The Police Doctor's Secret

‘It was the obvious thing to think if we didn’t want to put him down,’ Alistair told her, deadpan. ‘Anyway, we treated his leg—and a tricky little piece of surgery it was, too. Broken tib and fib with resultant complications. Then he had to stay here in these quarters just in case quarantine was called for, and afterwards…’

‘You couldn’t get rid of him,’ Sarah said on a note of something akin to amazement, and Alistair scooped casserole onto three plates and managed a rueful smile.

‘See? I’m not always the evil twin. And as for putting him down…could you?’

‘No.’ She looked doubtfully at the dinner plates. And then at Flotsam, whose short, stumpy tail was doing helicopter rotations.

I’m not always the evil twin.

Did he know what Grant used to say about him?

It didn’t matter. Not any more. She had a job to do here, and a little dog to concentrate on to break the tension. ‘Does he sit up at the dinner table, too?’

‘He’s fussy who he dines with,’ Alistair said ambiguously, and carried the dog’s plate through the screen door out to the veranda. He set it down on the step while Sarah watched through the screen. ‘Here, mate—you can eat in privacy out here.’

Sarah stared. And felt her anger build. Whew. There was only one way to meet this hostility, she decided. Head-on. ‘Are you suggesting you’d rather eat out there, too?’ she demanded, and Alistair appeared to think about it.

‘Maybe. But I’m hungry. I’ll eat fast.’

‘Meaning you want as little contamination from me as possible?’

‘You said it, not me, lady,’ Alistair told her. ‘But let’s just leave it there.’

The silence was deafening. They ate, and the tension was growing all the time. Sarah stirred the casserole—which was some sort of indiscriminate stew—and wished she could be anywhere but here.

One mistake…

No. It had been more than one mistake. She’d been hauled into Grant’s world. She’d been caught in the bright bubble of laughter and excitement and sheer buzz, and she hadn’t looked below the surface until it was far, far too late.

She’d met his family.

She remembered the night Grant had given her the engagement ring. He’d taken her up to the top of the Rialto Tower in Melbourne, where the lights of all the world had spread out beneath them.

‘Now, when all the world is at our feet, I’m at your feet,’ he’d told her, and he’d knelt and given her the most exquisite diamond.

The moment had been something out of a fairytale. It had seemed…fantastic. But she’d looked down at that gorgeous laughing face and she’d felt a stir of disquiet. It had happened so fast—it had been as if they were playacting. Was there any substance there?

But she’d accepted. Of course she’d accepted. He had to be special. After that wonderful Christmas she’d wanted so much to be a part of his world. So she’d worn his ring, and she’d loved him and laughed at his jokes and been carried along in his world, until reality had finally hit and she’d seen what really lay beneath. And she’d realised the real reason she’d agreed to marry Grant.

Loving one twin was no basis for marriage to another.

Crazy thought. It was a crazy time, long past. She needed to focus on now. On what Alistair was saying.

‘You don’t wear his ring.’

Alistair was watching her from the other side of the table. His voice was carefully neutral—neither approving nor disapproving.

‘I thought you wanted to stay impersonal.’

‘So I do.’ His eyes stayed calm—watchful and appraising. ‘But I’m still wondering.’

‘I’m not in another relationship, if that’s what you mean,’ she told him. ‘But, no, I’m not still pining for Grant. I’ve moved on. Don’t you think it’s time you did, too?’

‘I don’t think you can move on from Grant.’

‘He’d have liked to hear you say that,’ she said, and there was no way she could keep the note of bitterness from her voice. ‘He had us all dancing from his strings. You included.’

‘I never did what he wanted.’

‘No, but you judged on his behalf.’

‘You killed him.’

It was like a punch to the face. Dear God…

She took a great lungful of air and it wasn’t enough. She found her eyes filling. Numbly, blindly, she stood.

What had she told him? That she’d moved on?

She’d done no such thing. The pain was right there, waiting to slam back. And it slammed back now.

She was not going to let this man see her cry.

‘Are…are the blood samples here yet?’ she whispered, turning away so he couldn’t see her face. Taking her plate to the sink. Avoiding his gaze.

‘Not yet.’ The brief flash of fury had faded. There was a trace of something else in his voice now. Confusion? She didn’t know. She couldn’t care. ‘They won’t be here until the searchers return to town.’

