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reason…’
    ‘Of course it is. You’re a great guy, honestly.’
    The doctor walked off, wary of prying eyes. Belén approached her friend from behind and whispered in her ear:
    ‘You haven’t called me all week, Montse.’
    She blushed so much she thought everyone would see.
    ‘You’re a great guy, honestly,’ continued the anaesthetist, imitating Montse’s affected tone.
    ‘Will you shut up! Don’t you realise he’s listening?’
    ‘Who, Pere? He’s deaf in one ear, as I’m sure you know. I myself anaesthetised him for the operation.’
    ‘You’re a witch.’
    ‘And you’re a bit jumpy today. Didn’t you know Pere is the hospital’s most eligible bachelor?’
    ‘And did you know that the most eligible bachelor falls short where it matters?’
    Belén covered her mouth in a exaggerated gesture of surprise.
    ‘Really!’
    ‘You heard me.’
    ‘Well, nobody’s perfect, darling.’
    The rest of the shift went as everyone expected: people coming and going up and down corridors, opening and closing doors, pushing gurneys in and out of rooms. It would have ended like any other shift Doctor Cambra had worked in her long career, had it not been for a series of coincidences that took place in the first hours of the new century.
    At three-fifteen in the morning, an ambulance from the Casualty Ward of the Hospital de Barcelona picked up a twenty-five-year-old Arabic pregnant woman, who had been run over at the airport. First coincidence: the ambulance, which was speeding at over ninety kilometres an hour along Gran Via de Les Cort Catalanes, encountered a traffic jam when it reached Carrer de Badal; three cars had crashed and were on fire. That was the shortest way to the Hospital de Barcelona, but it was now impossible to pass through the fire engines and police cars gathering in the area, and so the driver carried on along the main road looking for the nearest hospital. Second coincidence: when the driver radioed the Hospital Clinic i Provincial, who told him they were expecting four people with severe burns, and advised him to proceed to his initial destination. Third coincidence: when the ambulance was about to take a turn at Plaça de les Glóries Catalanes in order to go back up Diagonal towards the Hospital, the driver made a mistake while turning a sharp corner and ended up on the wrong road. Fourth coincidence: as the driver was trying to orientate himself, he chanced on the main façade of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau, and before he knew where he was, he saw the red lights of the Casualty Ward. The moment the stretcher crossed the threshold, the woman lost all her vitals, and presently a nurse realised she was dead. Fifth coincidence: just when doctor Cambra was seeing an old man who’d been admitted with an asthma attack, an orderly and an intern left the gurney with thebody of the pregnant woman next to her. A certain something made Doctor Cambra take notice of that woman: perhaps the beauty of her features, the colourful piece of cloth wrapped around her, or her advanced pregnancy. Though no one asked her to, Doctor Cambra took her pulse at the throat; then she lifted her eyelids and found the pupils dilated and non-reactive, which confirmed that the woman was dead. Her features were placid, as if she’d died with a smile on her face. At reception, meanwhile, there was a bit of a commotion, and a discussion started between the administrative and ambulance staff. Doctor Cambra, without really meaning to, learned all the details. The victim’s husband, who had not been allowed on the ambulance, had taken a taxi to the Hospital de Barcelona, where he was no doubt asking about his wife at that very moment. Also, all the woman’s papers, passport and documents were in Arabic, so no one knew who to contact about the death. Doctor Cambra stepped in and tried to make some sense of it all.
    ‘Call the other casualty department, explain what’s happened, and tell them to send the