Page 63 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

‘Victor’s bringing a pump down,’ Lavender said. ‘We could get him to do your house first.’

‘What’s the point? The water isn’t low enough around there – it will come back in as quick as he sucks it up. Best to do here, where there’s a fighting chance of getting it dry. And we need this place to be clear for the patients.’

Lavender started to fish objects out of the water that had been lifted clear from low shelves in the deluge. Ottilie was about to help when her phone rang. With some impatience she pulled it out of her coat pocket and frowned at the screen.

‘Faith, hi.’

‘Can you talk?’

Ottilie glanced at Lavender. It wasn’t the best time and she would have said so, but something in Faith’s voice stopped her.

‘I’ve got a few minutes. It’s kind of hectic here at the moment. We’ve had some flooding.’

‘Oh,’ Faith said, ‘sorry.’

She didn’t sound all that sorry, but Ottilie wouldn’t expect her to. After all, she couldn’t know how bad things were here, and she clearly had something else on her mind. Ottilie’s own thoughts flicked to Josh and the efforts to bring his killer to justice. Something had gone wrong – she knew it in an instant, and Faith confirmed her fears in her next sentence.

‘We’ve had to let him go, Ott.’

‘Right,’ Ottilie replied slowly, as if Magnus had just told her he was out of milk. She was numb enough this morning, overwhelmed by events here, and there was only so much she could process at once.

‘There wasn’t enough evidence to bring it to trial. It’s possible witnesses were got to – we don’t know for sure – but what we have is too circumstantial. I’m sorry, Ottilie; we’re back to square one. I wanted to let you know as soon as I could.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Ott…are you all right? Do you need me to come?—’

‘No. There’s no point. I get the picture and there’s a lot going on here. Like I said, the village is flooded.’

‘OK. Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am. And if there’s anything you don’t understand or you want to ask about…’

‘Yes, I know. Thanks, Faith. It was good of you to call.’

‘I’m sorry it wasn’t with better news.’

A lot of people seemed to be telling Ottilie how sorry they were today. But none of this was any of their fault. None of it was anyone’s fault, so why did Ottilie suddenly feel a rush of anger breaking through the numbness? Suddenly, she wanted to scream at the world, but she swallowed it back. Screaming wasn’t going to make any of this go away.

As she locked and pocketed her phone, she could feel Lavender’s eyes on her.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, though Lavender hadn’t asked.

‘Didn’t sound like nothing.’

‘It’s nothing I can do anything about.’

‘We all have to deal with lots of those things, but that doesn’t mean it won’t help to talk about it.’

‘It won’t achieve anything, even if it helps. And we’re busy with this. I don’t want to start, because I might not be able to stop.’

Lavender didn’t push it. Perhaps Ottilie secretly wished she would. On some level she recognised that Lavender was right, that it would be healthier to share her fears and disappointments rather than bottle them up, but she couldn’t bring herself to face it, let alone speak any of it out loud. She needed time to process it all and there wasn’t any – not now, not while there was all this chaos in front of her.

Ottilie was working on autopilot. She knew it, and there was nothing she could do about it, and she only hoped that she wouldn’t make any mistakes. Luckily, nobody arrived in her clinic with anything too difficult to deal with. Some patients rescheduled, having been hit by the flooding in their own homes and deciding that was the more pressing matter. The ones who came were so preoccupied with the state of the village, their neighbours’ houses or their own, or where the water level was at the river, or how long the clean-up might take that they were barely interested in Ottilie’s ministering anyway.

Downstairs, she could hear Victor and his sons-in-law trying to clear up the ground floor of the surgery. Fliss was using an old bedroom to see her most urgent cases, but it was far from ideal and she’d asked Lavender to put as many off as she could for that day at least, and possibly for the following few if she could get away with it. Poor Lavender was left ankle-deep in water downstairs, having to greet the patients who did make it and showing them what the new temporary arrangement was.

Lunchtime arrived. If she hadn’t been still so shell-shocked by the day’s events, Ottilie might have missed their usual get-together around the table in the old kitchen. Nobody had brought food and nobody was in the mood to sit and chat, even if they could have made use of the kitchen, which was still as soggy as everywhere else, despite Victor’s best efforts.

‘I could pop over to the shop and get us something to snack on,’ Lavender offered from the doorway of Ottilie’s makeshift treatment room.

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