‘When will they be back?’ she managed.

‘Any time. I’d assumed they’d be in by now.’

‘Then I’ll wait in my bedroom,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for dinner. It was better than the company. Let me know when the blood samples arrive.’

Enough. Her voice wobbled dangerously and she turned before the first tear could fall. She was moving out through the door before he could speak.

‘Sarah…’ It was a tentative call of her name. He sounded unsure. Concerned.

But she didn’t turn. She couldn’t. She had to get out of here right now.

As Alistair cleared up the casserole he swore. Over and over again. What was going on here? What had Sarah said? That the casserole was better than the company.

Maybe she was right.

He really had to do something about Mrs Granson’s housekeeping, he told himself, in a vain attempt to distract himself from what was really important. The casserole was disgusting.

Right. The casserole was disgusting. Which made him…what? Even more disgusting?

No. He refused to accept judgement from someone like Sarah. What right did she have to criticise?

What right did she have to look as she did? As if he’d struck her—hard.

He thought suddenly of that last time he’d seen her. At the cemetery as they’d buried Grant. His parents had been inconsolable. And Sarah had appeared, wobbling on crutches, looking pathetic. She’d even tried to smile.

He’d been so…wild! Wild with grief at such an appalling waste. Such an appalling loss. At what had seemed such an ultimate betrayal of how he and his parents had felt about her.

So he’d pushed her away with his hurtful words and she’d looked just as she looked now. Like a wounded animal who’d been hurt even unto death.

Six years ago, standing beside his brother’s open grave, he’d felt an almost unbearable urge to recant. To take back what had been said. To follow her and take her into his arms.

He hadn’t done it then and he was darned if he’d do it now. But once again that urge was there.

What right did she have to look so wounded?

At his feet, Flotsam was gazing up at him, a worried look on his scraggy little face, and Alistair abandoned the clearing up, scooped the pup into his arms and took him out onto the veranda. The sea always had the capacity to soothe him. Maybe it could tonight.

He sat on the back step and Flotsam kept right on looking at him. Was he imagining it, or was there reproach in the little dog’s eyes?

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he told him. ‘She killed my twin.’

Flotsam cocked one ear and kept on looking. Explain, his look said. Or maybe his look didn’t say any such thing, but Alistair needed to explain it to himself, to go over the whole thing one more time.

As he’d gone over it thousands of times before.

‘They were drunk,’ Alistair said wearily. ‘Or rather Grant was drunk. He used to party heavily. And drive fast. All the time. Not like you and me, mate, with our nice sensible truck. Grant had a Ferrari, and he and Sarah used to speed around the town looking like something out of Who Magazine. Heaven help you if you got in Grant’s way. What he wanted he got. And Sarah…she was so desirable. Everyone loved Sarah. Everyone. Because of her father she was famous. She had money, looks—everything. That’s why Grant wanted her—why he wanted to marry her when he’d never shown any sign of marrying any other woman in his past—and there were plenty of those.’

He was being sidetracked. Flotsam was giving him a sideways look, as if this wasn’t explaining anything. Which it wasn’t.

‘Okay. Cut to the chase. She drove his car,’ Alistair said heavily. ‘Sure, she was under the legal alcohol limit, but she was on drugs. Sedatives, uppers, downers—I don’t know exactly what. They must have been legal prescriptive drugs or she would have been charged, but it doesn’t matter. Grant used to use them, too. I thought…we hoped Sarah might influence him. Stop him using them. But, no, it seems she was just as bad as he was. So he was drunk and she was drugged. And she drove him home in that damned car. Not over the legal limit, but too fast for the icy road they were travelling. They were showing off, the pair of them, and they crashed.’

Flotsam was looking worried now, as well he might. There was such anger in Alistair’s voice. Such unresolved fury.

‘Of course they crashed,’ Alistair continued, his fury fading to a deadly weariness which was almost worse. ‘And Grant died. I can’t tell you what that feels like, can I, Flots? You’d need to be a twin to know. Grant and I…we didn’t get on, but he was my twin. Part of me. I can’t get away from that. And she killed him. She had concussion and lacerations and Grant got death. The driver’s side of the car—her side—was hardly touched. Even at the end she veered so that she wouldn’t cop the impact. But Grant would. Grant did. Grant got death. He had an unstable neck fracture which wasn’t picked up and the day after the accident he died in his sleep. It killed my parents. You have no idea, Flots. You have no idea…’

Silence. Flotsam seemed to take in the enormity of what he’d been told. The little dog stirred in his arms, reached up and licked him, nose to chin.

