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Back Going Under Save as PDF
Chapters (70)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I BIRTH
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. PART II LIFE
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. TWENTY-NINE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. PART III DEATH
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. FIFTY-FIVE
  63. FIFTY-SIX
  64. FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. FIFTY-NINE
  67. SIXTY
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I laugh despite myself. ‘I’d better go,’ I say sadly. ‘Dr Fido Holliday has to go and see her master.’

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I arrive on the ward to see the Smiling Assassin waiting for me. She purses her lips but, incredibly, still manages to smile at the same time. Mercifully, she’s stopped from speaking by my pager going off.

I’m being summoned to operating theatre six, which is hardly a reprieve as that just means the Joker, but I’m sick of feeling like her pet dog and feel a sense of dark pleasure that just as I’ve arrived I have to leave again.

‘I’m needed in theatre,’ I explain, backing away. ‘I’ll recheck the potassium tomorrow morning.’

Before she can argue I hurry off to the stairs. As soon as I’m out of sight I slow my pace.

All through the years of medical school, and even before then, I was desperate to get inside an operating theatre. And despite the stresses and strains of life as an intern, I still want to be a surgeon. I think I do, anyway. So I should be excited to go into that magical other world where incredible things happen and humanity in some weird way is suspended. The outside world simply no longer exists when you’re standing over an open brain covered in green drapes. The operating theatre, I remind myself, is the place where the magic happens.

But the Joker is doing his best to ruin this for me. I dread going into theatre when I know he’ll be there because I know what will happen. He’ll fire hard questions at me and then belittle me when I fail to answer them. My self-esteem is already fragile after years of medical school and I could do without the stealth attacks from my emotionally delayed superiors.

But I discover as I walk into the change rooms and my phone beeps with a text from Lawrence that I’ve been gifted an out-of-season Christmas miracle.

The J’s theatre list has been bumped for an emergency hemicolectomy so he’s gone home. Prince wants you to help us in theatre 9.

I immediately look up at the list on the wall of the change room and confirm that the theatre nine patient today is John Wilde and the surgeon is Dr Jack Prince. Today really is the big day. The day Dr Prince is going to save Mr Wilde! I know Dr Prince joked that I could help with the surgery, but I was sure he didn’t actually mean it. I try not to let my imagination run away with me as I pull a pair of scrubs from a cupboard and quickly change into them. I meet Dr Prince by the sinks in the scrub bay just outside the operating theatre.

‘Hello, Kitty,’ he says.

Stay focused, my brain screams at me. You are going into an operating theatre. Keep it serious.