For the entire drive home my mind relives the events in HD. What if I hadn't been around? Would he just have bled to death on the street outside? Do I care? Why the hell didn't he just go to a hospital? The reasons I come up with make me feel uneasy and out of my depth and as though I've just been involved in something dark and unwholesome.

At some point between the getting off the A23 and reaching Shere, I decide not to mention anything to the other doctors in the morning. I can't see the point. I don't know the men's names, where they came from, or what happened, so there really isn't a whole lot to tell. If anyone asks if I happened to treat a bleeding man after hours then of course I wont lie, but I wont be announcing it first thing, or sending a group email out about it either. It's done now.

I helped a wounded man in need and my Hippocratic oath means that I had no other option but to do what I did. When I let my mind wander briefly back to the wounded man, and the eyes and that seemed to penetrate through me and the mouth that seemed to be speaking a secret only I could hear I begin to feel hot again. I reach down and turn the blower down to the coldest end and think about a glass of wine instead.

It's just before 10pm when I get home, and Fred starts meowing hungrily at me as soon as I walk through the front door.

"I'm sorry I'm so late baby. Are you the hungriest cat in the world? Aw I bet you are. Mummy is sorry." I tell him in my pathetic talking to Fred voice as I pick him up to kiss him on the nose as I stroke his tortoiseshell fur.

The moment I put him down he bounds enthusiastically into the kitchen to purr against the cupboard that stores his food. I feed him too much before going to the fridge to see what I can salvage for myself. There are a few slices of cold leftover chicken in a covered plate from yesterday which I uncover and start to nibble on before pouring myself a cold glass of white wine. Then I stick the empty plate in the dishwasher before going upstairs to run a bubble bath; there's probably little chance of me sleeping tonight without the aid of wet heat and wine.

By the time I climb out of the bath an hour later my eyes are heavy and my bones languid and soft. Blanched, pink and too hot I crawl under the duvet just as Fred jumps up, stretches out and curls himself up into a tight little fur ball at my feet. My eyes close almost instantly after I switch out the light, but just before my consciousness fades an image of a hard tattooed body, green eyes and full kissable lips flits across my mind.

***

The rest of the week is truly remarkable in its banality. So much so that it begins to feel as though I imagined the whole episode on Tuesday night. Maybe it never actually happened and I invented it purely to add some excitement into my life, which wouldn't be totally unreasonable in my circumstance since excitement is something my life is definitely lacking at the moment.

No one mentions any local knife attack, and no policemen turn up at the surgery asking any questions about it either which makes it far easier to stick to my decision not to mention it to anyone. I say easier, yet I feel a little heavy with the knowledge, guilty even, as though I've committed some terrible crime and I'm going back to the scene of it over and over again.

Exactly a week after my run in with my tattooed intense eyed patient, Sam, one of the doctors I work with, asks me out and I say yes. Sam is definitely more the kind of guy I would go for. Though by saying that it sounds like I'm comparing him with another guy, who I wouldn't normally go for, but I'm not. I'm also not supposed to be thinking about him. Or that.

When he asked me, I got the feeling that it was something he'd been working up to. It had the feel of something practiced, and since he'd been looking at me clandestinely over the coffee machine most of the week, it was clear now why that was. Sam's lovely - a genuinely nice guy. As well as being cute, smart and a doctor. We have lots in common. We're a perfect fit really. So I wonder then why I'm not more excited about the prospect of going out with him.

It's probably the fact that we work together. It's never a good idea to mix the two, but how else do you meet prospective partners if not at work? Certainly not in nightclubs or bars where everything is a line or a come on for the sole purpose of getting you into bed.

After another long monotonous week, the weekend finally arrives, and with it the first night out with girls for a while. Which is really just a chance to catch up and go dancing and laugh and gossip about Leigh's current sex life and my lack thereof.

We rarely get together like this anymore and tonight we were going to the opening night of a new "nameless" club in town. During the week the invites had come special delivery to the surgery, with no return address or sender details. But since they were addressed to Dr Marlowe, with a VIP booth, and access to a free bar, we were most certainly going.

