Chapter Six

L ydia bounced her suitcase over the threshold of the waiting room and stopped to look around. It was clean, which was a good start, and the small room seemed comfortable enough. There was a corner with toys for kids, a receptionist’s desk, and she spotted a door off to one side.

“My office?”

“It’ll be locked,” Cordelia said. “There’s drugs in there after all, wouldn’t want to violate any health and safety protocols, would we?”

Lydia smiled. “Obviously not.” The woman had seemed like she was being sarcastic, but since Lydia had no idea why she’d want to be sarcastic about something as important as that, she decided not to respond in kind.

Instead she waited as Cordelia rooted through a large purse, presumably looking for keys.

She was tall, about a half head taller than Lydia. And her eyes, as well as being that icy blue color, were almond shaped and exotic looking. Lydia could see she was attractive, she wasn’t blind. Attractive in a kind of absent-minded way.

Absent-minded was the right word, since Cordelia was now rifling through the top drawer of her desk.

“You should really have a designated place for keys,” Lydia said helpfully.

Cordelia glared at her. “You should really check into your hotel before coming to work.”

Lydia frowned then looked down at her suitcase. Of course. “Actually, I’m not staying in a hotel. I’m staying somewhere in town but I don’t have the details and I’m not expected until tonight. I suppose I’ll get an email from the locum agency about where I’m sleeping. I didn’t want to leave the case in the car though.”

“No one in Whitebridge is going to run off with your knickers,” Cordelia said, bending down to look in the next drawer down. “Well, except old Jim, but he’s safely ensconced in the old folks home, so you should be safe.” There was a clattering sound and what looked like a metal lock box dropped to the ground.

Honestly, how could someone so obviously disorganized be a receptionist? Lydia dreaded to think what the appointment system looked like. Cordelia barely seemed capable of dressing herself in the morning.

“Can I do something to help?” Lydia asked, desperately wanting to move things forward.

“I don’t see what,” said Cordelia. “There’s a spare key here somewhere. The doc has his own keys with him, obviously.” Her head poked up over her desk. “Don’t know where he is, do you?”

This was a town that was used to knowing everything and it was clear that it was irritating people not to know what had happened to their regular doctor. Lydia wondered if she could find out. Knowledge like that would be prized around her, it could do a lot to ingratiate herself if she knew.

Maybe then Cordelia would actually like her.

What a foolish thought. As though it mattered if the receptionist liked her. Except Cordelia clearly didn’t and it niggled at Lydia.

You can’t please all of the people all of the time, her mother had used to say. But Lydia liked pleasing people. She liked being liked and being good at things, and honestly, didn’t everyone? It was stupid to pretend otherwise.

“Well, do you know or not?” barked Cordelia .

“Not,” Lydia said firmly. “Sorry. You are the second person today to ask me though and I’ve only been in town for five minutes.”

“Get used to it,” Cordelia said, bending even further to rummage in the bottom desk drawer.

Lydia sighed and looked at the big clock on the wall. Half an hour until surgery was supposed to start. Presumably she’d be inside her actual surgery at that point.

“So, Cordelia then,” she said, thinking making conversation would maybe make things go faster, or at least make them slightly less uncomfortable. “’Love’s not love when it is mingled with regards’ and all that.”

Once again, Cordelia’s face appeared over the desk, her hair messy and her expression confused.

“King Lear,” Lydia said. “Cordelia.” She waited a heartbeat. “She was one of Lear’s daughters. His favorite. Shakespeare. The play.”

Cordelia’s face cleared slightly and she went back to rummaging. “I was named after an aunt that my father hoped would leave him money in her will. She never did.” She stood up. “Here we go.” A single silver key dangled from her fingers.

As Lydia reached out to take it, her hand brushed against Cordelia’s and for an instant she grew warm. Then she snatched the cold key and backed off. “Right, I’ll, er, get started then.”

“You’d better leave the suitcase out here,” Cordelia said after her. “Otherwise your patients will think that you’re living in there.”

“Right, right,” Lydia said, looking around for somewhere to store the thing.

Cordelia sighed. “Give it to me, I’ll deal with it.”

Reluctantly, Lydia let her take it. She just hoped that she’d find it again when the surgery closed. From the look of things, Cordelia found it hard to keep track of her own head.

