St Matthew's Passion - By Sam Archer Page 0,45
to swim.
The impact when she hit the surface of the river shocked the breath out of her. It wasn’t just the unimaginable cold, but the horrible familiarity of the great expanse of water as well, as though the pond from her childhood had taken on a new and far bigger form and had been waiting for her return all these years later. For a moment she felt herself plunging deeper, no oxygen in her lungs any longer, and panic wrenched at her stomach. Then her head broke the surface and she sucked in a fresh chestful of air.
Disorientated for a moment, she flailed about, trying to get her bearings, trying to ignore the numbing cold encasing her. There was the bridge… and there, the looming bulk of the larger boat, listing now as if it too was going to capsize. The smaller boat was almost completely submerged.
Beyond the vessels, at eye level across the choppy black surface of the water, she spotted the boy’s bobbing shape.
Please don’t let me be too late.
She repeated the thought over and over in her head, as much as anything to distract her from the knowledge that she really had no idea what swimming involved, what you were supposed to do with your arms and legs. She floundered about, creating a churning storm around her, and saw that she’d inched closer to where the boy was.
Or rather, where he had been. Because Melissa could no longer see him. He’d gone under.
Fear ravening at her insides, and the vastness of the water beneath her trying to suck her down like a living thing, Melissa struck out as best she could in the direction of the child.
***
Fin took the stairs three at a time, too impatient to use the lift. He’d been finishing off the last of the morning’s cases in a theatre list which had run well over schedule when word had filtered through about the serious incident on the Thames. Annoyed, he’d asked his junior doctor to apply the final layer of sutures, and had gone to the ward where he found Deborah.
‘Why wasn’t I told about this earlier, when the call came through?’ he demanded.
‘You were in theatre, with a full list,’ the sister pointed out. ‘And in any case, Ms Havers has gone out.’
He headed for the Accident & Emergency entrance, hoping there was still a vehicle that he could hitch a lift with. Fin had no objection to Melissa’s having responded to the call and gone to the scene of the accident. It would be good experience for her, and he was confident enough about her abilities as a doctor that she’d handle herself with aplomb. But an incident like this meant all hands were required on deck, and he should have at least been told, by Melissa if not by Deborah or one of the other staff.
The entire fleet of ambulances was in use, most of them having been deployed to the site of the accident and the rest out on calls across the rest of the district. Nonetheless, Fin managed to find an ambulance car sitting idle, and a paramedic who would take him to the river.
On the way he listened to the reports being despatched over the two-way radio. Numerous cases of hypothermia. Two suspected myocardial infarctions – heart attacks – one of them affecting the captain of one of the vessels that had collided. Multiple cases of orthopaedic trauma, involving fractured limb bones. At least four blunt traumas to the chest, two of which had resulted in pneumothoraces. More staff were needed, as the numbers of casualties were outstripping the capacity of the emergency services to triage and treat them effectively.
Fin was glad he’d decided to go out.
The ambulance car tore through the congested London streets, weaving skilfully among the traffic until the massing flicker of blue lights ahead marked their destination. Fin climbed out of the car and trotted down to the river bank, crossing the cordon. He glanced about. Paramedics aplenty, but no sign of Melissa.
Shouting to be heard above the cacophony from the circling helicopters overhead, he said to one paramedic who was loading a stretcher into the back of an ambulance: ‘Have you seen Ms Havers? Melissa?’
The man looked over each of his shoulders in turn. ‘She’s somewhere around here. I saw her a minute ago,’ he yelled back.
Later Fin would wonder whether it was instinct, sixth sense, or some more mystical force that made him turn and sweep his gaze across the river.