The next morning before he set off to work wishing it wasn't only Tuesday, he managed to call the hospital appointments line before he got put to number 99 or higher in a queue for his call to be answered. Since he was new to the area, he didn't get the usual woman answering with her attitude of 'not again Mr Hardy' when she heard his voice, let alone his name.
"No, I am not putting it off completely, I just want to put it back a few weeks, I'm in the middle of something right now," he insisted.
"Like a murder investigation?" the woman suggested. "Don't worry Mr Hardy, I'm sworn by ethics not to reveal your medical details to anyone but I doubt there's more than one Alec Hardy trying to find a child killer?"
Alec mumbled something he hoped she'd not heard.
"I can fit you in at 3.30 pm on Friday 25th," she suggested.
"August this year?" he replied, thinking she meant next.
"Yes Mr Hardy, you did say you wanted it to be a bank holiday weekend? Though it being late on, they may wish to keep you in overnight," she replied, wishing he'd stayed within the health authority he'd been under before he'd been passed to theirs and he wasn't even living in Devon but that was where he'd been transferred to, seemingly urgently by his hospital record, which should have him down as being evasive.
"Fine, yes, I'll take it then," he gave in, silently wishing them good luck keeping him in.
Maybe if he asked for transport, Rose may turn up to take him but he doubted somehow she did patient transfers, especially over the border to Devon.
That agreed, he left his room just after nine and if Miller asked why he was late, which wasn't down to her to point out, he could always say her annoying nephew caught him on the way out of the hotel, she wouldn't bother asking him. Why had Rose come into the equation? Why was he even thinking about her for no reason at all? Blame it on Miller, she said she could invite the blonde to dinner at the same time she'd invited him but maybe he'd brushed it off too hastily and Miller already suspected he had a 'thing' for the blonde paramedic?
He found the day boring, trying to keep his mind on other things than his pending doom if the surgery failed and who had to be an irritating blonde he fancied more than any woman in his life but she seemed to have already made her mind up she was going to chew him out every time they met, hence him not thinking sitting at the same dinner table was going to help his cause.
Maybe she'd already made her mind up she didn't like him but he'd probably been a bit abrupt with her the few times they'd met and if she knew Danny, she was bound to have been upset on the beach. Just before what everyone else called finishing time, Ellie knocked on his door.
"Tonight then, dinner?" she asked, too cheerfully for his liking and wishing she'd forgotten about it.
"Yes, fine then. Have you organised the reconstruction yet?" he asked.
"I'm still not happy about Tom leading it," she replied, since she'd hastily been trying to arrange it.
"He's the best one to do it Miller, who else was best friends with Danny?"
Ellie thought about it. Tom and Danny lived across the field from each other and she couldn't name any of Danny's other friends.
"Well okay then but it had better not be too late and something had better come of it. Here's my address," she replied, handing him a piece of paper. "I can still ask Rose but she might be working," she added, knowing her friend was coming in the following day.
She knew she couldn't, after what Rose had said about her matchmaking skills. How was she to know Rose was into more mature men who didn't act the fool all the time and that Olly was one of them? She knew Rose meant business but Hardy certainly wasn't one to act the fool. Maybe she should work on her friend, there was still time yet. She knew Rose worked awkward hours but sometimes she was finished at an earlier hour, goodness knew who had come up with those work patterns.
Alec was relieved to get the dinner invite over with but after tonight, she would have had enough of him and not ask him again.
Rose and Steven had drawn the late shift, not due to finish until midnight but if it was quiet, they'd probably get back early and there would be no changeover at that time, though she could still never work out why some shifts overlapped but she supposed it was so everyone wasn't in a rush and people were kept waiting.
"You look miles away," Steven told her just after six and they'd attended a boy in the skateboard park who'd been trying a new trick and his mother was worried he had concussion when he'd hit his head.
"No, I'm fine, it's just going in tomorrow and being interviewed," she admitted,
Steven laughed. "Come on Rose, it's more like you're getting goosebumps thinking of Hardy asking you personal questions."
"Is not," Rose insisted, forgetting she couldn't wear hoop earrings for work as she was going to twist one.
