The Police Doctor’s Secret

by Marion Lennox

  ‘It stops sunburn,’ she told him, correctly interpreting his look of astonishment. ‘I coat myself like a rissole and, hey, cheap sun protection.’

  ‘Have some lobster,’ he said faintly, and she smiled and took a dollop of the lovely white flesh straight from the shell.

  ‘Yum. Heaven.’

  It was all he could do not to stare. She was growing lovelier and lovelier.

  ‘Wine?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You don’t drink?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not wine?’

  ‘Not alcohol,’ she told him. ‘My mother had a problem. There’s heaps of medical research saying alcoholism is a genetic trait. I figured early I could do without the risk.’

  ‘You went out with Grant but you didn’t drink?’ More and more he was feeling stunned.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you used other things to make up for it,’ he said, and her hand stilled in the process of taking the lobster meat to her mouth.

  There was a moment’s silence while she appeared to consider how to answer him. And finally she forced her hand onward. Forcing herself to relax. Seemingly forcing herself not to slap him.

  ‘This lobster isn’t as good as I thought it would be,’ she said. ‘I think we should finish it fast and go home.’

  She showered and went straight to her bedroom, and he didn’t blame her. He’d messed it. He shouldn’t be sorry, he decided-after all, her actions six years back were unforgivable and she should never be allowed to forget them-but all the same…

  He showered himself, and did a ward round, and tried to do some paperwork, but all he could think of was the look of blind pain as he’d accused her.

  But you used other things to make up for it.

  It had been an appalling thing to say.

  It was the truth. She’d killed his twin.

  No. Grant had been in it up to his neck. The accident report had said that Grant had obviously been drinking. They hadn’t breathalysed him because he hadn’t been driving, but it had been clear. That was probably why he hadn’t had the sense to agree to X-rays, and it was certainly why he’d been stupid enough to allow a clearly drug-influenced Sarah to take the wheel.

  Could he ever stop thinking about it? He must. He had work to do.

  He had a life to live.

  The phone call came through at about nine-thirty and Alistair called Sarah out of her bedroom to take it. She’d obviously decided sleeping naked in this house was a bad idea. She emerged wearing pale pink pyjamas-cute ones-and fluffy slippers. Her pyjamas had clouds all over them, and her soft auburn hair swished against the silk of her pyjamas as she stalked past him to take the phone.

  He was being sent to Coventry, he realised and thought suddenly that Sarah was really cute when she was angry.

  She was also businesslike. She had a pad and pencil in her hand as she emerged. The call was from the crime squad in Sydney-the team who’d done the cross-matching of locals with criminal records for her. The call took a while, and her notes were extensive at the end of it.

  Alistair was brushing the sand out of Flotsam’s coat while she talked, trying not to listen. Trying not to think how cute she looked. She put down the phone and started back for her room.

  ‘Can I help?’ he said softly, and she hesitated. But he knew she needed help, regardless of the fact that neither of them wanted to be near each other.

  ‘You have a list of locals with some sort of police record,’ he told her. ‘That’s no use at all without local knowledge. I have a lot more of that than Barry does.’

  She sighed and swung round to face him. Her gorgeous hair swished against the silk again. He shouldn’t even be thinking how beautiful it was-but it was-and he was!

  ‘I’m not supposed to show lists of criminal convictions to you. It’s unethical.’

  ‘You’d rather go through them with Barry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then. What use is a list of possibilities without local knowledge? I know where they live, whether they’re dead or not, whether there’s anything to say they can’t be involved.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Go on,’ he said, frustrated. ‘You know you need to. If we get this over then we can go back to hating each other afterwards. Agreed?’

  She glared-but she was obviously stuck. He had a point and she obviously knew it. ‘Fine,’ she said at last. ‘Can we go through them now?’

  ‘I’m ready when you are. Shall I make some tea?’