‘Gee, thanks. A kiss better.’ He grimaced. ‘It doesn’t help.’

He sat on, the dog in his arms, staring out to sea. Was she sleeping? he thought. He shouldn’t care.

He did care.

Why had she looked like that?

It was a life skill, he thought savagely. Manipulating. She’d manipulate people as Grant had manipulated people.

The phone rang indoors and Alistair almost welcomed it. Work. Work had been his salvation in those first months after Grant died. It had been a long time since he’d felt like that. He’d grieved for Grant but he’d moved on. He’d built himself the life that he’d always wanted—as a family doctor in a community that depended on him. He had fun. He dated. He knew what he wanted from life.

Or did he?

Suddenly she was here and his whole life was tumbling about him. It’d be transitory, he told himself. Tomorrow or the next day this mystery would be cleared up and she’d be out of here. His life could resume.

Only…

Go and answer the phone, he told himself. For heaven’s sake get back to work. Leave this pain alone.

Easy to say. Impossible to do.

Sarah was reading the report for the fourth time when Alistair knocked on her bedroom door, and she was almost glad of the interruption. If she’d known it was anyone but Alistair she’d have been delighted. She was climbing walls.

How could he make her feel like this? How could he have the capacity to tear her apart all over again?’

Maybe because she’d never healed in the first place.

‘Damn him,’ she whispered. ‘Damn them all. I don’t need any of them. I’m fine by myself and I always will be. Alistair Benn can condemn me all he likes and it doesn’t affect me.’

Liar.

‘The searchers have come back,’ Alistair called. ‘They haven’t found anything but you might like to talk to the police sergeant in charge of the case.’

Of course she would. She’d like to talk to anyone but Alistair.

At least now there was work to do.

There’d been a tarpaulin on the floor of the cargo area and it was heavily bloodstained. Maybe there was enough here to work with, Sarah thought, as one of the men unfolded it for her. The blood shouldn’t have soaked in so far that she couldn’t retrieve enough to put under a slide.

The first and the most imperative medical procedure, however, was to attend to one of the team. Despite having found no one, they’d come back with a patient.

Don Fairlie, the local publican, was about sixty pounds overweight. He was supported by a mate, and by the look of exhaustion on his mate’s face it was lucky Alistair didn’t have another heart attack on his hands. As Sarah and Alistair entered the emergency department Don was groaning in pain and looking sick.

‘He tried to do some rock-hopping,’ the local police sergeant told them.

Barry. Dolphin Cove’s only policeman.

Barry Watkins needed no introduction as the representative of the law. A big man, he was muscled rather than pudgy, with the shirt of his police uniform stretched far too tight across his barrelled chest. His close-cropped hair was cut to look deliberately macho and he stood with the aggressive stance of a male who was ready for anything. Sarah recognised this stance and winced every time she saw it. To finish the whole macho image he carried a wicked-looking pistol at his hip.

Sarah, standing back as Alistair took control, thought instinctively, There’s no love lost between these two.

She could soon see why.

‘Bloody pansy,’ Barry muttered as he stared down at Don. ‘Wasting our time by breaking his arm. And we didn’t find anyone. If I could have a decent search party…’

‘We’re operating with volunteers,’ Alistair said brusquely. ‘I’ll get you something for the pain, Don, and we’ll get you through to X-ray. Meanwhile, Barry, you might like to have a talk with Dr Rose. She’s done the autopsy and has information you need.’

‘I’m glad someone has.’ The policeman shifted away from the publican and Sarah, casting a doubtful glance at the pallid and sick Don—did Alistair need help?—moved reluctantly with him. She had no choice. Alistair’s body language said he’d like to be shot of the pair of them.

Duty decreed she had to work with this policeman, though when she outlined what she’d found in the pilot’s body she discovered her reaction to the policeman was exactly the same as Alistair’s. Distaste. Even dismay.

‘Drug-runners.’ The big man’s eyes lightened and his hand went instinctively to his gun. ‘You mean the people we’re looking for might be serious crims?’

‘If everyone aboard the plane was involved in running drugs I hardly see why the pilot needed to carry so much more in his stomach,’ Sarah said mildly, but he shook his head.

