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In the woman's right hand—the injured hand, from which blood was dripping from a visible cut in the fleshy part of the palm—was a knife. It was a large knife, eight or nine inches long, with a blade that tapered to a sharp point. The woman held it in the stabbing position, as though all she had to do was raise it and bring it down.

For a few seconds, which seemed to stretch like long minutes, Lisa felt a paralysis—a brief lassitude—come over her, as though her brain was gathering its resources, before telling her what to do.

Then the adrenalin started to flow—the body chemical responsible for flight and fight. She felt it, like a surge of power through her body, together with a sick knowledge that this was the 'grand finale' that Ravi Davinsky had been talking about.

Behind the glasses the cold eyes stared out at her. The lips, devoid of make-up now, were twisted in a familiar grimace of hate.

'Miss Damero, we've been waiting for you,' Lisa said, wondering how her own voice could sound so calm when her heart was thudding with something like terror. At the same time her thoughts were becoming as clear as crystal. 'This place is full of security men and police.'

All was evident now, from the obviously self-inflicted hand wound to the dark wig and the glasses.

Miss Damero laughed derisively. 'I'm going to kill you,' she said, her voice curiously flat, her eyes staring.

Perhaps she was on drugs, Lisa thought frantically as she reached behind her to grip the; metal edges of the operating table, her mind searching for a plan of self-defence.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the small trolley, piled high with the sterile packs, near the bottom end of the operating table. At the top end of that table was the anaesthetic machine which held several potential weapons that could be used in a pinch—a laryngoscope, McGill's endotracheal forceps, scissors, various artery forceps—none of them any match for a knife. Anyway, the machine was too far away from her to reach now and too close to Miss Damero, who stood between her and the door. It would have to be the packs...

On the wall, beyond the bottom end of the operating table, was the red emergency button, projecting three inches from the wall, that could be pushed in to summon help. Lisa refrained from actually looking at it. It was used in cases of severe haemorrhage, cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest or any other sort of emergency. If she could get to that a whole team would respond within seconds.

Not taking her eyes off Miss Damero, she inched towards it.

'I'm going to kill you,' the woman said again. Slowly, like an animal stalking its prey, she advanced silently two steps towards Lisa. The knife in her hand was raised, held close to her body just above waist level.

'You're going to have your work cut out for you,' Lisa said, taunting her, aware of the ghastly pun. 'I don't kill easy.' I have a baby to live for, she might have added.

As Charlene Damero ran towards her, the knife raised to strike, Lisa supported her weight on both her arms on the operating table behind her. When the woman was within kicking distance she leaned back on the table to a semisitting position, drawing up her knees, with the weight of her body against the table. Then she kicked out with both feet and caught the other woman in the midriff region as hard as she could. At the same time she screamed involuntarily, a scream of pure terror.

Charlene Damero doubled up in pain, her face contorting, before she let loose a string of profanities and came at Lisa again. 'I know Marcus has been sleeping with you,' she snarled. 'I've been watching your place. He won't be doing it again.. .because you're going to be dead.'

Quickly, in desperation, not taking her eyes off the other woman as she grappled her with her right hand, Lisa groped sideways with her left hand to the pile of sterile packs. She had noticed several small gown packs there before. Each one contained four folded gowns, packed tight, and four hand towels, the whole making a compact parcel that was surprisingly heavy.

With her hand flailing sideways as they rocked back and forth in a macabre wrestling match—the woman's free hand grabbing her hair—Lisa frantically reached for one of those packs and almost sobbed with relief when her hand encountered it. Getting the fingers of her hand under the string that held it together, she put all her body weight on her right foot and swung the pack at Miss Damero's head and neck, allowing her weight to carry it forward. With a satisfying thud it struck home and the woman staggered sideways.

At the same time the hand with the knife slashed at Lisa as she loosened her grip on the arm that held it. She felt it cutting her left arm above the elbow. Again she screamed, a shrill, piercing sound of desperation.

'Lisa! Lisa!' An anguished male voice called her name. Not daring to take her eyes off Miss Damero, she saw on the periphery of her vision a white-coated figure coming towards them.

'Lisa... For God's sake, get back... Get back...out of the way!' he was shouting at the; top of his voice.