  ‘I’ll make my own tea,’ she snapped. ‘I’m here to work. Nothing else. Tonight was a big, big mistake. Work or nothing, Alistair. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  So they sat and went through the list. One after the other. And somehow they kept their minds on the job at hand. Somehow.

  Luckily there were things on the list that were really distracting.

  ‘Hilda Biggins has a criminal record?’ Alistair stared down at the list, astounded. ‘She’s the head of the Country Women’s Association. I’d have sworn she’s never had so much as a parking ticket in her life.’

  ‘It says here she stole four bricks from a building site when she was a student,’ Sarah told him. ‘Thirty years ago. I bet she used them to make bookshelves or something really minor, and here it is, still showing up thirty years later. What a way to get a conviction. It’s probably shocked her into leading a blameless life since.’

  ‘I guess we can cross her off our list, then.’

  ‘Unless she’s been harbouring a secret resentment all these years,’ Sarah said thoughtfully. ‘Four bricks and she was caught. Resentment builds. She spends a life under cover, making pumpkin scones and running cake stalls, and then-wham-big-time crime. You haven’t noticed her buying any dark sunglasses lately, have you?’

  Alistair grinned. Sarah really was a chameleon, he thought. When she wasn’t remembering the past she was just…enchanting. He could see how his twin had fallen so heavily for her.

  He could see how he could fall just as heavily. How he already had…

  No. He was trying really hard not to see any such thing.

  ‘No sunglasses,’ he managed, somehow managing to focus on Hilda. ‘Actually, I think she’s in Sydney at the moment, visiting a daughter who’s just had a baby.’

  ‘Aha! That’ll be a ruse. She’s probably recruiting hit-men as we speak.’

  He choked at the thought of the buxom and matronly Hilda with dark glasses and hit-men. The tension eased and they worked their way through the list with the bitterness of the past somehow set aside.

  It took a while.

  ‘I’m really not supposed to be showing you this,’ Sarah told him, growing more and more uncomfortable as Alistair looked at a more recent conviction for assault against the name of yet another pillar of the community. Alistair nodded with a certain amount of sympathy.

  ‘I know you’re not. And of course I won’t use them. But Herbert Storridge…’ He frowned. ‘I’ve been a bit worried about Herbert’s wife and kids, and this makes me even more worried. Amy Storridge has a haunted air, and last month one of the kids had a broken arm that didn’t sound right. Herbert’s a stalwart of the church, but he’s never seemed…well, honest, if you like. Now here’s a jail sentence for assault and it’s only three years back. Just before he moved here. I might make enquiries. And keep an eye…’

  ‘But he’s not our problem,’ Sarah said gently.

  ‘He’s my problem. Or at least his wife and kids are.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s neat for you, isn’t it? Compartmentalise one problem, solve it or file it and then move on. Country medicine isn’t like that.’ Then, at her raised eyebrows, he grimaced, acknowledging priorities. ‘But you’re right. We need to focus.’ He looked down again at the list. ‘What about Howard Skinner?’

  ‘Howard Skinner?’

  ‘He’s on your list.’ Alistair thought about it. ‘He’s a possibility. He’s come
up with a conviction for fraud six years back. It must have been a fairly major fraud as he got two years’ jail.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Alistair said. ‘He’s overseer of a property about thirty miles from here. The place is owned by an international conglomerate that never goes near the place. Since the last drought they’ve hardly stocked it-it’s been let go. It’s my belief it’ll soon be sold. But meanwhile Howard lives there alone.’

  ‘It’s a bit of an odd job,’ Sarah said thoughtfully. ‘How did he get it? Overseer to an outback cattle property when you’ve been a fraudster? I’d have thought they’d run a check for criminal convictions.’

  ‘Overseeing derelict properties is a bit of a thankless task,’ Alistair said. ‘Sitting out in a dust bowl all by yourself, preventing squatters and vandals wrecking the place. Most owners have to take who they can get. It’s hard enough to attract employees to the prosperous stations.’

