It was over…
Jess walked slowly back into the house and found the family in tears. The whole family. Mum, Dad and six children. Even the baby was wailing, though Jess wouldn’t mind betting that he didn’t know what for.
‘I’ll arrange for someone to collect Matilda’s body in the morning,’ she said helplessly and set off a fresh paroxysm of sobs.
‘We’ll bury her here, lass,’ Ray told her through choked-back tears. ‘This is her home.’
There was nothing more for Jessie to do. Helplessly she packed her bags and beat a retreat. Ray followed her out to the car.
‘You know what’s really getting me?’ he said. ‘We didn’t keep any of her foals. The last foal she had was a little beauty. The kids begged me to keep her-but horses cost money and I said no. Now I wish…’ He rubbed a grimy hand across wet cheeks and sniffed. ‘Eh, well…’
If the other fishermen could see Ray Benn now they’d be astounded, Jess thought as she retired back into her little car. A tough male-with a marshmallow middle.
It was enough to make her want to weep herself.
The death of the mare stayed with her all the way home. The hospital was quiet. Frank had taken Harry home that morning. Niall had admitted a child with asthma but Geraldine was coping competently-and by the sound of it the child slept.
Niall and Paige must have gone back to the vineyard.
Jess fed her little animals, then sat on the floor and talked to them for a while. Bed seemed unutterably lonely.
Ten o’clock on a Friday night.
Nothing in front of her but lonely bed.
Don’t be so stupid, she told herself savagely. Nothing but bed! What else do you want, for heaven’s sake? Someone to share your bed with you? You have to be crazy.
She was definitely crazy.
Yes! her heart was screaming for all it was worth. That’s exactly what she wanted. Someone to share…
Someone?
She wanted Niall.
Jess went drearily to bed but she couldn’t sleep,
If she’d accepted Niall Mountmarche’s invitation she could be out at the vineyard right this minute, drinking coffee by the fire and watching Niall Mountmarche smile…
‘You’re a stupid, senseless twit,’ she said savagely into the night and it was as much as Jess could do not to burst into tears like the Benns.
The phone rang an hour after she turned off her lights.
Jess groped in the darkness for the phone, swore as she knocked over the lamp and had to fumble on the floor for the light switch. She finally picked up the receiver on the tenth ring.
‘Yes?’
‘Problem, Jess.’ It was the clipped voice of Sergeant Russell.
Jess sat up, her confusion fading. If Sergeant Russell said that there was a problem, there always was.
‘How can I help?’
‘I’ve a domestic out at the Simmonses’. It seems Ethel and Barry are having a go at each other-again-but it’s got a bit out of hand. They’re both injured and that damned mutt of Ethel’s-you know the Rottweiler?-won’t let anyone near her. Can you come?’
‘I’ll come. How badly are they hurt?’
‘I don’t know,’ the sergeant admitted. ‘All I know is Barry’s unconscious and I can’t get near Ethel. I’ve called Doc Mountmarche and he’s on his way. The sooner you’re both here the happier I’ll be.’
‘Give me five minutes.’
Jess dressed fast, pulling on jeans, sweater and leather shoes. She grabbed leather gloves from the wardrobe and considered.
She had a flexi-rod which usually enabled her to handle aggressive dogs-a rod with a loop at one end which, when slipped over the dog’s head, could be tightened fast, thus holding the dog at more than teeth’s reach from the handler.
Maybe…
She thought-and then packed tranquilliser and a couple of barbs. In a case like this, a tranquilliser dart might be more effective.
There was an hour to go before her two little animals were due to be fed and they were getting stronger every day. If they missed one night feed it wouldn’t kill them.
OK.
She took a deep breath, the adrenalin surging at the thought of what lay ahead. At the thought that somewhere out in the night Niall Mountmarche would be gearing up for the same emergency as Jess.
Niall Mountmarche has nothing to do with the way I’m feeling, she said to herself crossly as she made her way out to the car.
Liar.
Niall Mountmarche had everything to do with it.
He beat her to the Simmonses’.
The Simmonses lived in a ramshackle house on the edge of town. It was a dump. There was rubbish-everything from last week’s shopping bags to a couple of old car bodies-strewn around the grounds.
Mrs Simmons was a good-hearted woman who’d been walked all over by an aggressive husband in the thirty years of their marriage. Jess had seen a little of her. She kept a horse in stables at the rear of the house and many times Jess suspected that she spent the housekeeping money on her horse and her dog-not herself. The woman looked as if she was suffering from malnutrition.
Ethel had given up on keeping either herself or her home presentable.
Barry Simmons wasn’t suffering from the same malnutrition as his wife. Barry was heavily overweight, mostly brought on by too much booze. He was supposed to be a fisherman but his evil temper meant that he was now almost unemployable.
He was hardly one of Jessie’s favourite people.
So what had happened tonight?
