It's the day of Patrick's funeral, and the majority of the A&E staff are in attendance. Lara is wearing her engagement ring on a chain around her neck, but finds herself unable to enter the crematorium, instead sitting outside in her car before driving off. Max delivers the eulogy, calling Patrick "arrogant, opinionated, selfish - and that was on a good day". He explains that the first two were clearly true, although harsh, but that he could no longer describe him as selfish; not many would have given their lives to save six schoolchildren. After the funeral Anna and Max discuss the fact that Lara didn't attend, Max saying that he's given her some time off to grieve. Max talks to Patrick's father, who asks to see where his son worked.
Outside the hospital, a man throws up, before entering A&E and annoying Gilly with his requests for something for his headache. Later, Lara finds him lying down in her room, where he propositions her. She calls security, and he explains that he is a doctor: Simon Kaminski. Max arrives in time to confirm this, and Simon tells Lara that he's "the new Patrick Spiller", which doesn't go down very well with Lara.
Whilst getting burgers, Comfort attempts to have a serious conversation with Fin about death, who replies with nothing but jokes. Fin orders for the pair of them, and Comfort notes that at least he gets her order right, something her husband doesn't manage.
Josh and Nikki are called out to pick up a runner, Matthew Mulrose-Dixon, who has been hit by a car. The first person on the scene afterwards is Ronnie Wainright, who talks to them as they try to work and explains that he's had a triple bypass operation and is on his way to a party for his Emerald wedding anniversary. The driver of the car is unharmed.
Duffy tries to comfort Lara by telling her that the pain does go, but she doesn't want to listen. Max asks why she didn't go to the funeral, but she tells him that funerals are for the dead, and she prefer to spend her time with the living. She again refuses his offer of time off, and leaves when he tells her there was nothing she could have done for Patrick. Throughout the shift she's tense and irritable, and is particularly rude to Patrick's father when he arrives to see the department, although she doesn't know who he is.
Max gives Simon the tour of the department, ending in resusc with the pedestrian RTA victim who, it transpires, remembers nothing but his name; everything before the crash is a total blank, and he has no ID on him. According to their records, they treated a Matthew Mulrose Dixon a few weeks ago, but he died from his burn injuries. Simon tries various techniques to see if he's faking the memory loss, but Collette thinks he's genuine.
An old woman, who is on her own in reception, is brought to Gilly's attention by another patient; she's wet herself. Anna tries to talk to her, but she's unresponsive, and eventually moved into a cubicle. Simon guesses that she's been dumped in the A&E and tells Anna to call Social Services. She later dies, alone in her cubicle, and is found by Spencer.
Fin and Comfort pick up two Australian women, Jess and Sue. Jess claims to have tripped when her ankle gave way; she's also broken her collarbone. The pair both flirt both Fin, assuming Comfort is his wife when she interrupts them, and Tony, as well as greeting Lara cheerfully when they hear her Australian accent. Later, Tony talks to them and tells them that he knows the area where they were picked up, from some rock-climber friends of his; it's quite flat, nothing much to trip over. It turns out that the girls are "base jumpers", who enjoy jumping from high places wearing parachutes. The practice is illegal, and the Ministry of Defence prosecute anyone they catch doing it, which is why they lied about what had happened. Sue asks Tony to take her back there later, so she can dig up the parachutes that she buried after the accident, but he refuses.
Josh and Nikki's next patient is Ronnie, who's collapsed at his anniversary party. He's had a stroke, but his wife refuses to believe it could be fatal, as he's already recovered from one serious illness. A CT scan reveals it to be serious, before he has a respiratory arrest and has to be put on a ventilator. Lara tells Mrs Wainright that the stroke means that Ronnie will not recover, as he's unable to breathe without the ventilator, and that she will at least have the memories of their time together.
The driver who hit Matthew Mulrose Dixon comes in, asking to see him. When Simon talks to her, she turns out to be Mrs Mulrose Dixon, but had never seen the victim before, until he jumped in front of her car. Her husband committed suicide two weeks earlier; he was a teacher who'd been failed by the school's OFSTED inspector and killed himself by setting fire to himself. When she tells the patient this, he remembers that he was the inspector, and that he'd never meant it to happen. His name is Harry Metcalfe, and it was his first inspection; he's wanted to make a good impression. When he'd heard on the radio about the death, he'd thought it right that she should kill him as he'd killed her husband, and so had pretended to be a runner and jumped in front of her car.
Gilly's friend Simone comes in, asking for more drugs. Anna sees her handing something over, hidden in an envelope. Dillon asks a noisy patient to be quieter, and he head-butts him. Tony helps him clean up his bloody nose, and when Dillon says that now all he needs is someone to kiss it better, Tony replies, "Are you asking?", but Dillon wasn't talking about him. The pair laugh it off.
The Australian girls are eager to leave but Lara's busy with other patients, so Simon takes a look at the x-rays. He finds that Jess has a pneumothorax, which is causing her chest pain, most likely because her fractured collarbone pierced her lung. It's not an injury that normally occurs from a fall, but she could have fallen differently. He says she can't fly back home the next day to attend a friends wedding, as the cabin pressure would kill her. Sue shouts at Lara, saying that if Jess had died it would have been her fault, but Lara is shocked that she had a pneumothorax from her fall. Tony reveals that they are base-jumpers, and Max informs the patients that they can only be treated properly if they tell the doctors everything. Max sends Lara home.
After work, at the bar, Lara apologises to Duffy for her attitude, before taking up Max's offer of time off, then introducing herself to Patrick's father. He hadn't known they were engaged; Patrick had simply told him that he had good news, and had been planning on visiting him that weekend. Spencer turns up late, having had to finish the bedpans as Tony had left without finishing his job, then goes with Lara to break into the crematorium, so she can finally say a proper goodbye to Patrick.
Back at the bar, Fin and Comfort are arguing again; he accuses her of being jealous because all the girls flirt with him. She's actually upset because she wishes she could have gone to the funeral so she could have cried for and said goodbye to Patrick, but instead, she got Fin's smart-alec remarks all day. They kiss, breaking it off just as her husband arrives to take her home. Fin looks up at the picture of Patrick hung on the wall and says "you set that up, didn't you - wherever you are".
Episode first broadcast Saturday 23rd March 2002
Additional Cast
Simon Kaminski
Christopher Colquhoun
Gilly
Emily Dormer
Rob
Chad Shepherd
Dr Gordon Spiller
Tom Adams
Renee Wainwright
Doreen Mantle
Ronnie Wainwright
Stanley Page
Maureen Wainwright
Pauline Whitaker
Harry Metcalfe
Joseph Morton
Mrs Mulrose Dixon
Sarah Carver
Jess
Amanda Harrison
Sue
Thea McLeod
Simone
Rhian Grundy
Sarah Woodruff
Kerry Potter
Elderly Woman
Kitty Fitzgerald
Drunk Patient
Alex Lucas
Written by Sarah Williams
SERIES 16
MAIL ME! INDEX