  ‘Do you know Howard?’

  ‘I treat him for gout. He’s a loner. Drinks a bit, but who can blame him?’

  ‘Where does he get his supplies?’

  ‘The local store, I imagine. He comes in once a fortnight or so.’

  ‘Is the storekeeper a helpful type?’

  Alistair grinned at that. ‘That’ll be Max Hogg. Max will be so helpful you need to put aside the entire morning to be helped.’

  ‘I’ll wander into the store tomorrow,’ Sarah said thoughtfully, staring down at the list.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if Howard’s involved in people-smuggling, he’ll need more than one can of baked beans a day. He looks our most likely prospect. A guy on his own on a disused property. People could be taken there and given a crash course in assimilation. Fitted out with false documents and then taken on to cities or other rural communities. Maybe even bled into industries where cheap labour is short. It’s a possibility.’

  ‘It’s a long shot.’

  ‘It’s better than doing nothing.’ She looked up from the list and her green eyes flashed fire. ‘You don’t know how frustrating it is. Those people-if they’re who I think they are, if my suppositions are correct-they’re in a foreign land. They’ll be scared stiff and they’ll be wounded.’

  ‘The searchers are doing the best they can.’

  ‘They won’t want to be found.’ Sarah sighed and rose, stretching cat-like. ‘I’m pooped. I need my bed. But tomorrow I’ll talk to the store owner and then I’ll pay a visit to your Howard. If I can organise transport.’

  ‘You’ll go out there alone?’

  ‘Yeah. If I can borrow some transport. I’ll figure out some pretext for dropping in.’ She grinned. ‘Guys are usually nice to me when I drop in.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, before he could stop himself, and her smile faded.

  ‘Nope. That wouldn’t be just a tourist being a nosy parker. It’d make him suspicious.’

  ‘I don’t know what you hope to achieve.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ she agreed. ‘But if I could find out who they are…if I could find out their nationality…I could get interpreters up here. I could get a paper drop in their own language, telling them that illegal arrival isn’t a hanging offence and we’ll look after them first and ask questions later. I could do… I don’t know. Something.’

  He stared at her and then rose slowly to his feet. ‘You care, don’t you?’

  ‘Why ever would I not?’

  He thought back to the Sarah he’d met six years ago. Not the Sarah whose first impression had been so wonderful, but the Sarah whose image he’d held in his head for six long years. A Sarah who took party drugs; who was rich and spoiled; who cared for nothing but herself.

  Had she changed-or had she always been like this but he hadn’t been able to see?

  He was seeing now. He was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. She was gazing up at him, her eyes questioning, and suddenly…suddenly-irrationally-crazily-she was just there-she was so close-she was so beautiful and he wanted to so much…

  Stupidly, senselessly, and for no reason at all, he took her into his arms and kissed her.

  What was it supposed to be? A kiss of what? A kiss of why? There was absolutely no logic behind this kiss-no reason at all that this couple were being hauled in together as if they were magnetised, magnet to metal, irresistible force meeting irresistible object.

  Whatever the logic-or the lack of logic-what was between them now was unmistakable. It was a full-blown explosion. The moment Sarah’s lips met Alistair’s the whole world changed.

  Or stopped.

  What was happening here? This was crazy, Alistair thought as he felt passion surge between them. There’d been nothing but businesslike efficiency and a coldness caused by shadows that the past could never eradicate.

  But now… Now he was holding her, kissing her, this slip of a girl with her wondrous green eyes, with her glorious hair, with her beautiful silk pyjamas…

  He was kissing Sarah.

  And there was the nub of it. She was Sarah. No more and no less. Sarah. She was kissing him back, he thought dazedly, and she was kissing him as he wanted to be kissed. Her lips were opening slightly under his mouth. Her body was yielding to his, her breasts moulding against his chest. Her arms were holding him as he was holding her.

  She was on fire!

  No. It was he who was on fire.