Jess pulled up on the road outside the Simmonses’. The police car had its lights shining directly at the house and the flashing light on top of the car was still beaming iridescent blue. The ambulance was parked behind it. Niall had decided the vehicle was more use staying with him and had taken it back to the vineyard. He must have driven it here.
The house itself was in darkness, though there seemed to be a lantern of some sort glinting close to the front door. A couple of neighbours were standing well back from the house, whispering among themselves. They watched Jess from a safe distance, their stance proclaiming clearly their desire to remain uninvolved.
From the house came low, menacing growls. Ethel’s dog?
Why wasn’t the Rottweiler outside?
Where was everyone?
Jess collected her gear and picked her way cautiously through the rubbish-strewn yard-keeping a weather eye out for stray Rottweilers as she went. A huge black shadow launching itself at her throat from the darkness was hardly a great way to spend a night.
Or to end a night…
She didn’t make it to the front door. As soon as Jess passed the worst of the overgrown garden she found where the action was. To the left, against the wall of the building and behind a tangle of bushes, was Barry Simmons, Sergeant Russell-and Niall.
Barry Simmons looked dead.
Jess stared down at his unconscious form. What on earth had happened?
There was a chainsaw lying on the ground and a gaping, jagged hole sawn roughly from the wall of the house.
‘Sergeant Russell?’ Jess said tentatively and the policeman glanced up from Barry Simmons’s inert form and clambered speedily to his feet.
‘Jess…Thank God you’re here.’ It sounded as though he really meant it.
‘What’s happened?’ Jess stared down to where Niall was working on the prone body of Barry Simmons. The big man was sprawled limply on the grass, his massive frame unmoving.
‘He’s alive,’ the policeman said quickly. ‘He’s drunk as a skunk, though, Jess-and Doc Mountmarche reckons he’s electrocuted himself.’
‘Electrocuted…’
Niall looked up then, his expression drawn and grim in the light of the lantern beside him.
‘His pulse is strong enough, Jess. There’s a nasty burn on one hand-but nothing that should kill him. It’s my guess it’s alcohol that’s keeping him knocked out.’
‘But what happened?’ Jess asked again
. She stared at the hole in the wall. Here was Ethel’s Rottweiler. The big dog was staring out through the jagged cavity, snarling at all of them. If he wished he could lunge at any minute.
He could take a piece out of any one of them.
‘The neighbours say there was a huge domestic earlier tonight,’ the policeman told her, keeping one eye firmly fixed on the dog. ‘It seems Ethel locked Barry out. Barry went down to the pub, got himself tanked and came home to a locked house.’ He gestured to the hole in the wall. ‘So he thought of a brand-new way of getting into a locked house.’
‘By chainsaw?’ Jess asked incredulously.
‘By chainsaw. Chop a ruddy great hole in your wife’s bedroom wall. And while you’re doing it, chop through the electric wiring as well.’
‘Clever.’ Jess looked down at the dog. ‘Is there live wiring in the hole?’
‘We turned the electricity off to the whole place. The service people are on their way.’
Jess looked again at the dog-and then down at Niall. ‘How can I help?’ she asked him.
Niall shrugged and rose. ‘Give us a suggestion about the dog.’ He looked down at Barry with an expression of distaste on his face. ‘Barry’ll live-whether he deserves to or not after such a damned fool stunt I need to see Ethel.’
‘She’s still inside?’
‘She’s been hurt,’ Niall told her, ‘but I don’t know how badly. Sergeant Russell shone his flashlight through the window. She’s in there and she’s alive. He saw her move-but she’s on the floor and she’s not responding. We can’t get in because of the dog.’
‘I could shoot the mutt,’ Sergeant Russell said grimly. ‘Not through the hole in the wall-that would risk putting a bullet into Ethel-but if we break the window then I could get a bullet into the dog before it took a piece out of me. But…’
‘But Ethel loves her dog,’ Jess protested gently. ‘And it’s done nothing wrong. It’s been trained to protect her and that’s what it’s doing. She won’t want it dead, as well as everything else that’s happened to her.’
‘Too bad if she’s bleeding to death.’
‘Can you see if she’s bleeding?’
‘No.’ The policeman shook his head. ‘I can’t see much at all. We daren’t turn the electricity on again to give us power.’
‘The electricity can’t have killed her,’ Niall told Jess, ‘if she was moving afterwards…’
‘She looked like she was crawling back behind the bed when I saw her,’ the policeman explained. ‘I called out to her and she just sort of went limp. And then nothing…’
‘Where’s the window?’ Jess asked.
She looked closely at the dog’s snarling face through the hole, considering her options. To snare the dog with the flexi-rod through the hole in the wall was almost an impossibility. The dog just had to move back every time the rod went near-and as for clambering through the hole…
Not with those waiting teeth.
‘Round the side.’ The policeman took Jessie’s bag. ‘After you, Doc.’
