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I had just stepped into the hallway during a break from a presentation on how NHS interfaces with regional and general medical bodies.

Ricks nearly ran me over as I bent down at the water cooler for a drink. "Bollux," he muttered.

What had I done to him? "Problem?"

"Not you Martin, just the…" he waved his hands, one of which was bandaged, in the air, "paperwork."

"Hm. As I understand it, run your practice well and they stay out of your hair," I replied.

He stared at me. "You…"

I saw Daisy and Millie glance at our confrontation, then look away. "Yes?"

"Nothing," he sighed. "The loo." He bustled away to the toilet leaving me what that was about.

Millie approached me after he'd gone. "That one…" she blew out a long sigh, "I don't think he's going to stick it," she told me.

Daisy was suddenly next to us with a conspiratorial grin. She said, "And did you hear Ricks punched a hole in the wall of his bedroom the other day?"

I had noted the bandaged hand. "Stress. Strain. Must be." Who of us was not under stress?

Millie shook her head. "Lunchtime soon and then a PM break," she said, making a sudden conversational turn. She glanced at Daisy, her nodded to her. "Daisy and I are going out. Lunch. Care to come with us?"

Different. "Um, I usually get a soup or a salad from the canteen plus a sandwich," I said.

Daisy looked at me with a smile and a side-tipped head. "We've time. Only a short walk."

I looked from her to Millie and back. "Well…"

"It'll be fun!" Daisy told me. "Now, back to class."

The café was across the street from the hospital, and it was doing quite a business in takeaway to people in medical scrubs. Millie towed me to an empty table in the back. "They serve a good cod here," she said handing me a laminated menu card from a rack on the table.

Daisy sat next to me and as she squirmed into her seat I felt her sandal-clad foot resting against my shin. The weather had been warm, so she had taken to brief tops and short skirts. I moved my leg a centimeter away from her foot, but the pressure came back, so I pushed my chair backwards slightly to stop her approach. I then saw her purse her lips and shake her head slightly.

Millie sat on my other side and was unaware of the gamesmanship under the tabletop. Luckily, in a few moments the waitstaff woman came to us for our orders. I decided to try the cod with a green salad and a light vinaigrette. Daisy went for a bacon sandwich and chips; Millie a large salad with grilled chicken. At least I'd not have to deal with seeing watery blood on their plates.

Millie quickly excused herself to the loo. When she had gone, Daisy turned to me and leaning forward said conspiratorially, "Millie is quite taken with you."

And you are not? I almost answered so I just ducked my head.

She put a finely manicured hand up to her neck and began to rub the skin there and then her fingers trailed down her front (a lot of upper breast tissue exposed today) stroking her skin as it moved along. "I wouldn't mind have a run at you myself, Martin." She licked her lips. "What you say to that?"

I tried to focus on the silverware. There had been no doubt that this woman was on the prowl from the first moment she laid eyes on me. In that respect she was similar to Edith Montgomery, but thank God, I'd not thought of her a long time. Different hair and build of course, but similar. Quiet unlike Steph and another, but the thrust of her bosoms toward me sent any number of hardwired sexual signals into my midbrain, arousing a baser, but hardwired, reactions.

Daisy laned ever closer and whispered. "Any time, you know."

I cleared my throat. "Ahm, no…"

"My place or yours," she sighed, sliding her business card to me. "On the back, my flat door code… so if you want…"

Millie suddenly returned so as Daisy leaned back in her seat, the incriminating card was in plain view, which I quickly grabbed and stuffed into a coat pocket. Not that I had any intention of… well… using it! I had to gulp. I had received similar thrusts of proposed romance in the past. Only a very few had come to fruition and only two, in fact, had lasted for a time.

"What you two on about?" Millie asked with a smile. "Wot did I miss?"

Daisy answered, smiling wickedly, "Martin was just telling me about the diagnostic coup he pulled off the other day – Whipple's Disease, was it?"

Oher than the patient and Dr. Barrows no one else was aware, but I did suspect that Hatali knew straight away; for I imagined she kept her ears to the ground. It was a small retraining department and people being, people, tongues would wag.

"Uhm yes," I replied warily.

Daisy poked my arm. "Tell Millie what you just told me."

Cornered, I said, "Well… patient reported joint pain, but also exhibited a heart murmur, stomach bloating and abdominal pain…" I rattled down the list. "The key was all of those plus weight loss."