‘Maybe he was trying to smuggle a bit more on the side. Or maybe they were drug-runners simply paying our man to pilot the plane and he was trying to make more profit that he should. Any way you look at it they’ll have drugs. That’s why they’ll have run. There’s no other logical explanation. What’s the bet they’re hiding up in the hills with a planeload of drugs? They won’t come out until we stop searching.’

‘Whoever they are, they’re wounded,’ Sarah told him, and he nodded. He had to agree with her there.

‘Yeah, that’s right. And that’s our best shot at making them break cover. They could stay for weeks up there and we won’t find them. We’re at the end of the wet season, so there’s fresh water, and everywhere you look there’s oysters.’

‘Oysters make a difficult meal for wounded people,’ Alistair said over his shoulder. ‘They’re really hard to break open. And they’re hardly a balanced diet.’

‘Yeah, but they’ll be desperate,’ Barry reasoned. ‘They must be hiding something. Sound carries everywhere up there. They must know we’re looking.’ He fingered his gun again and Sarah winced. She had no sympathy for drug-runners, but this man made her really uneasy.

Behind her Alistair was administering morphine. She wanted to help. Increasingly she felt a compulsion to do what she’d been trained to do when things were out of control. Clear the room of everyone but patients and staff.

And as if on cue came the order. ‘Can everyone leave?’

She blinked. Alistair was obviously feeling the same as she was. ‘Don’s hurt and he needs peace,’ he said, and she could only agree.

‘I need to talk to the pathologist,’ Barry said, with more than a hint of belligerence.

‘My report’s here,’ she told him. ‘I talked my post mortem examination to tape. You’ll need time to listen. I’ll help Dr Benn with Don’s arm. I’ll do the testing that I can on the blood samples from the tarpaulin and then I’ll give you a ring to let you know the results. Dr Benn has your phone number?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘She’ll ring you, Barry,’ Alistair said, with more than a hint of weariness. ‘I need her help now. I need the room cleared.’ There was a nurse hovering in the background and he looked across at her. ‘Claire, can you show everyone out? Now?’

They wheeled Don through to X-ray, then took the films into the tiny viewing room next door.

‘It’s just a dislocation,’ Alistair said, and sounded relieved. As well he might. ‘I’ll give him a small dose of benzodiazepine and try and put it back. There’s no need for you to stay.’

Sarah looked at the film, her head cocked on one side, considering. ‘It’s been dislocated for a while, and he’s had to walk in a huge amount of pain. There’ll be muscles tight with spasm. You’ll be lucky if you can get it back.’

‘I can try.’

‘And I can watch,’ she said softly. ‘You have another doctor here, Alistair. I’m happy to help.’

Of course the shoulder couldn’t be reduced. Alistair checked the X-ray again, confirming an anterior dislocation without a break. He administered more morphine and valium and waited until they took effect.

‘Do it quick, Doc,’ Don said, obviously gritting his teeth.

‘I’ll try and find a bullet for you to bite on, if you like,’ Sarah told him, trying to lighten the mood for all of them. ‘Having your shoulder put back after dislocation is real hero stuff. I’ll watch and be ever so admiring.’

The publican gave her a wan grin. ‘You mean I’m not allowed to scream?’

‘Heroes never scream.’ She smiled down at him, her eyes warmly sympathetic. ‘But if you do, us heroines never tell. You can shout all you like and I’ll never tell a soul. You can even whimper and I’ll carry your awful secret to the grave.’

‘You’re a woman in a million,’ he said, then looked up at Alistair and grimaced. ‘Okay, Doc. I have my cheer squad all ready. Do your worst.’

But he couldn’t. Alistair took the big man’s arm firmly in his grasp, took a deep breath, then pulled gently and firmly, downward and outward.

Nothing.

‘Damn.’

‘You can pull harder,’ Don said bravely, and Sarah beamed at him. Yep, he definitely was hero material.

‘You are so good. But Dr Benn’s not going to try again. If the shoulder doesn’t slip in first try then there’s no use going on. The muscles will just tighten further.’ She glanced up at Alistair. ‘What do you reckon, then? Will we put the big boy to sleep?’

It made sense. The only thing stopping the shoulder slipping back into place was muscle spasm, and the way to stop that was to relax the muscles completely. Which meant a relaxant anaesthetic. The problem with that was that the patient had to be intubated. It was a two-doctor job.