'Marcus.. .look out.. .look out... She has a knife!' Lisa screamed the words as Marcus came up to them at a run and grabbed Miss Damero, gripping both her arms.

'Drop that knife!' she heard him bellow furiously. 'Drop it right now!'

Instinctively, Lisa lunged towards the emergency button and with all her strength smashed it into the wall as far as it would go, aware that she was half sobbing, half panting. She also noted that, curiously, her white uniform was red with blood all down the front; she hadn't noticed that before. From somewhere outside in the corridor the sharp, shrill sound of an emergency siren filled her ears.

'Thank God!' She sobbed the words, turning frantically to help Marcus.

'I'll kill you, Marcus,' Miss Damero was shouting shrilly, her face red with the effort of struggling with him. 'If I can't have you no one else will.'

'That's a rather hackneyed line,' Marcus shouted with grim humour as he struggled. 'You might have thought of something more original to justify all this, Miss Damero.'

As Lisa watched Marcus put a foot between Miss Damero's feet and tripped her up and at the same time he succeeded in wresting the knife from her grasp. When it hit the floor he kicked it savagely so that it skittered into a far corner of the room.

Suddenly the room was full of people. Ravi Davinsky was there, as were the hospital security people, Dr Nathan Hanks—with several of the interns—Richard Decker, Sadie Drummond and Elsa Graham. Within seconds, the security personnel were wrestling with Miss Damero on the floor. One of them held a strait-jacket.

'What the hell's going on, Marcus?' Dr Hanks said, his intelligent, normally good-humoured face creased in concern as he took in the mad scene. For once, Sadie Drummond seemed temporarily struck dumb.

Marcus's eyes searched for Lisa in the crowded room. He pushed his way towards her and enclosed her in his arms. 'A crazy woman with a knife,' he said tersely. 'Lisa's been stabbed. Help me get her onto a stretcher, Nathan. Quick, man!'

'All this blood.. .' Lisa said, looking down at her uniform.

'Yes... Hell,' Marcus murmured, anguish in his voice as he pressed her against him, 'Take it easy, honey.'

'I'm all right,' she said, even as she was aware that she was shivering with shock.

'No, you're not,' he said. 'You've been cut, quite deep by the look of it, on the upper arm.'

Several of the doctors lifted her onto a stretcher. Richard, pale-faced, was one of them. 'Are you OK?' he said. Lisa nodded.

In the centre of the room a struggle was going on with the demented woman as she fought the security men, kicking, screaming and swearing in as foul a language as anyone there had heard.

'Here's a tourniquet,' Dr Hanks's calm voice said, and Lisa felt his hands on her arm. 'Then we'll take a look at the extent of the damage.'

'Richard,' Marcus said, 'would you take charge of the department for me while I get all this sorted out?'

'Sure...'

'Marcus,' Lisa said, looking up at him as he bent over her, 'are you all right?'

'Never better,' he said grimly, as he helped Nathan ease her uniform aside to expose the stab wound on her upper arm. 'At least this is the end of Miss Damero as far as we're concerned.'

'But you're bleeding, Marcus,' she insisted frantically. 'There's blood all over you.'

'Most of it's yours,' he said. 'What's a little blood in an emergency department, anyway? It's you I'm worried about.'

'I.. .think it's just a surface cut,' she said, watching Nathan and Marcus exchange glances. 'Are you sure you're all right?'

'Yes, quite sure.' Although his voice was terse, there was an underlying note of unaccustomed anxiety in his voice as he and Dr Hanks stopped the flow of blood, pressing a thick dressing to the wound.

'Looks like an artery,' Dr Hanks muttered as the two doctors conferred with each other.

'Yes,' Marcus agreed. 'Lisa, we're going to get one of the peripheral vascular surgeons to see you. OK? It looks as though that knife got the artery. He'll clamp it off for us, then do a bit of stitching.'

'All right,' she said. 'I...I don't want to look at it.'

'We'll wheel you into the next room.' Sadie Drummond was there beside them. 'We need to get away from this madhouse.'

