"What's going on here?" Matron stepped into the doorway. "Oh my..." She looked sadly at the two doctors, Jill still encased in Gordon's arms.
"Someone nicked the key." Ken provided. "We reckon as it happened last night. My Lizzie's phoning the bobbies."
As if on cue, his daughter ran unsteadily in her high heels to the open doorway. "The police are on their way. They said not to touch anything." Lizzie took a tentative step into the room. "Why would someone do this? It's terrible!" She shuddered. "You don't think it's the same man that told you Doctor Ormerod was dead do you?"
"I think it is." Jill replied, her voice thick with emotion. "It can't have been anyone else, could it?" She tipped her head to glance at Gordon, then at Lizzie, Matron and Ken, as if hoping they'd give her the answer she needed.
"Probably not." Gordon tightened his hold on her, relived at last to feel her volunteering some contact between them as she placed her hands on his lower arms.
"Right, let's leave the doctors alone. We still have to do our jobs." Matron, ever calm in a crisis instructed. "Lizzie, if you could split Doctor Weatherill's patients between Doctors Ormerod and Goodwin."
"Right you are Matron." The receptionist turned to make her way through the doorway, but came to a stop as Jill spoke up, causing her to teeter unsteadily in her lemon yellow stilettos.
"I'm fine Matron. I'll be taking morning surgery."
"I was merely referring to the fact that you can't see patients in this office."
The female doctor shrugged. "Mr Harper's away isn't he? I'll use his office; while the cat's away and all that."
"Very well. Kenneth," Matron turned to the porter. "Will you and Alun prepare the office ASAP?"
"I think there's a spare examining bed in the basement. Will that be needed?"
Whilst Matron instructed Ken on giving the examining bed a proper scrub down, Jill allowed her gaze to wander once more around her office. It didn't make sense; all the things that had happened, there was no similarity. The first incidents appeared to be calculated attacks on her emotions. But the destruction of her office... There was such an air of anger, of hated. She struggled to think why anyone would do all this to her, who would do it.
She heaved a heavy sigh, prompting Gordon to tighten his arms around her. "Are you sure you're alright to work sweetheart?"
"I'm fine." She replied immediately, some irritability creeping into her tone. "I said I was." She continued, her tone becoming even more frosty, and despite Gordon's efforts to the contrary, she stepped out of his arms. With a distance reinstated between them, she crossed her arms in front of herself, her stance clearly defensive. She turned her head from Gordon, her attention tuned to the end of Ken and Matron's conversation.
"Quick as you can please Ken, morning surgery starts in a couple of minutes."
"Yes Matron." Thus instructed on preparing Mr Harper's office, Ken left the office, closely followed by Lizzie.
