a quiet corner near the WRVS coffee stall. I stared glumly at the floor and said softly, ‘He didn’t look like he was going to pull through.’
    â€˜No,’ David agreed with a note almost of relish in his voice.
    â€˜You don’t sound too upset,’ I hazarded.
    â€˜That obvious, is it?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘No, I’m not upset. The bank will be a better place without him. The guy’s a complete shit. He’s a tyrant at the office and at home too, from what I can gather. He says jump and the only question you’re allowed to ask is, how high? He goes through secretaries like other people go through rolls of Sellotape.’
    â€˜Oh God,’ I groaned. ‘So if he recovers, he’ll probably sue me for negligence.’
    â€˜I doubt if he’d have a case. His own greed was too much of a contributory factor. I saw him stuffing down those chicken and garlic canapés like there was no tomorrow,’ David consoled me.
    Before we could say more, a weary-looking woman in a white coat approached us. ‘Are you the two people who came in the ambulance with –’, she checked her clipboard. ‘Brian Bayliss?’ We nodded. ‘Are you related to Mr Bayliss?’
    We shook our heads. ‘I’m a colleague,’ David said.
    â€˜And I catered the lunch where Mr Bayliss had his choking fit,’ I revealed.
    The doctor nodded. ‘Can you tell me what Mr Bayliss had to eat?’
    â€˜Just some canapés. That’s all we’d served by then,’ I said defensively.
    â€˜And what exactly was in the canapés?’
    â€˜There were two sorts,’ I explained. ‘Smoked chicken or salmon and lobster.’
    â€˜Brian was eating the chicken ones,’ David added helpfully.
    The doctor looked slightly puzzled. ‘Are you sure?’
    â€˜Of course I’m sure. He never touched fish,’ David added. ‘He wouldn’t even have it on the menu if we were hosting a function.’
    â€˜Look,’ I said. ‘What exactly is the problem here?’
    The doctor sighed. ‘Mr Bayliss has died, apparently as a result of anaphylactic shock.’ We must both have looked bewildered, for she went on to explain.