Three For A Wedding

Chapter Six

The sound of M*A*S*H theme brought him out of his deep sleep. He felt his heavily pregnant fiancée shift as she turned to answer her phone.

“Doctor Cecelia Jayne Montage.” She said sleepily into the phone. She was silent a moment whilst she listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone call, at one point, Riley thought she had fallen asleep again, he knew she had, had a bad night last night and not gotten much sleep, but then the slightly less drowsy voice came suddenly. “Oh Christ, ok Sally I am on my way. Make sure no one else goes in or out, put it on lockdown. I will be there as soon as I can. Call for the ambulance so that they can get in there as soon as I get to you. I will be there in about 15 minutes, give or take.”

“What’s going on?” Riley asked, now fully awake at the sound of distress in Cecelia’s voice.

“Brianna has collapsed in the autopsy room; I need to go down to the labs,” Cecelia responded and she pulled herself up into a sitting position with difficulty. She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment to catch her breath.

“I don’t like the sound of that idea, can’t Sally do it?” Riley said, sitting bolt upright as Cecelia struggled to her feet. She held on to the bedpost.

“No, it needs both mine and Sally’s sign-offs for the lab to be opened again. Don’t worry, I will stay away from the Morgue, but I do need to go and do the official stuff. I’m sorry, apologise to your sister for me and tell her I will see her when you both get back.” She told him as she stood there, swaying a little, she tended to get a little lightheaded when she first stood up in the mornings, something Charles her Obstetrician was keeping an eye on her for.

“She will be disappointed not to see you,” Riley said, trying a different tact to stop her from going to work. It was never going to be easy to keep her away. He knew that, but with a possible outbreak in the morgue, he wasn’t happy with her going in, there was three of them to protect now, not just Cecelia anymore, but he also understood her position. She was the Chief of Forensic Pathology for Peterborough and Huntingdon, and until she went on maternity leave officially, she was still the most important person in the department, and such instances needed her presence. The only other way around it was to call in her boss from London, but from the sounds of it, there may not be time for that.

“I am disappointed also, but I have to go, Riley, I’m still in charge for another two months yet.” She told him. “So, I have to still do my duties.” She told him as she waddled over to the wardrobe to pull out one of her maternity suit dresses.

“Okay, pumpkin, I will see you when I get back from the airport.” He said as he too got up and out of bed. He went around and kissed her. “I have somewhere I need to be before I go and get her anyway, I won’t leave until about seven-thirty so if you are done quickly, let me know and I will swing by and pick you up.” He said before leaning down and laying a soft kiss on her lips.

“Ok, handsome.” She said before going off to get ready. He sighed; this was not something he was looking forward to. He was going for a quick meeting with his uncle because he needed to discuss the options of what they were going to do about Cecelia’s father. He wanted him to come out and tell her, but Marty and David were a little dubious about it.

Cecelia got into her Audi A3 sports car and started it up. She put her bag in the passenger seat and drove off to the laboratories to meet with Sally and find out what was going on. When she arrived, she punched in the security code that she needed to use to get into the Laboratory when there was a lockdown. There were only three people who knew this code, herself, Sally and her boss. She opened the door and shut it straight behind her, listening to the lock clicking back in behind her so no one else could go in or out. She made her way past the reception desk and smiled at the security guard who looked after the reception until their receptionist, Kelly started at eight-thirty.

“Doctor Montage, Good morning.” The security guard said with a strained smile.

“Hi Marco, where is Doctor Birch?” Cecelia asked him, returning the smile with her own tired one.

“Downstairs ma’am,” Marco replied. “Shall I call her, and let her know you are here?”

“No, I will go down to her,” Cecelia said. She waves her card over the sensor and the door unlocks, she pushes it open and makes her way down to the viewing room where she finds Sally. “Sally.”

“Cee-Jay, tests have been done, and nothing serious is in the air, it’s nothing to do with the body she was working on. Colin is in with her, but I need you to sign off to let the paramedics in to get her out now.” Sally said, handing her the paperwork. Cecelia signed it without reading it, she trusted Sally and knew the paperwork would be above board and her main concern is getting Brienna out of there and down to the hospital. They both walked down to the morgue entrance and Cecelia put in her passcode, followed by Sally doing hers, leaving the morgue safety locks disabled with a wooshing sound. Sally runs down to the other side of the morgue, opening the doors to where the roller doors are so that she can let the paramedics into the building. They work quickly and get Brienna out of there, whilst Sally returns to where Cecelia is sat in the observation room.

“Want to fill me in?” Cecelia asked, shifting in her seat to try and get comfortable. The babies were both now sleeping but had settled in a position that made it difficult for Cecelia to get comfortable.

“She was working on the body, Colin was on the table at the other end of the lab when Brienna collapsed, knocking the tray of tools over. Colin hit the lockdown button, pulled on further protective gear and ran to her. He contacted me and I rang you straight away.” Sally explained. “She is awake, just weak. The system couldn’t find anything in the air so it was nothing airborne Colin did the basic tests on the body and ran them, nothing came up as a potential risk and Brianna was awake. I know there could be other aspects but I needed to get her out.”

The system Sally was speaking about was an internal system that alarmed if there was anything airborne that could be dangerous to the health of the employees. You could go into the system and look at the levels of pathogens in the air to see if the system had missed an alarm. It had never happened, but Cecelia was happy there was the extra check just in case. Her staff were her number one priority. If the levels went too high, the system would alarm and automatically go into lockdown so that no one else could be harmed, and so that the airborne pathogen could be contained.

“Sally, you did everything by the book. She needed medical attention. They will proceed with the necessary tests now and report something back to me.” Cecelia said. “Get the labs disinfected and cleared through to make sure there are no spoors, we will use the old lab for now for something important, otherwise everything else will have to wait until we unseal this lab. Get Colin to the doctor and make sure he is fully checked out. The only way she could have been affected so quickly is if it was airborne.”

“No problem boss. How are you feeling?” Sally asked with a look of concern on her face.

“Pretty good actually. Now I’m here I can get some paperwork done before I go on maternity leave,” Cecelia said. She was glad for the change of scenery. She had been slowly taking her hours down, and it was getting harder and harder to stay away.

“Sorry I had to call you out,” Sally told Cecelia. “I know it is your weekend off, and that you were supposed to be going to collect Beth.”

“It’s my job Sally, thank you for making it simple for me, and truthfully, I don’t think I would have coped with the journey to the airport, Riley will be quicker without me as he won't need to keep stopping for me to empty my bruised bladder,” Cecelia said putting a hand out to Sally to let her know she needed help getting up. Sally helped her to her feet and the two of them walked out of the room and made their way up to Cecelia’s office to sort out the paperwork for the incident.