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'His disease was incredibly aggressive. Prof was as conservative as he could be and every time he took more bowel out it was only to save Eddie's life. He even had a transplant but that failed, leaving him sicker than ever. By the end he had virtually no bowel left and he'd been on full-time TPN for almost two years.'

'TPN?' Merrin probed. She knew the term but she couldn't remember what it meant.

'Total parenteral nutrition,' the nurse said. 'Intravenous feeding. He didn't have enough bowel left to absorb any food. He was hell to find veins on. He started using the feeding lines himself to inject drugs so he kept getting infections in them, and every time a line blocked off he knew as well as all of us that Neil might not find another.'

'That's so sad. I studied inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis at med school, but I never realised how bad they could be.'

'They're not all as bad as Eddie,' Celia told her soothingly. 'But you'll see some that are. We know them all quite well since they're in and out of here all the time. Prof does a lot of other work as well but UC and Crohn's are his special interests.'

Merrin managed to get to Theatre by eleven. She introduced herself to the receptionist and explained that she'd never worked at the hospital before, and the other woman directed her down a corridor to the left and told her where to find the changing rooms. 'Clothes are on the shelves outside and there're spare clogs and paper hats on top. Professor McAlister always works in theatre one. Douglas is in number three this morning but he'll be in with the Prof in the afternoon.'

'OK, thanks.' Merrin beamed her excitement. 'What about masks?'

'In boxes outside each theatre. Better give me your bleeper,' the receptionist added, holding out her hand for it. 'He doesn't like you being called out again unless it's urgent. I'll take messages and someone will come and get you if it's important.'

Inside the women's changing room Merrin quickly shed her white coat and clothes and pulled on tie-waist blue cotton pants and a V-necked jerkin, grimacing as she tightened the pants and inspected her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door.

Flattering, they were not. The pants, though labelled as small, were several sizes too large and, despite her being slightly above average height, she had to roll them up four times to stop them dragging on the ground. The jerkin too was far too big and its V-neck dived low into the shadowed hollow between her breasts, but a strip of the micropore tape that she'd been carrying in her pocket secured the neckline and her modesty.

Her hair, a long mass of thick ringlets, proved harder to contain, but she managed it by using two hats, one to hold the bulk of its weight and the other over the top and forehead to contain the fair strands that threatened to escape around her face.

She couldn't find a matching pair of clogs among the ragged collection of spares, but found one to fit and one a size bigger and decided that would do, impatient with anything that delayed her getting into Theatre.

She wasn't sure which door she was supposed to use to get into the operating theatre itself so she went into the anaesthetic room and peered through the glass panel in the door to the theatre.

The room was quite crowded. There seemed to be two anaesthetic people as well as her consultant and Lindsay and two other scrubbed people in the same sort of dark green gowns as the doctors, either or both of whom could be nurses. Four other younger-looking people stood to one side of the theatre, watching everything, and another middle-aged woman who might be the theatre circulating nurse was busy over by a stack of suture material.

Merrin pushed open the door hesitantly but, obviously hearing something, the Prof looked up. He nodded to her. 'Scrub, Merrin,' he ordered. 'Come and help us. Shirls, Merrin's our new house officer. You'd better show her what to do.'

'This way, love.' The woman she'd assumed was the circulating nurse signalled to her to come around to a separate scrub area alongside the anaesthetic room. 'You new this week, sweetheart?'

'I started at the weekend,' Merrin explained quietly. 'I know how to scrub and gown but I haven't been in Theatre since I was a student.'

'You start scrubbing there,' the older woman directed her, turning on one of a set of three taps set along a broad steel basin. 'And I'll get you towels and a gown. You all right with the iodine?'

'I'm not allergic to anything,' Merrin confirmed, wetting her hands and arms before she lathered up iodine solution from the dispenser above the taps.

'Your hands look like a size six,' the nurse observed. 'Yes?'

'I think so.' When she'd finished scrubbing and gowning, she pulled on the gloves carefully, confirming that the size was right.

'Neil, where do you want Merrin to stand?' the nurse demanded when they emerged from the scrub area.