  The heat of the moment was almost overpowering. His body felt as if it was melting inside, being consumed, transformed, changing to something he hardly recognised.

  He wanted this woman and he wanted her with a force that was outside his imagining.

  Sarah…

  His hands were moving almost of their own volition. They were holding her waist, hauling her close. Closer. And, joyously, she was yielding. Yielding with such sweetness. Her lips were fastened on his. He could feel her tongue against his mouth. He could taste her…

  Sarah. Her name was a prayer. A joyous refrain. A desperate, aching need.

  What was happening? How had this started?

  But he knew how it had started. He knew. It had started six long years ago, when he’d first stared down at her on the floor of the kids’ ward and he’d fallen in love.

  In love.

  The words slammed into some dark recess of his brain, registered, shocked.

  Love.

  She was his twin’s fiancée. She was Grant’s love. She had nothing to do with him.

  She was a part of him that had died along with Grant. A searing, aching pain that could never go away.

  An impossibility.

  And she felt it. He could sense the moment when she tensed and moved back, just a fraction, so she could see his face. Her eyes resting on his were huge in the shadowed light cast by the table lamp. She looked ethereal. Not of this world.

  She’d destroyed Grant, he thought desperately. She could well destroy him.

  ‘What…what do you think you’re doing?’ she asked, in a voice that was distinctly tremulous, and he tried to collect himself. He tried to think.

  Had he kissed her against her will? How had this craziness started?

  He hardly knew. Somehow he dragged himself back. They stared at each other and his horror was reflected in Sarah’s eyes. She was as appalled as he was, he thought. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him.

  But she had.

  And he’d kissed her.

  ‘It’s hormones,’ he managed, and his voice came out a sort of hoarse croak. ‘I never meant…’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  ‘It’s those pyjamas.’

  ‘It’s because you look like Grant.’

  Yeah. There it was.

  Grant.

  He lay between them like a physical barrier that they could never overcome. Alistair’s twin. The other half of his whole.

  Sarah’s fiancée.

  ‘I need to go to bed,’ she whispered, and he nodded.

  ‘So do I.’


  ‘Goodnight.’ And she didn’t wait for an answer. She turned and she fled.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHAT followed was a really long night.

  Sarah tossed and turned until dawn. Flotsam came and joined her in the bedroom for a while, and she was really grateful for the little dog’s company. Then the dog padded off down the corridor and she heard the bedsprings creak in the other bedroom, Alistair’s voice murmuring a greeting.

  Flotsam was obviously going back and forth between the two of them.

  An hour later Flotsam wuffled back. He snuggled in and Sarah thought, It’s as if he wants us to be together. Man and woman with dog between.

  Yeah. Great. Really ridiculous fantasy.

  She desperately wanted to get up and make a cup of tea-anything to make the night go faster-but she was afraid that Alistair would have the same idea. She heard him rise a couple of times. The phone rang once-someone looking for advice on a child with croup. Through these thin walls she could hear everything. The child was obviously on an outstation a long way from town.

  She listened to Alistair’s patient, measured advice; she waited for him to hang up but then frowned to herself as he didn’t. She realised he was waiting. He was holding onto the end of the line to see if his instructions were effective.

  She imagined herself as the mother, on an outstation somewhere, maybe hundreds of miles from town. Croup was just plain scary. She’d be desperately worried as the child fought for breath. In the city there’d be a brief call for advice and then a trip into hospital or a call to the ambulance.

  Here the mother was obviously too far away for those things to happen. She had to cope herself-but Alistair was staying with her every step of the way.

  Standing in the corridor in the middle of the night and just being with her.

  There was intermittent conversation. The mother must be coming back and forth to the phone. Alistair stayed on the line for about half an hour, and by what he was saying Sarah could tell the breathing had finally eased.

  She found herself relaxing. If she was alone with a sick child it’d be Alistair she’d want at the end of her phone, she realised.