CHAPTER ONE

      ‘OH, NO…YOU can’t be serious.’

      ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Cunningham, but there it is. I’m sure you understand that acute appendicitis isn’t something we can plan for. We’re doing our very best to find someone else to fill the position but, realistically, that’s not going to happen until after New Year. People want to be with their families over the festive season and…it’s such late notice. It’s the twentieth of December, for heaven’s sake. Christmas is only a few days away, you know.’

      Of course he knew. There was tinsel in all sorts of odd places in his emergency department here at the Cheltenham Royal Hospital and there was a small Christmas tree in the waiting room. Some staff members had taken to wearing earrings that had flashing lights or headbands with reindeer antlers or little red hats with pompoms attached and he kept hearing people humming Christmas carols. They’d even had a man in a Santa suit come in by ambulance earlier today after suffering a suspected heart attack as he coped with all those small people wanting to sit on his knee and have their photographs taken in the town’s largest department store.

      And, of course, he knew that people wanted to be with their families. Or felt obliged to be. It was precisely the reason why Max Cunningham always worked right through the holiday season to make sure as many people as possible in his department could have time at home with their loved ones. He’d done it for so many years now he was quite comfortable ignoring the commercial hype that tried to make it compulsory for happy families to gather and have an over-the-top celebration as they enjoyed each other’s company. It was as much of a myth as Santa Claus as far as he was concerned—or it was for the Cunningham family, at any rate.

      Everybody knew that. He could just imagine how much of a field day any gossips of Upper Barnsley would have when the news of a third December tragedy to hit the Cunningham family filtered out. Talk about history repeating itself.

      It’s struck again, they’d probably say. The Christmas Curse of the Cunninghams…

      He’d been too young to do anything but cope the first time when his mother had died. Last time had been gutting when he’d lost his only brother but he’d got through it. Somehow. Life had gone back to normal. But this year was different. This year, his entire world was being tipped upside down and the phone call he’d just taken meant that Max could expect even more disruption. So much more, he wasn’t at all sure he knew what to do about it and feeling less than confident was as new and uncomfortable a sensation as any of the changes that were about to happen in his life. Nothing was ever going to go back to normal now, was it?

      ‘Hey…it can’t be that bad.’ The Royal’s senior nurse in the emergency department, Miriam, came into Max’s office. ‘Here, have a chocolate. I thought I’d bring you one before they all got scoffed by those gannets in the staffroom. Look, how cute are these? Like little plum puddings.’

      Max shook his head. ‘No, thanks. I’m not really in the mood for chocolate. I’ve got a bit of a problem, to be honest.’

      Miriam’s face creased in sympathy. ‘I did hear that something was going on. To do with your brother? And his children…?’

      ‘My brother Andy died just over a year ago. A car accident.’ It was a testament to how Max managed to keep his private life private that nobody here was aware of the full story but Miriam was trustworthy—the kind of motherly