The Ambulance backed as far as it could into the small laneway, but medical officials were still forced to run most of the distance to the small group now clustered around the woman. She looked like most of the patients in this area, scantily dressed, thin and pale, but there was an unusual interest being taken in her welfare.
ODs, beatings, stab wounds, what did these girls expect? This one had passed out. A large man was holding her and a strange assembly of onlookers were standing around them.
"Here," The ambulance officer stepped forward, "Give her to me, she'll be alright now sir." He took the limp form, careful to support the head and together with his colleagues, they lifted her onto the stretcher.
"She's a police officer," One of the men watching stepped forward, almost defensive of the judgemental looks the ambulance crew had been displaying. "I'll go with her." The man gave them no option of refusal and jumped up into the van after the patient.
The officer just shrugged. He didn't like passengers as a rule, they tended to get in the way of the crew, but the ginger haired man had a decisive look about him, so he let this one slip.
"You her husband?" He glanced at the man who was now holding the patient's hand gently in his own.
The bloke looked down for a second, as though it was something he had to think about – remember. Slowly he shook his head, but the ambulance officer noticed how he sighed, there was obviously a story there. Wasn't there always? You didn't do his job for as long as he had without collecting some stories to tell. Then he remembered what the man had said earlier.
"You said she was a police officer?" He glanced questioningly at her short skirt and tight top.
"She was undercover. Things just got out of hand." John bitterly added that it was his fault, but too softly for anyone else to hear. All the way to the hospital, he held onto her body, the only part of her he hadn't lost, but it wasn't long before the ambulance was pulling up and that too was snatched from his grasp as hospital workers rushed his unconscious lover to intensive care.
Slowly John followed, unsure he really wanted to enter the sanitised halls of the hospital where he would be forced to sit through the agonising wait for news. Just then he caught, what at any other time would have been the comical image, of Meadows running up the stairs – faster than he'd been in several years.
When Meadows saw John he stopped dead in his tracks, as though some overwhelming thought had just occurred to him, then, thinking better of it, he shook his head.
"Is Claire inside?"
"Yes, they just took her," John turned to ask why the DCI was in such a hurry, but he was already too late and his senior officer had dashed through the double doors in the direction of emergency. John hurried after him, clearly missing something important.
By the time he found his way to Claire's room Meadows was already impatiently waiting outside, fidgeting with the insistency of a small child.
"Gov, why the rush?" Jack Meadows glanced up as his sergeant's voice reached his ears.
"Oh, John, you're still here."
Surprised, John cautiously replied, "Yes Gov, I'm waiting for Claire to wake up. They're operating at the moment, they won't let us in. Why the panic, you can't do anything now."
Meadows just shook his head again, "It's probably nothing… probably nothing…" he muttered more to himself than anyone else. "It's just something Claire said before she passed out."
"What, that you were right?" John questioned. He hadn't really thought about what her words meant, but they were as unintelligible to him as the rest of the team. He had presumed she was referring to some case or reference the DCI had asked about, but that wouldn't have caused such panic at a time like this.
Just then, the surgery doors opened and a doctor walked out.
"Mr. Meadows?" Jack rose to meet his words, "Claire's going to be fine, but it's a good thing you warned us about the baby, she almost lost him."