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to get out all right, but rather spoiled the effect by stumbling on the top step of the hotel as she pushed against the heavy swing door. 'Hateful, hateful man,' she muttered as she went inside.
     
    A surprising number of hospital workers had the curious idea that they themselves were somehow immune to the ills they dealt with daily and Yona was no exception. It was, of course, the heat of the place and her personal distaste for operating theatres which had caused her to pass out that afternoon. A good night's sleep—even though it had been the remedy suggested by that awful man Preston—and she'd be as right as rain.
    But after a fitful night of fever, headache and aching limbs, Yona was forced to admit that the kind theatre manager hadn't been so far off the mark after all. She felt about for the phone on her bedside table and rang in to report sick, feeling very guilty. Doctors weren't supposed to be ill—and certainly not after only three days in a new job.
    Her new boss rang her at lunchtime and soon put her right on that score. 'You're crazy,' he said when she told him she'd be in for sure the next day. 'If I were a GP and you were my patient with the flu, I'd sign you off for a week. Keep taking the aspirin and stay in bed for at least forty-eight hours. OK?'
    In her weak state, Yona responded gladly to authority and meekly promised to do as she was told.
    By Saturday the fever was away and, although her legs felt rather rubbery, her head was clear. She got up, took a leisurely bath and put on jeans and a sweater. She was debating a trip to the hospital to clear her desk when somebody knocked on her door. 'Come in,' she called, expecting the chambermaid.
    'I'm Meg Burnley—Ted's wife,' said the plump, merry-eyed brunette who came in. 'I hope you haven't been feeling neglected, but Ted's been up to his eyes and I was working full time this week, which I don't usually. Anyway, I've come to carry you off to our house for the weekend—if you think you can bear it. You don't know anybody down here, do you? So that has to be better than convalescing in an hotel.'
    'How wonderfully kind!' exclaimed Yona, who hadn't been looking forward to the next two days. 'If you're quite sure I'll not be a trouble...'
    Meg said she'd never heard such nonsense and they'd been intending to ask her for Sunday in any case.
    The Burnleys lived in a charming, four-square ex-farmhouse in a pretty village on the northern fringes of the city. By the time they'd returned her to her hotel on Sunday evening, Yona was firm friends with both of them. 'It was worth coming to work down here just to meet you two lovely people,' she told them, getting a farewell hug from both Burnleys for that.
     
    Ted had said he didn't expect to see Yona at work before Wednesday, but she was there as soon as he was next morning. 'I'm quite better,' she insisted when he frowned at her. 'So. please, sir, what would you like me to do?'
    'As you're told,' he riposted, 'but, as that's obviously a non - starter, how about running one or two little errands for me? Apart from anything else, it'll help you to learn the layout of the place. But have a word with Sharon first. She wants to know if you saw any flats to your liking on her list.'
    While confined to bed, Yona had sifted through Sharon's submissions and one stood out a mile—a two-roomed place with a balcony, on the top floor of a modern service block which overlooked a leafy park and was scarcely five minutes' drive from the hospital. Having arranged to view it that evening after work, she picked up her list of errands.
    It was while discussing some unusual findings in a patient's blood samples with the chief biochemist that Yona got her first inkling of a possible cause for Mike Preston's reservations, about her.
    Their business concluded, Dr Nonie Burke asked the new girl how she was settling in.
    By then, Yona was used to that question and she replied that everybody she'd met so far had been amazingly kind and