First published 1994 by Collins Crime an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. This edition published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2014. For the siblings, Harriette Mullins and Christopher Puckett Table of Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Extract from Death Before Time by Andrew Puckett 1 ‘It’s Mr Peters — I think he’s dead …’ Student Nurse Armitage looked breathlessly from myself to Mary … then we were moving across the ward as fast as we could without actually running. ‘Screens,’ Mary said to Armitage as she hit the alarm at the end of the bed, and Armitage drew the curtains around us. Mary had stripped away his pyjama jacket and I reconnected him to the monitors, although I already knew we were too late. There’s something about a dead person’s face; not just the slackness of mouth and jaw, but the way the eyes are focused on to something not of this world … I started external massage on his heart, putting all my weight on to the heels of my hands on his chest … I was briefly aware of the arrival of the crash team, then felt hands on my shoulders and a voice said in my ear, ‘I’ll take over now, Jo.’ Stephen Wall, our senior registrar.