Unlocking the door, Lydia found a pleasant set of rooms. There was a consulting room with a large window and a big desk, two examination rooms with couch beds covered in paper, a kitchen, and a storage room filled with the necessities. Not bad, she thought, after she’d looked around a little.

Whitebridge was a small town, but the doctor’s surgery was well equipped. The people here would be well looked after. There were no bells and whistles, no freakishly futuristic scanning devices or slim-lined laptops. The computer on the doctor’s desk looked like a relic from another age. But the basics were here.

Lydia sat herself down and switched the computer on.

She had a rule for herself. She only ever opened the top drawers of a locum desk. The top drawers were where one found pens and paper and useful things. Lower drawers tended to hold more personal items so she left them alone.

She found herself a pen and some paper, she liked to be able to jot notes down, and then began to explore the computer system. But twenty minutes later she was baffled. She could see notes, she could find notes, but she had no idea how to edit them.

Which left only one choice. Cordelia.

How could you be called Cordelia and never have read King Lear?

Mind you, there was every possibility that she had and then had simply forgotten it.

Uncharitable, but Lydia wasn’t exactly in the best mood. Medical data systems should be easy and intuitive to use since they often needed to be accessed in a hurry. Having to ask someone to fill her in was annoying.

She stomped out and opened the door to the waiting room, only to find it crammed with people. She gasped. Cordelia caught her eye and Lydia beckoned her into the office.

“Who on Earth are all those people?” she said, hurriedly closing the door to the waiting room.

Cordelia snorted. “Well, you’re a doctor, this is a doctor’s surgery, I’m sure you can work it out.”

“Work what out?” Lydia asked, feeling the panic rising in her chest. There were too many of them. There was no way she could handle this. And she was the only doctor, there was no one here to help. “They can’t all be patients! ”

“Hold on, you are actually a doctor, aren’t you?” Cordelia’s eyes had widened slightly.

“Yes, of course I am. What? Do you think I’d just go around pretending that I’m a doctor to get into other people’s offices? That’s insane.”

“Yes,” agreed Cordelia. “On the other hand, most doctors do expect to see patients at some point.”

“Not that many of them! I’ll be here until tomorrow morning,” Lydia protested.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “They’re just curious about the new lady doctor,” she said. “It’s a small town, there’s not much entertainment. And frankly, half of them don’t care that much about you, they just want to know if you know what happened to Doc Morris.”

“Then get rid of them,” Lydia said.

“How exactly?” retorted Cordelia. “I can’t go around throwing people out of the surgery, think of the headlines, NHS patients being denied service.” She looked at Lydia. “We do have a newspaper, you know.”

Lydia sighed, rubbed her eyes, and then came to a decision. Practical as ever, she walked back out into the waiting room, Cordelia trailing her.

“Who here has an appointment?” she called over the general chattering in the room. Around a dozen people put up their hands.

“Excellent, you can stay,” said Lydia. “As can anyone who has a fever, a serious medical condition, or who is in desperate need of a repeat prescription. Everyone else will need to make an appointment with Cordelia here and then you will have to leave.”

Not a person stirred.

Lydia sighed again. “I do not know where Doctor Morris is or what has happened to him,” she said loudly and clearly.

There was a general grumbling and slowly people started to move until eventually there were about fifteen people left, all seated in chairs.

“That’s how it’s done,” said a smiling woman with blue hair .

“Well, I honestly can’t see every verruca in Whitebridge on my first day,” Lydia said.

“Nah, you need to leave some excitement for tomorrow,” grinned the woman. “Mila Browning, by the way. I own the bookshop just down the street. Pop in and I’ll set you up with a nice medical mystery, we’ve got a whole section of them.”

Lydia welcomed a friendly face. “I might just do that,” she said. “Thanks for the offer.”

She turned back to Cordelia who was now back behind her desk. “You should vet patients a little more carefully,” she said. “No more looky-loos, please. We’re busy enough I assume, given that we have to catch up with yesterday’s patients as well.”

Cordelia looked truculent but Lydia had had enough. The woman didn’t have to like her, but she did have to do her job, and as far as Lydia was concerned, a receptionist was a doctor’s first line of defense.

“Right, who’s first then?” Lydia asked.

A red-head raised her hand and stood up, her pregnant belly making the movement less than graceful.

“Alrighty then, come on through and let’s get you looked at,” Lydia said kindly.

She let her first ever Whitebridge patient lead the way into the examination room.