St Matthew's Passion - By Sam Archer Page 0,16

clock. And after the bleeding had been controlled and Mrs Mendes was safely back in the recovery room, the injured cyclist had appeared needing urgent attention, which delayed Melissa’s leaving theatre.

As she made her way towards the office she shared with Emma, the other registrar, Melissa considered her options. The last Underground train would have departed, so there was no getting back to her flat that way. She considered a night bus, but they were infrequent and unpredictable. Although it was a considerable distance from St Matthew’s to Bayswater, Melissa wouldn’t have minded the walk, but it was a raw December night with the suggestion of sleet through the windows.

No, she’d have to find the night porter and ask if there were any spare on-call rooms she could crash out in for a few hours. Failing that, there was a moth-eaten old arm chair in her office that was comfortable enough to sit in, though she’d never tried sleeping in it.

She was letting herself into the office to look up the porter’s number when Fin’s voice made her turn.

‘Melissa? You’re here late. I thought you’d gone hours ago.’

He was halfway out the door of his own office down the corridor, looking as if he was about to depart. As always, Melissa felt her breath catch in her throat, her heart quicken. Even at this hour he looked good. No, he looked great. His silk shirt was a little creased, the knot of his tie pulled a few degrees askew; his dark hair was rumpled. But his skin glowed, and his eyes were as intense as they were when he faced the first case of the day.

She smiled, shrugged. ‘One of those evenings.’ She told him briefly about Mrs Mendes and then the cyclist. He listened closely, nodded, and made no comment. Melissa had noticed that he was questioning her less and less about her management of her cases, and although he wasn’t exactly gushing with praise, she took it as a sign that he was becomingly increasingly satisfied with her work as an independent surgeon.

‘You heading home now?’ he asked.

‘The last train’s gone. I’ll find a room here.’ She tried to sound as nonchalant as she could, as though this was a minor inconvenience to be taken in her stride.

‘Nonsense.’ He tipped his head. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

‘No, that’s all right –’ she began, but he held up a hand.

‘I know you’re off for the weekend. You don’t want to spend it with a stiff neck and back after enduring a night on one of these beds. I’ve experienced them myself.’ He put a palm behind her back in a gently ushering movement, not quite making contact, though she felt a small thrill between her shoulder blades as if he’d touched her.

The hospital corridors, while not quite empty, were far less busy at that hour, and their footsteps echoed off the walls. Melissa strode along beside Fin, feeling as awkward and as tongue-tied as a sixteen-year-old. When Fin asked, reasonably enough, where she lived, for a few heartstopping moments she couldn’t remember. Then she collected herself, faked a coughing fit to cover her silence, and told him.

His car was a bottle-green Jaguar XK8, not new but well-looked after. She sank into the leather passenger seat, revelling in the luxury of it. The aroma in the cockpit-like interior was that of the leather itself, plus aftershave and a hint of something she couldn’t at first identify. Later she grasped it. It was the smell of Fin himself, a subtle, indescribable scent that was subliminal and unique to him.

He swung the car up the ramp with practised ease and into the streets above. The icy sleet was coming down at a slant, its bleakness failing to hide the grandeur of the London river view, one that never failed to captivate her: the quirkiness of the London Eye against the spectacle of the Palace of Westminster.

They spoke about work, as doctors find themselves doing even when off-duty. Melissa kept up her end of the conversation without fully paying attention to it. Instead, her awareness was focused on physical sensations: the snug fit of the leather under her bottom and thighs, warmed by her own body heat; the maddening, delirious aroma she’d noticed immediately on climbing in; and above all, the presence of Fin beside her, the closest he’d ever been to her for this length of time. She glanced at his strong, deft hand curled around the steering wheel, the fingers ringless,