Nick probably sent them. My brother often forwarded on any freebies he thinks the girls and me might enjoy when he can't make it along to them himself. I'll thank him when I see him on Sunday. I still haven't decided whether to tell them about what happened with the hot tattooed guy last week or not.

I'm also not sure why I'm still thinking about him, or at what point he went from hot probable criminal to hot tattooed guy either. Probably when the whole incident began to seem less real and I started fantasizing about him in some of the duller moments I'd had since it happened. Which meant that I'd fantasized a lot about him since last week.

The one I'd had most often, which I'd now perfected, was me coming out of the surgery and seeing him standing there, that small sexy smile on his face before telling me he hadn't been able to stop thinking about me and demanding I go somewhere private with him. It had ended in his car with me pinned to the back seat under him. Yes, that one had happened a lot.

Robyn and Leigh arrive at my place around 7pm, and we open the first bottle of champagne immediately and start talking about Rob's upcoming nuptials and the state of Leigh's love life, namely her secret affair with her married boss. To my surprise, the incident with hot tattooed guy goes completely out of my head.

"The invite is rather sparse isn't it? No venue name on it. Minimalist. Classy," Leigh says turning one of the black embossed cards over in her hand.

"It says free bar and VIP on it. What else does it need?" Robyn exclaims popping open the second bottle of Veuve Cliquot with a giggle. Robyn is twenty-nine like me except she's blonde and gorgeous. She's marrying the equally gorgeous Daniel in June and they are, as far as I can see, the most perfect couple on the planet, both physically and how well suited they are. It's almost sickening how perfect they are. If I didn't love them so much I'd hate them.

As she stands to fill our glasses I stare longingly at her tanned lithe legs. She's wearing a deep purple prom style dress and black killer heels that make her legs stretch on forever. Where I'm pale and freckled in places, Robyn is the opposite. She goes golden brown at the first hint of sunlight while I need to wear factor 100 so I don't go lobster red. We'd been friends since our second day at Holly Lodge Primary School in Surrey, when she picked me up after a fat boy whose name escapes me now knocked me down in the playground. She knows me inside out and with such accuracy, that it should freak me out. It doesn't. I love her for it.

"Yeah, good point., Leigh replies. "So I was looking online and though it's quite hard to google a nightclub that doesn't have a name, it did say that guests tonight are invited to submit their idea for the name of the club and the owners will choose their favourite. Clever publicity stunt isn't it?" Leigh sounds impressed as she hands her glass to Robyn for a refill.

Leigh is exquisitely pretty, with doll features, large almond eyes, almost black hair and a petite frame. Constantly single and constantly falling in love, it's almost like she thrives on heartbreak. Robyn and I met Leigh at grammar school and although at first I seem to recall we hated her on sight, her feisty character and naughty antics won us round in the end. She's also the ditsiest person I know in real-life. She loses a phone a week, a set of keys a month and would forget her own head was it not affixed to her tiny petite body. We don't see Leigh as much as we used to anymore since she moved to London and got her dream Job at Belle magazine; she's become a total city girl. It just means that when we all get together its definitely a special occasion.

"Yes, very clever indeed." I say as Robyn hands me my topped up glass. I take a large sip of the sweet fizzy loveliness. "I'm surprised Nick would have given these to me though, sounds totally like his kind of thing," I muse as I sip the fizzy goodness. Champagne is always my going out drink because it makes me feel perky, sexy and spoiled. I love the way it fizzes on my tongue and down the back of my throat in that almost ticklish way. It makes going out with the girls feel like a celebration - which I firmly believe it should be.

"Well I'm glad he did, remember to thank him for us," she says with less scorn than normal. Robyn was not my brother's biggest fan. Ever since they had a fling for a few months and he brought another girl to Rob's birthday party as his less than subtle way of breaking it off they haven't exactly been on speaking terms. It was clearly a lot serious for Rob than it ever was for Nick. "Cheeeaaaaas!" Robyn says in a faux posh accent raising her glass to clink with mine first, and then Leigh's. "You may even find an eligible bachelor to get your rocks off to A, or with, or whatever the expression is these days," she says with a wink. Robyn, in her wisdom thinks that everyone's perfect soul mate is just a few awkward conversations away.