'Merrin, come in next to Lindsay,' the Prof said absently, his attention obviously on what he was doing as Merrin slotted into the space Lindsay made for her opposite the Prof and between her and the green guards dividing the anaesthetic and surgical fields. 'She'll need a step.'

'Step coming.'

The table had been adjusted to suit the professor's height and even by straining on tiptoe Merrin could hardly see a thing. She moved her feet so that the nurse could slide a wooden step into where she was standing, and once she stood up on it she had a good view. Lindsay was holding a curved retractor in her left hand and a suction stick in her right, but once Merrin was up and steady she gave her the retractor to take over.

'Lindsay, suction ready as we open this,' Neil instructed softly. Merrin could see he had a loop of bowel caught between two clamps. He'd surrounded the area with gauze to protect the rest of the abdomen from the contents and now he sliced it open with a scalpel.

'Merrin, do you see what we're doing?'

'You're going to join that up with the other end,' she observed, fascinated. 'Have you already taken out the tumour?'

'It's in the bowl over there.'

The scrub nurse tipped a kidney dish towards her and Merrin saw the segment of bowel he'd removed. 'What about his liver?'

'Clear. Lymph nodes feel clear.' In the few moments she'd been watching he'd managed to insert a stapling machine into each end of the bowel and now she saw him start to draw them carefully together, using a piece of blue thread that he'd clearly stitched into place earlier to secure the hold. 'Do you understand what I'm doing here?'

'You're stapling the bowel together, instead of sewing it,' she confirmed, watching, fascinated, as he. prepared the machine, closed the two ends together then stapled. 'Does this mean he won't need a colostomy?'

'There's enough of a clear margin between the tumour and the ends here to make a successful join,' he said, nodding briefly as he unclipped one end of the stapler to reveal a circular piece of tissue which the machine had removed.

'But how can you be sure that it's safe?' Merrin asked.

'I'm sure.' He sent her a quick, almost half-amused look, then lowered his head to his task again.

'But what if it isn't?' she persisted, genuinely interested. 'Wouldn't you be better hand-sewing the ends to be safe?'

Lindsay sent her a look which suggested that the SHO questioned Merrin's sanity, but the professor didn't seem particularly bothered. 'In experienced hands, a stapled anastomosis is as safe as a hand-sewn one,' he told her calmly. 'I'm experienced. This anastomosis is fine.' He showed her the small piece of bowel he'd removed. 'We call this a doughnut. If it's an intact circle then the join is complete.'

'The join might be fine,' she accepted, 'but what about in the future?'

The Prof looked up at her again from his work, his pale eyes solemn this time. 'There isn't going to be a problem, Dr Ryan. Mr Wilson's going to recover normally and in about a week's time he's going to go home.'

'But I thought that experimental studies showed that if bowel ends were stapled there was a higher risk of tumour recurring around the staple line,' Merrin protested.

'You're right,' he conceded, nodding. His fingers moved quickly as he spoke. 'I'm sorry. I was simplifying things for you and I shouldn't have. But what you've read about are experimental studies conducted in laboratories and not in patients. Lab studies have shown increased tumour recurrence around staples, true. But in practice it doesn't happen. In practice, current evidence is that tumour recurrence is seen less often in stapled joins than in hand-stitched ones.'

Above his mask his eyes sent her what looked like a quick smile. 'Have I relieved your worries?'

'You have,' she said firmly, feeling her pulse rush a little at his apparent approval. 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.'

'I haven't read anything recently about staples and tumour growth,' Lindsay said uncertainly.

'I've some references in my office,' the professor said quietly, his attention back on the wound. 'I'll give them to you later.' Moving quickly, he extracted Merrin's retractor, passed it to his scrub nurse, tucked the bowel they'd been working on back into the abdomen, uncovered the gauze-covered remainder of the bowel and small intestine and directed it all back into place.

He swiftly inserted a drain through the skin and threaded it down around the surgical field then pulled the abdomen closed.

'Closing, Chris,' he announced—Merrin assumed to the anaesthetist because the man beside her raised a lazy hand in response. 'Vicryl to close, please. Lindsay, swap places. We've been fast. You can finish here.'

