CHAPTER SIX

      ZAHIR WAS TAKING Bella home when the phone call came in.

      Rather, he was taking Bella back to her apartment.

      They had loosely dated for a few weeks and though he had been upfront from the start—that they would go nowhere—Bella seemed to have completely blanked out that particular conversation.

      When she had rung to say she had tickets to the theatre, Zahir had told her that he was considering going home.

      ‘I could come over and visit.’

      For Zahir it was by far the worst suggestion she could have made.

      But it wasn’t the rules of his land that made him end things.

      He just couldn’t ignore his feelings for Adele any more and he was certain that they were reciprocated. Perhaps it wasn’t such a foolish idea for her to see where he lived.

      If he was going to fight for them.

      Zahir had never run from a challenge, yet he knew this was perhaps an impossible one.

      Now he chose to face it.

      Zahir hadn’t rushed from Emergency to take Bella out.

      Instead, he had stopped by to visit his mother.

      After that he had dropped in at Emergency to hopefully speak with Adele but she was busy making out with a mannequin and making others laugh.

      And at the theatre, instead of watching the performance, he had sat in the dark, thinking about Adele and what she had been through.

      Who was he to deny her a holiday?

      He loved his homeland very much.

      Oh, there were problems. Serious ones at that. Yet there was a certain magic to Mamlakat Almas that Adele deserved to experience.

      He knew, even if she would be looking after his mother, that she would be beautifully taken care of at the palace. He thought of the golden desert and the lush oases. He thought of steam rising from hot springs and the majesty of the stars at night. How, no matter how many problems you had, the night sky held you in such awe that it reduced them. So much so that sometimes you simply forgot your troubles completely.

      Adele could certainly use that.

      And as for the two of them?

      He didn’t know the answer—just that they could not end without a chance.

      He was just about to launch into his it’s not you, it’s me speech with Bella when his phone had rung.

      Seeing that it was the hospital, he took the call, hoping that there wasn’t a problem with his mother.

      It was Helene and she sounded somewhat breathless.

      ‘Zahir, there’s been a gang fight in the emergency department and some of the staff were in the middle of it. A couple have been injured, not seriously, though.’

      ‘Who?’ Even as he asked the question he was executing a U-turn.

      ‘Phillip. He’s got a few bruises and his glasses are broken. Adele has a black eye and is a bit winded, and Tony, the security guard, was kicked.’

      As they approached the hospital Zahir could see blue lights from several police cars and vans outside the ambulance bay.

      ‘Wait here,’ he said to Bella as he pulled into his reserved spot.

      Bella though had no intention of waiting in the car, he soon realised, because as he arrived at the nurses’ station he turned and saw that she had followed him in.

      ‘It just came from nowhere,’ Janet explained to Zahir as he looked around the chaotic department. ‘We were already busy. I don’t think they intended to hit out at the nursing staff or the doctor. I’m sorry we had to call you in.’

      ‘You were right to call me in,’ he said. Phillip was in no way fit to see patients and, as well as that, the staff deserved to be treated at times like this by the most senior staff.

      He could see that Adele was sitting in a chair with her arms folded over her stomach. Her eye and cheek were swollen and she looked angry.

      ‘Where’s Phillip?’ Zahir asked.

      ‘He’s in his office. Tony’s already in a cubicle.’

      ‘I want Adele and Phillip both in gowns and in cubicles.’

      Zahir would do everything to keep this completely professional. As Janet was taking Adele to get changed, Bella chose her moment to speak.

      ‘How long do you think you’ll be?’ she asked, and Zahir turned impatiently.

      ‘Why don’t you get a taxi home? I might be a while.’

      ‘I’m happy to wait in your office.’

      Adele heard the brief exchange as she made her way to the cubicle.

      Janet had been wrong, it would seem. Bella hadn’t been gone by morning and never had Adele felt more drab in her baggy scrubs and showing the beginnings of a lovely black eye.

      She could hear the sounds of the police radios and tried not to think back to the last time she had been in a cubicle, waiting for a doctor to arrive.

      As he waited for Phillip and Adele to get changed, the receptionist, as was protocol, brought up Adele’s old Accident and Emergency notes. He flicked through them and tried to be objective. He read about an eighteen-year-old nursing student with minor injuries who had been the driver in a high-impact motor vehicle accident.

      Phillip had wanted to admit her to the observation ward but the patient had refused and said she wanted to go and wait near Theatre.

      There was a self-discharge form attached to the notes that Adele had signed.

      Everything was there, even her muted reaction when Phillip had broken the news that her mother was critically ill, was noted.

      It