In a quiet adjoining room Marcus bent over her and put more pressure on the bleeding point, while Sadie Drummond moved about purposefully within the scope of Lisa's peripheral vision, getting equipment together for the vascular surgeon who was on his way.

'This feels like the re-run of an old movie,' Lisa said tiredly, in an attempt at humour, looking up at Marcus as he covered her with another blanket. She was shivering with shock. 'Here I am flat on my back again, with you administering to my needs.'

'Maybe that's my destiny,' he quipped. 'I'm indebted to you now—to the sacrifice you made.'

'No, you're not... Now we're quits,' she said quietly, wincing with pain as Dr Hanks put more pressure on her arm. 'I don't owe you anything any more...' Realizing that what she said was true, she closed her eyes with a sense of relief and shut out his tired, strained face. It was almost worth being stabbed to know that the sense of indebtedness she'd felt towards Marcus could be put into perspective.

'Is the arm hurting?' Marcus asked.

'Yes. I can feel it now.' In truth, the whole arm was throbbing painfully, a sharp pain that was increasing. 'I didn't notice it much at the time.'

'I'll put up an IV and give you some Demerol for the pain.'

People were going in and out of the room. Lisa didn't bother to look around her, the throbbing in her arm taking over her awareness.. .and the relief that both she and Marcus were safe.

As Marcus bent close to her to insert the cannula into a vein in her hand for the IV line she looked at him, wanting so much to put her good arm around his neck and pull him close to her—feel his cheek against hers. When their eyes met he must have read something of her anguish in hers for he touched her face briefly in a gentle caressing gesture which no one else could have interpreted as anything out of the ordinary.

'When all this is finally over we'll go out for a drink together. Hmm?' he said quietly.

Lisa nodded, feeling a tightness of emotion in her throat and the threat of tears in her eyes.

'The vascular guy's here,' Nathan Hanks called from the doorway.

'He may want to take her to the main operating room,' Marcus said quietly to Dr Hanks.

Lisa could hear them conferring with the vascular surgeon just inside the door, telling him what had happened. Then she felt gentle fingers lifting the dressing on her arm. After a short silence the surgeon said, 'I want to take you to the main operating room, Miss Stanton. I would rather not deal with this in the emergency department because you may need a general anaesthetic. When did you last have anything to eat or drink?'

The hot summer sun was muted, filtered through leaves of elm and maple trees which grew near the park bench where Lisa sat. The grass in the small park had recently been mown and it gave off that characteristic scent that depicted the lazy days of summer so well. Emma Kate was in her pram under a sunshade, fast asleep. She lay on her back with her arms flung out to the sides and her head turned towards Lisa, her bare feet protruding from beneath the soft white cotton dress which was sprigged with a motif of pale blue flowers.

As Lisa watched her, squinting lazily against the sun, she felt her heart swell with love and pride—and a thankfulness that she was privileged to be the mother of this beautiful child who could so easily have died. She didn't feel anything for Richard any more other than a vague, distant sadness. Maybe he had actually done her a favour in a way by giving her this child.

It had all been worth it—all the anxiety and the pain, the fear for the future—every minute of it. As she looked at the downy hair, resting in soft curls on her daughter's forehead, and the long, dark lashes that fanned her plump cheeks Lisa knew a deep contentment. Yet underneath her contentment was a sense of loss, almost a mourning, and a sense of waiting for something to happen.

She had been off work for three weeks, after having her arm stitched up. The wound was well healed now and she was to go back to work after another week. She had stayed in hospital for a day after the minor operation, during which time all her colleagues with whom she was close had come to see her. Marcus had come—had been there when she'd come round from the anaesthetic. Groggy from the drugs, she had felt him kiss her. . .or thought she had. Then after she had gone home she hadn't seen him again.

That absence niggled now, a sense of disappointment and longing, even as she told herself again and again that there was no reason now for them to have any sort of personal contact outside work. Now that Miss Damero was in custody they had no reason to see each other, although there would be a court case at some point in the future.

He had telephoned, of course, sometimes more than once a day, during the first week. But she missed him, longed for him with an intensity that was like a physical ache. Others had called, too—like Sadie Drummond, whose conversation still echoed in Lisa's brain. Not for one moment could she get that out of her mind.