'Thanks, Prof.' Beside her, Lindsay moved, walking around the scrub nurse's trolley to the other side where he'd moved away to make room for her.

'Scissors to Merrin,' he instructed, and the nurse promptly passed Merrin a pair. 'Vicryl to Lindsay. I'll leave you to it,' he told them, moving back. 'I'll be in the staff-room if you need me.'

Lindsay sewed up the abdomen in a broad layer, using a curved needle and catching the peritoneum, the muscle and subcutaneous tissues in a figure-eight-style stitch, explaining to Merrin what she was doing at each step.

Merrin's job was to hold up the four sets of artery forceps which Lindsay had clipped to the peritoneum so that the SHO couldn't mistakenly catch some of the abdominal contents in her sutures. Lindsay showed her how to remove each set as the closing progressed.

After she'd finished they tore away the adhesive plastic membrane which had been covering their patient's skin, closed the skin, swabbed everything clean and covered the wound and the drain with sterile dressings.

It took them a few minutes to clean up and shed their gowns and help move their patient onto the trolley so he could be taken to Recovery, then Lindsay showed Merrin where to find the staffroom. 'I just need to ring the crèche,' she said quickly, gesturing down towards the other end of the corridor. 'Ben was sick twice last night. I want to make sure he's been all right this morning.'

The professor was alone in the tea room. Sprawled in a chair, an open journal beside him, his long legs crossed in front of him, he'd pulled his mask down and was talking on the phone.

He looked up briefly and nodded when she came in and Merrin felt her mouth dry. Even without the awareness of his personality that the last two days had given her, she couldn't not recognise that physically he was an extraordinarily attractive man. Dark and enigmatic and powerful. She told herself that it wasn't surprising that she found herself reacting to him, even though she'd never found herself particularly attracted to handsome men in the past. But then, regardless of the way he looked, she suspected that Neil McAlister was a man who'd make an impression on most women.

'Tim, I agree,' he was saying, 'but the funding's not going to appear by magic. Have you spoken with anyone at the college?' There was a pause and then he said, rather wearily, Merrin thought, listening while she made coffee. 'Yes, all right. Yes, I'll try. I'm seeing them at a meeting next week so I'll mention it then.'

The conversation continued a few more minutes and when he replaced the receiver she passed him a drink and two chocolate biscuits.

He stared down at the cup and saucer as if mystified. 'What's this?'

'Coffee. Or would you prefer tea? Milk or sugar?'

'Coffee. Black's fine. Merrin, I don't expect you to make my drinks.'

'You hadn't made your own,' she observed, taking one of the bench-like padded seats opposite him.

'I was about to when I was interrupted by a call.'

'Well, then.' She looked down into her own drink. 'Drink up. Better eat your biscuits before anyone else comes. They were the last two.'

'Merrin...'

She lifted her head, meeting his disturbingly darkened expression determinedly, but thankfully whatever chastisement he'd been about to deliver was delayed because Lindsay came in.

The SHO was frowning. 'Ben's been sick again this morning,' she said hesitantly. 'Last night I thought it was all the ice cream he'd eaten but they say he won't eat anything at all now and they don't think he looks well. He's running a slight temperature. It's probably nothing. Robert's in Bristol today at some sales conference and he won't be back till six. Prof, do you mind—?'

'Go,' he told her quietly.

'I'm really sorry.' But she looked relieved. 'Thanks. I just want to check him out. I promise I'll be back as soon as I can.'

'Take your time,' he said evenly. 'We'll manage. Douglas doesn't need any help and Merrin can assist with the rest of my list.'

With Lindsay looking so worried, Merrin felt guilty at the rush of excitement the professor's words provoked, but the SHO barely glanced at her, obviously distracted as she turned away and left them.

'I've never assisted anyone before,' she told him when they were alone again, realising that it was only fair to warn him even if that meant he cast her aside for someone more experienced. 'Except for being assistant number two or three and just holding a retractor. I hope I don't slow you down too much.'

'We're ahead on time,' he told her calmly. She was pleased to see him absently pick up a biscuit and take a bite out of it, his attention now on the journal beside him.