‘I don’t have an anaesthetist,’ Alistair said. His lips were compressed together and Sarah could see that he hated that he’d failed. It wasn’t his fault, though. With such a big man, and with the amount of prolonged pain the man had been suffering, it was odds-on that no one could have reduced the dislocation.

‘Who normally gives anaesthetic?’ she asked.

‘No one,’ he said shortly. ‘I send patients to Cairns.’

‘And if it’s urgent?’

‘We die,’ Don told her bluntly, before Alistair could answer. ‘We’re a one-doctor town. We know that. It’s a risk we take.’ He grimaced. ‘Not that I’m intending to die, mind. And if you, miss, can give an anaesthetic, then I’d just as soon not have to wait for transport to Cairns.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ Sarah looked across at Alistair, perturbed. This was a huge responsibility he was carrying—sole doctor with no back-up. How did he cope?’

At least he didn’t have to cope now, she thought. Not alone. ‘I can give an anaesthetic,’ she told them. ‘Do you have the equipment?’

‘Yes, but…’ Alistair was frowning.

‘Or would you prefer to give the anaesthetic while I do the manipulation? You’re probably stronger, but I’m game.’

‘Hey,’ Don said, startled. ‘Game? You make it sound like it’s a Girl’s Own adventure.’

‘Of course it is,’ she told him. ‘Like lighting a fire by rubbing sticks. Only manipulating shoulders is much quicker. Have you eaten anything in the last few hours?’

‘Not since lunchtime,’ Don told them.

‘Well, then.’ Sarah turned to Alistair. ‘Do we have what we need? Can we start? Now?’

‘It’d mean he wouldn’t have to fly out.’ Alistair was staring at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted Martian antennae. ‘The locals hate the flight to Cairns. To go there for every simple operation…’

‘You should have another doctor here.’

‘Oh, right. With a district population of less than two thousand and no big town facilities? You try attracting another doctor.’

‘And yet you came?’

‘I’m different,’ he said shortly. ‘I love it.’

She gazed at him thoughtfully. Grant had derided him so much—his country hick brother who was never going to amount to anything. But he was amounting to something. Of course he was. Who was more important? she thought suddenly. The high-earning powerful neurosurgeon in a big city hospital, or the doctor who’d made a decision to earn a tenth the amount but care intensely for a tiny community like this?

‘He’s another one who came by choice,’ Don said. ‘Like me. I love the place. Unlike our representative of the police force.’

‘The locals don’t get on with Barry?’ she asked, and Don gave a derisory snort as though the thought was clearly ridiculous.

‘He’s been moved sideways against his will,’ Alistair told her, sounding unwilling to go further. But Don was only too ready to fill in the details.

‘Barry was given the choice of coming here or leaving the police force,’ Don said, his dislike sounding in every word. ‘He was involved in a high-speed police chase a couple of years back, just outside Cairns. Two twelve-year-olds in a stolen car. It was dead clear they were kids—for heaven’s sake, their heads hardly reached the top of the seat. But Barry pulled out all stops, even firing warning shots. He shot out the tyres, the kids crashed and they were killed.’

Don hesitated, and Sarah could see he was trying to balance his dislike with justice, but obviously he failed.

‘I know sometimes it’s a hard call for the police—whether they chase or pull out,’ he said slowly. ‘But what made it worse was Barry’s attitude. Some reporter gave him a few drinks after the trial and Barry’s on record as saying scum like that deserve everything they get.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘No’s right,’ the publican told her. ‘Especially as the kids came from the most appallingly underprivileged homes. They never had a chance. Anyway, Barry managed to avoid being sacked, but he was demoted and moved to where he was least likely to do media damage. So Dolphin Cove got him. He hates being here and we’d prefer no police at all. He gives the locals a hard time. I’ve got a couple of alcoholics I cope with—when they get drunk on my patch I pick ’em up and take them home. But Barry enjoys tossing them into jail. They’re fined, and who suffers from that? Their wives and kids—who go without anyway. And kids petrol-sniffing… Instead of giving them a clout on the ear and a lecture, Barry sends ’em to Cairns. To juvenile detention. They come back little criminals in the making. But meanwhile…’ He touched his arm and grimaced. ‘You’re sure you can do this?’