Steven noticed and smiled. "He's getting you all hot and bothered Rose, admit it. You pretend to chew him out but you have all the classic symptoms."
Rose refused to answer. "Ellie asked me to dinner tonight, she's trying to fix me up with him. Well I think she meant tonight, she never actually said but I could tell she was planning something."
"After that disaster with her nephew?" he laughed as they waited at some traffic lights and being tempted to put the siren on.
"Yeah, bloomin' cheek she has," Rose tried not to smile. "I wonder why he was outside the newsagents on his own when we went to see to Jack?"
"Maybe Ellie told him to keep out of it when he saw the ambulance and he was being nosey?" he suggested.
"Yeah, we know that. If they'd been concerned, they would have both gone."
"Maybe? Though maybe she was giving you two chance to make friends?" he grinned as they set off again.
"Good thing you're driving mate," Rose tried not to laugh. "Why's everyone ganging up on me?"
"You don't already know love? You're a single blonde female, he's a man. Work it out," he suggested as they stopped outside a block of flats, not where Rose lived thankfully.
Getting out and picking up the emergency kit from under the seat, Rose decided if Ellie kept on trying to play matchmaker she might just try to get a boyfriend on her own, just to keep her friend quiet of course.
Alec had got back to the hotel, after he'd stopped off at the mini-market to get flowers, wine and chocolates, not knowing what to give to your hosts for a dinner invite. Tess had organised that when they'd gone out and always had them waiting on the kitchen table when he'd got back from dropping Daisy at her gran's or Tess's sister's house.
Why had he even agreed to this? Was it because she'd hinted she may ask Rose to go, which she probably wouldn't do even if she wasn't working and she was going into the station to be interviewed about what had happened on the beach plus to verify what Mark Latimer had told them, which Miller had said she'd not mentioned to her. He'd purposely told Ellie not to mention it in case she was friends with the Latimers and Mark had the chance to call her and ask her to say she'd attended to Danny a few weeks ago.
How did he know though that she may have already been asked? Still, they could ask her but her work partner may not have been so agreeable about it, if it wasn't true. He was now actually looking forward to questioning her tomorrow, he may even send Miller on another mission but Rose may refuse to talk to him or chew him out again. Still, it might be worth it, he thought as he found himself outside the Miller house as the cab driver stopped.
Ellie stared at him when she opened the door.
"Oh, you're wearing a suit, you didn't have to dress up," she laughed as he held out the bottle of wine before he dropped it. "Are these all for me?" she added, looking at the flowers, then seeing the box of chocolates under his arm.
He felt like say no, they were for Rose, if she'd turned up despite him telling his DS he hadn't thought it was a good idea but Ellie took them from him.
Instead of saying he'd hoped to give at least one of the gifts to Rose and trying not to look disappointed she'd taken them all, she let him in.
"Come on through," she told him as he closed the door and followed her into the kitchen, expecting Rose to come out of a corner or something. "Joe, Alec brought wine, flowers and chocolates."
"You can come again," Joe laughed. "Ell, you didn't invite Rose did you?" he asked as she put the flowers down and thinking maybe Hardy had half hoped his former work partner and now family friend had turned up despite Ellie telling him when she came home that Rose had refused point-blank to be stitched up with another of her matchmaking attempts.
Alec knew she had still planned on it despite his insistence she didn't.
"No, she's working I expect," Ellie replied as an excuse.
Even if Rose finished early, she had no excuse to ask her again other then she felt outnumbered but her friend wouldn't have taken pity on her and would have told her it served her right for inviting him.
Ellie was talking to him but he was still waiting for a knock on the door and Rose would turn up.
"I can call you Alec tonight, not Sir, like here's your dinner Sir," Ellie laughed.
Alec thought she over-compensated sometimes.
"I never liked my name, I must have been given it because of a great-uncle or something," he replied. "You don't have to say my name all night, do you? If you hand me something or talk to me, I know who you mean, since there's only me."
He was going to say it wasn't like she'd succeeded in getting her friend to join them. He wondered if they did talk about him, it was just as well she wasn't there then, it would make them both even worse.
