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‘Is Gabriel there? Emma’s hurt herself...’
‘Doctors first, in this case...’ Gabriel threw the words over his shoulder as he strode past her, following the man back to the conference room.
Clara could hear the sound of crying, and the knot of people parted as they saw Gabriel. A young woman was seated on one of the chairs, cradling one hand against her chest. Gabriel knelt down in front of her.
‘Okay, Emma. Let me see.’
Emma shook her head, rocking back and forth. Shock, perhaps. Gabriel turned to the man who had come to fetch him.
‘What happened, John?’
‘She tripped over and put her arm out to break her fall. She’s hurt herself, but she won’t let anyone touch her.’
‘Thanks. Perhaps we should give her a bit of space.’
John nodded, shepherding the rest of the volunteers out of the room, while Gabriel turned back to Emma. He pulled up a chair, sitting down and leaning towards her.
‘Emma. Emma, look at me.’
Emma twisted away from him, still cradling her right arm protectively. It was then that Clara saw the reason for her reaction. Three of the fingers from her left hand were missing, leaving only the thumb and forefinger.
Clara knew from her work as a paramedic that people who had injuries to one hand were very protective of the other, and tended to panic if they hurt it. Gabriel had to deal with Emma’s instinctive reaction before he could give her any medical attention.
‘Okay.’ Gabriel laid one hand lightly on Emma’s back. ‘Just give me a status report, then, eh?’
‘Might be a Colles’ fracture...’ Emma clearly had some medical knowledge. And Gabriel was using that to help her to distance herself from her situation.
‘I’ll bet that hurts.’ Gabriel’s voice was gentle.
Emma nodded, tears running down her face. ‘How could I be so stupid?’
‘You’re not stupid. You had an accident, that’s all, and you know we can fix this.’ Gabriel put his arm carefully around Emma’s shoulder and suddenly she leaned into his chest, sobbing.
It was hard to focus on what she was supposed to be doing. All of Clara’s instincts were telling her that she should be helping care for Emma, but that wasn’t her job. And Gabriel was all Emma needed right now.
She was beginning to calm down, and slowly took her arm away from her chest, allowing him to see it. The wrist was already red and swollen, and there was a slight deformity, which indicated that Emma had been right in her assessment and there was a break at the lower end of one of the two long bones in her forearm.
‘I’m going to need an X-ray. We’ll go over to the clinic.’
‘Thanks. Sorry...’ Emma was regaining her composure quickly.
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about. Clara, we’ll use the staff entrance.’ Gabriel flashed Clara a glance and she nodded. The door in the hallway that led straight through into the clinic next door had been equipped with state-of-the-art locks and alarms to make sure that anyone who did get into the charity’s offices couldn’t access the clinic.
Gabriel helped Emma to her feet, his arm around her to support her, and walked her out into the corridor. When she stood up, her dark hair fell back from her face, and exposed a deep scar running across the left side of her jaw and down her neck. She’d been hurt very badly at some point and from the looks of the scar it had been relatively recently.
‘You’re the security officer?’ Emma looked at her as she activated the handprint scanner and then punched in the code for the door.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Gabriel answered Emma’s question. ‘Although Clara used to be one of yours—a paramedic.’
‘Yeah?’ Emma shot her a watery smile. ‘Bet you wouldn’t be making so much fuss.’
‘I’d be crying like a baby. Don’t take any nonsense from him, you know how doctors can be.’
Gabriel chuckled and Emma smiled again. Slowly she was regaining control of the situation and it was clearly making her feel much better.
A nurse saw them and hurried towards Gabriel, and he asked her to fetch a wheelchair. She returned almost immediately and Gabriel settled Emma into the chair, wheeling her along a short stretch of corridor to the X-ray suite.
Clara couldn’t imagine that the clinic didn’t have an X-ray technician and nurses to help as it had a quiet air of being well run and fully staffed. But Gabriel was doing everything himself, talking to Emma all the while. Clara could see that Emma trusted him and only seemed distressed when anyone else came near her.