"So good, Martin, that the man was assigned to you," Daisy giggled, "I'd have given him paracetamol and wished him 'good day.'"

Millie stiffened. "Yeah," she snapped icily, but then further discussion was stopped by our meals arriving.

Daisy tucked into her bacon sandwich like a hungry navvy, but Millie only picked at her salad.

The cod was good, the salad greens crisp and fresh, but each woman was radiating, seemingly, amorous intentions on the one hand and sadness from the other. After a silent minute, other than the sound of biting and chewing, Daisy spoke up. "Millie. Sorry. Didn't mean to bring it up, if even in an oblique way."

The petite woman bowed her head, setting her fork aside, clearly in a different mindset.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Millie looked up and our eyes met. "That's… why… I…" she sniffled, "am changing practice."

I went back to eating. No business of mine.

But Daisy had to pick at what must be a sore spot. "How long ago was it? A year?"

"About," Millie muttered. "More like two."

I stared at Daisy hoping she would stop, but she bored in. "That's when it all went tits up for you."

I could see that Millie's eyes had gone very wet and she was now clutching the chair arms for support, in anger, or regret. Body language was an unclear medium to me.

Millie took a long drink of her tea. "It was like this, Martin," she sighed. "Daisy has heard this tale from me, but please don't blab it about."

"I don't blab," I protested.

She stared at me. "No, you don't, do you?"

I nodded yes.

Millie went on. "Right. I had a patient, with asthma, but around half of my patients had that so per usual," her voice went low and soft. "The rest occupational affects, COPD, lifelong smokers, and so on."

The usual of our modern world.

Millie took a deep breath, "There was this kid, seventeen, bright – no brilliant – a beauty as well, long blonde hair on a young body to kill for. She'd joined my care practice a few months before. Anyway…" she took a long shuddering breath, "got the call late on a Friday night. She was in trouble. Wheezing, hard to get air; the lot. I told her mum to use the rescue inhaler. If she wasn't better in two hours to call me."

"Standard practice."

"Turns out, though, that Angela, the child's name, had a shellfish allergy I'd not known about. Her GP knew it but it had not been added to patient notes," she sighed. "Asthmatics are especially hard to treat in that case. Later we found she'd gone to her favorite chippy after a football match, and they had recently added prawns to their menu."

I could see immediately where she was going. "And they were frying the prawns in the same oil as the fish and chips."

Millie looked at ne sadly, her face now wet with running tears. "I'd gone to bed; it had been a helluva week and I'd been out partying with my husband."

Daisy butted in, saying, "You missed it; could happen to anyone of us."

Millie shook her head. "When she joined my patient roll I had not done a through enough review. You know how sometimes patient issues fall through the cracks?"

Daisy reached over the small table and took Millie's hand, stroking it to comfort her, while I sat between them staring at my empty plate. What to tell her? "Something like that her GP should have added an urgent NOTE," I emphasized the word, "in the Comments section of her file."

Millie smiled feebly. "Easy in hindsight, yes? But eventually her mum called the ambulance in a panic, about an hour later which of course, get stuck on the motorway; accident. By the time I got the call from A and E, the girl was in full respiratory arrest."

"This girl played in this football match?" I asked.

"You get it, Martin. Her lungs were fouled up from exercise, airway narrowing."

"Then the anaphylaxis from the pawns in the chippy oil…" I added.

Millie smiled grimly. "Cockup. All those things added up into one giant negative."

Daisy seat there dry-eyed for she had heard this admission before. "Poor you," she said.

Millie grunted. "Oh, you know. These things happen. We all say it. We all bloody say it."

"An accident of documentation," I said to break the moment.

Millie laughed. "But it gets better. My husband and I had been trying to get pregnant, but at age 42 that's chancy. But we did it. I had a bun in the oven, and that was the week that Angela died." She looked away. " Miscarried. Stress, my OB said."

"You hadn't told me that part," Daisy answered tenderly.

Millie gave her a grim smile. "And at Angela's funeral her mum and dad told me they were sorry; about my baby, for someone told them." She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "That was the icing on the bloody cake, right? I took their daughter away and then they apologized to me? For MY loss?"

"Poor thing," Daisy told her.

"After that, I couldn't see another asthmatic," Millie stated flatly. "End of my pulmonology career."

"Rough," Daisy said.

Millie held out her ring less fingers and stared at them. "End of marriage as well."