Ellie stared at him. "Well come through then, I'll show you the dining room, well it's the dining room when Fred's not got his toys all over the place," she added, thinking that wouldn't impress him.
Maybe if she'd actually talked Rose into joining them and put her boss off until the following evening, she might have done but would he have thanked her for it? There again, would Rose?
As they talked over their meals, Alec revealing he had a teenage daughter who lived with her mother, not that he needed reminding of that, he thought he'd got away with one glass of wine he'd sipped slowly all through the meal until Ellie excused herself.
Joe was trying to fill his glass that he'd let go of, him trying to protest.
"Come on, you can't just have the one, you're not driving are you?" Joe grinned.
He knew he should have borrowed a car but he'd been advised by his friend not to drive. He let his glass be filled then took a swallow, planning on leaving the rest of it.
"Does she like working with me?" Alec dared ask him, knowing the answer but trying to be polite, well polite by his standards.
"You re here for dinner aren't you?" Joe laughed. "So, she's been trying to set you and Rose up has she?"
Alec didn't need reminding of that either.
"I guess so, she said you used to work with her?" he replied.
"Yeah, before Fred came along, she was newly qualified when she arrived here, she soon got into the job though," Joe told him.
"You must miss all the action though?" Alec wondered, trying to get more out of him about working with Rose.
Joe put his glass down. "Yeah, before I volunteered to be the one to stay at home, I wouldn't swap it now though, especially after they found Danny on the beach. Ellie said you'd met Rose before that morning?"
"At a traffic accident, then on Saturday morning, she chewed me out," Alec admitted
Joe started to laugh. "I'd have loved to have seen that then, what did she chew you out for?"
"She said I was too hard on people when I asked them questions," he replied.
"Are you?" Joe grinned.
"I'm saying nothing," Alec replied, knowing he was falling into a trap. Joe began laughing and Alec saw the funny side, just as Ellie came back in.
"What's so funny?" she asked Joe, then looked at Alec.
"Nothing," Joe smiled. "Just Rose chewing him out the other day."
"Outside the newsagents?" Ellie grinned. "Rattled your cage did she?" she asked Alec.
Alec refused to answer. A while later, he thanked his hosts for dinner and decided to walk across the field and cut across to his hotel but the wine and the night air were not mixing well. He knew he shouldn't have finished that last glass of wine but they had both been watching him and he couldn t have his DS being suspicious of him. He reached his hotel, going to the side door as the woman from the caravan park shouted goodnight to him.
He could see everything turning hazy so without causing anything else, he got to his door, fumbled with his keys and staggered to the bathroom to get water to take his pills but as he reached in his pocket, he'd forgotten about the prescription his friend was sending him, that would probably arrive in the morning and he'd left the only full strip of them in his desk drawer, leaving him trying to get pills out of the pack that weren't there.
As he felt the dizziness taking over, he just prayed someone would hear him fall and send for help and prayed again it would be Rose, if he was going, he wanted to see her one last time.
It was just after ten when Steven answered the call to go to the Trader's Hotel as Rose had got him to let her drive for a change. Rose wondered if that was where Alec Hardy was staying but the call wouldn't be about him, would it? There had to be plenty of men staying there, who had fallen and hit their heads on the bathroom sink.
Steven was noting all the details while putting the siren on, Rose wishing he'd let her do that for a change as well.
"Get a move on Rose, the bloke's unconscious and there's blood from behind his ear, he must have cracked it on the edge of the sink as he fell," Steven told her.
"Did you get a name?" Rose asked as she knew the quickest way to the hotel.
"You heard the call, some woman said the hotel owner asked her to pick up the phone and call for us, I don't expect she stopped to get the details. The person on the floor below must have complained about the noise, got Becca and had gone to tell off whoever it was," Steven replied.
"Yeah, I expect so," Rose told him as she tried to put it out of her mind it was actually Alec Hardy but she had thought he'd gone to Ellie's tonight for dinner but was her friend fooling her and going to spring it on her tomorrow when she went to the station that she needed some moral support?
They stopped outside the hotel, Steven knocking on the front door as he didn't fancy waiting for anyone to open the side one. A flustered Becca Fisher answered.