"God, no thank you. Can't think of anything worse. As if anyone would find an eligible bachelor in a nightclub. All that loud music and small talk. Eugh. Nightmare," I cringe at the thought. "Anyway... " I exclaim. "...the eligible Dr Sam Wardley asked me out the other day and that's quite enough male excitement for expertly single girl, for now." I say.

Robyn and Leigh halt mid sip and look at each other and then back at me, like I knew they would.

"What?! So he finally asked you out? Ugh! I said he wanted you when I saw him swoon over you at his 30th Birthday drinks. But of course you were still with 'the cunt' then. But I never thought it would take him so bloody long!" Robyn exclaims looking at Leigh. "Didn't I say it Leigh?"

Leigh nods at me. "She did. But who could blame the guy, considering he sees you in your white coat and clarks sensibles most days he probably got the shock of his life when you walked in wearing that red dress!" They both laugh and I roll my eyes. I've told them a hundred times that I don't wear a white coat to work but they persist in hanging onto the delusion. It goes on like this for another hour, with the girls saying how cute Sam is with his floppy hair, boyish face and glasses and that I need to give him a chance, that he's pretty much perfect for me yada yada yada. All the things I've been telling myself all week.

Leigh finishes taking my rollers out and dealing with my hair before I go upstairs to put my dress on. It's only when I'm naked and pulling on my underwear that I remember about him. The green blue eyes that made my blood kindle with something for the first time in months. It's probably a mood killer to start talking about him now. The guy with the hole in his neck, and his terrifying friend who threatened me into sewing it back up. Not conducive to party atmosphere really. No, best to stay quiet about him. Even better to forget about him Alex.

I take the green Karen Millen dress I bought last month of the hanger, and snip the tags off. It cost a small fortune despite being on sale, but I figure I work hard and so I will buy myself designer dresses when I damn well please - or more accurately, when my monthly outgoings are inclined towards treats. Since I spend more time there than anywhere else, I mainly buy designer dresses for work thinking I may as well look nice somewhere. But on occasion, and often for no occasion, I buy a going out dress. This one is jade green vintage chiffon, which goes in at the waist and flares out in floaty layers of light fabric. It sits quite a bit above the knee, shorter than I normally wear, and the front is quite revealing but the strange crisscrossing across the front and some slashes of it turquoise somehow stops it crossing the line.

As I look at myself in the mirror I remember why I bought it. It looks great against the paleness of my skin, the reddish tone of my hair and my green eyes. I really wish I'd got my hair trimmed this week though - it's getting too long - but I just never seem to have any time. I think about my piano too, which I haven't touched in a week. For someone with a very single life I never seem to have time for the normal, even necessary things, i.e., Food shopping, redecorating, haircuts. What on earth do I do with my time? I slip on my black suede heels and grab my black suede clutch and spray a generous squirt of Chanel as I pass my dressing table by the door.

"Wow." Robyn states as I come into the living room. Her mouth is wide open. "The dress. This is the Karen Millen one you told me about? Oh I love it Al!" She jumps up from the sofa and starts touching the hem. "It's amazing. You look AMAZING. Leigh don't you think she looks amazing?"

"Yes totally, but you always look amazing babe. And the dress is fab - I love it. Very you. Well the glammed-up version of you." She smiles at me as she down the last of her drink.

Flattered by the compliments, I gaze down at my ensemble, "Thanks girls. Are we good to go?" I feel perky and sexy as I reach for my mobile to call a taxi. The champagne is certainly doing its job.

"Good to go." they say in complete unison before breaking out in a fit of giggles.

"God I feel tipsy already - this could be messy." Leigh says staggering slightly as she tries to tiptoe in front of the fireplace mirror to fluff her hair and pinch her cheeks. Yes, well it normally is messy with Robyn and Leigh. As I dial the taxi number it occurs to me that since a hangover is more than likely tomorrow, I really need to make tonight worth it.