"Hi, come in, he's on the second floor," she told Steven as Rose went in first, the green bag on her shoulder since he'd passed it to her.
"So, who is it?" Steven asked, seeing Rose looked anxious it may be the bloke she'd never admit she fancied from their first meeting.
"Oh, weren't you told?" Becca asked as she lead them upstairs and Rose hoping whoever it was, she'd left someone with him.
They reached a door that was propped open and one of the maids was standing in the bathroom doorway, Rose not being able to see who the long legs curled up belonged to but she swore Alec Hardy had been wearing the same colour trousers the few times they'd met. Then the woman moved and she could tell it was him, a pool of blood on the floor and a white towel now stopping him losing any more stuffed behind his neck.
"His name's Alec Hardy," Becca offered. "I don't know what happened, I thought he'd just banged his head."
They both rushed over to Alec, Steven taking the lead and Rose getting things out of the bag they may need and holding the towel in place. Steven looked up at Rose as he checked Alec's pulse and checking his heartbeat.
"We'll have to take him to hospital," Steven told Becca, not being able to say what else was wrong with the man other than what she already knew. "Rose, I'll go get the stretcher, you stay with him in case he comes round but that wound needs stitches."
Rose nodded, glad there was a lift even though they'd come up the stairs, since it was around the other side. She glanced around the bathroom to see where he'd hit his head and spied the empty blister pack at the other side of the sink. She picked it up and put it in her shirt pocket as Becca came closer, the maid having gone down with Steven to let him back in.
"Is he going to be okay?" Becca asked as Rose put the emergency breathing apparatus around his head and placed it over his mouth.
"He's still breathing Becca, seems you'll have a job cleaning those towels," she tried to joke as the man she'd taken a dislike to but bothered the hell out of her was lying there and it he wasn't so infuriating, she'd have snogged him outside the newsagents for being so smug.
She heard the rattle of the stretcher as Steven came back in and they carefully lifted Alec up and out of the small bathroom and placed him on it.
"I've called it in Rose," Steven told her as she tried to put another towel behind where he'd been injured, thinking Becca wouldn't thank her for that.
They got into the lift and Rose handed Steven the empty blister pack.
"Heart medication," Steven told her. "He's only got a faint pulse though I wasn't going to say that in company. Sorry Rose, you'd best stay with him, I'll drive. If he comes round he'd rather see your face than mine."
"What do ya mean by if he comes round?" Rose asked as they exited the lift and made their way to the front door where Becca was waiting to let them out.
"Do you want me to go with him?" Becca asked.
"No, it's fine, we've got it," Rose assured her. "We'll get details later, we know his name."
"Yeah, well who wouldn't know it unless they've been on a parallel world?" Steven joked as he opened the ambulance doors.
Once inside, they set about stabilising Alec and knowing what medication he was on, Steven put a drip on him, as the ambulance wasn't only used by them and Rose hooked him up to the monitor after cleaning his wound and unfastening his shirt, something she wished she was doing other than saving his life.
"He'll be okay while we get him to emergency," Steven tried to assure her as he closed one of the doors. "If you start to lose him, yell and I'll break the speed limit even more. It's lucky the hospital's only ten minutes away."
Rose dreaded to think if the health authority had got its own way and transferred emergencies to Exeter or Dorchester as she sat beside him and took his hand, his ear now covered with tape holding some cotton wool in place but it seemed to have stopped bleeding. She was still worried as she glanced at the heart rate monitor and was glad Steven saw the urgency and the look on her face when she'd seen who was lying on the floor.
She felt Alec's hand moving and he was trying to take off the breathing mask with his other one.
"Stay where you are Alec," Rose tried to tell him, fighting to get the breathing mask back on and winning as he gave up.
"Where am I?" he managed to ask.
"On your way to hospital, you had quite a crack," Rose smiled as he seemed to settle down but she knew they were almost at the hospital as the street lights gave way to just the natural lighting of the hospital grounds with just a few decorative lamps scattered around.
As he lay back, trying to stay conscious, he could see her smiling at him but as she started to fade away, he just hoped he'd wake up to be able to see her again and admit he was an idiot.