‘Hurry, Jess,’ Niall said quietly. ‘Shoot if necessary. If Ethel’s had a solid shock then maybe her heart’s given out…’
Jess went.
Thirty seconds later Jess was shining a torch through the window into the darkened bedroom.
There was very little to see. There was a crumpled form on the bare floor, half hidden by the bed. The dog was still bristling and snarling through the hole in the wall but directing the odd nervous glance in the direction of the torch’s beam.
Nothing else…
‘If I went into the house through the door I’d have to kill the dog,’ the policeman said nervously. ‘And at that close range I’m not at all sure I’d kill it before it had a good go at me.’
‘No.’ Jess shook her head. ‘You’d be asking for trouble. But if we broke the top pane of the window the dog couldn’t reach.’
‘And?’
Jess bent down, fumbling in her bag. ‘Tranquilliser dart,’ she said briefly. ‘My favourite toy. I use them to tranquillise wild animals-for instance, if I need to transport a full grown kangaroo or give it antibiotics. If I can just aim it right…’ She loaded the dart and looked up at Sergeant Russell’s broad shoulders. ‘Can I stand on you?’
He grinned. ‘I knew there was a reason we had a nice slender girl vet.’ He looked behind Jess to where Niall had appeared. ‘Ready to give us a hand, Doc?’
‘I’m ready. Barry’s stable,’ Niall said briefly. ‘His breathing’s regular. I’d rather send him to the lock-up than the hospital-there’ll be a fair mess when he wakes, at a guess. I can dress his hand at the lock-up.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ the policeman grimaced. Then his frown deepened as a steady groan came from where Barry had been left. It seemed that he was emerging from his drunken stupor.
‘I’d go back and keep him under control if I were you, Sergeant,’ Niall said blandly. ‘There’s no guarantee he won’t pick up the chainsaw and keep slicing. If we hadn’t turned off the electricity he could kill the lot of us.’
Sergeant Russell swore. He looked from Niall to Jess.
‘You can cope here?’
‘We can cope,’ Niall assured him. ‘Just keep bully boy out of our way. Now, Jess, what do you want done?’
Two minutes later the problem was solved.
Niall smashed the pane from the top window, cleared the broken glass and lifted Jess high so that she could see.
It was a weird feeling-to perch on Niall Mountmarche’s shoulders. He held her effortlessly, moving not an inch as she carefully aimed her dart gun.
The dog was moving back and forth from hole to smashed window, frantic with anxiety. Jessie’s heart went out to the big animal. He might be vicious but he believed that someone was trying to hurt his mistress.
Niall could see through the lower pane. He held the torch unwaveringly on the animal’s body as it paced back and forth.
Jess could shoot the dark about eight feet. It was just a matter of waiting until the dog paused. If she could just place the dart where she wanted in the dim light…
‘Here, boy,’ she called as he paced away from them. ‘Come on…Over here…’
The dog launched himself against the window and than sank back, bewildered as he realised that he couldn’t reach Jessie’s high perch. For ten long seconds he stood, trying to figure out his next move.
Jess raised the dart to her lips, took careful aim at the dog’s broad flank and blew.
The dart sank home right on target.
It took moments to work.
The dog snarled, backed away, snarled some more-and then staggered.
It tried another half-hearted growl but its body wasn’t working to command. The dog took three uncertain steps backwards-and then crumpled to the floor.
‘Great shot.’ Niall swung her down and his hands lingered for a fraction more time than was strictly necessary. ‘Remind me to stay on your good side, Dr Harvey. Tranquilliser dart-a girl’s best friend!’ He flashed Jess a swift smile that made her heart miss a beat, then put his hand inside the broken pane, flicked the latch and lifted the bottom window pane.
Ten seconds later they were in the room.
Niall went straight to the woman beside the bed, leaving Jess to follow. She didn’t follow immediately. Jess took seconds to muzzle the dog and clip a short lead from his collar to the bedpost. She’d given him minimal dosage and she didn’t want him waking.
Finally, she joined Niall.
‘What…?’
‘Trouble,’ Niall said briefly. He’d rolled Ethel Simmons into the recovery position and his hands were moving swiftly over her. ‘We’re dealing with major blood loss, I think.’
‘But…’
Then Jess saw what Niall had found and she drew in her breath in horror.
Ethel’s right hand was a bloody, mangled mess. She’d lost a finger-two, maybe-and the rest of her hand was sliced and crushed.
‘It’s my guess she had her
hand on the wall when the chainsaw came through,’ Niall said grimly. ‘If she was yelling at him not to be so stupid-and he shoved the thing through, anyway…’
Niall was searching Ethel’s arm for pressure points. ‘Jess, in the ambulance there’s saline and there’s morphine in my bag. There’s a burn here-look-she got shocked the same as her husband. There must be circuit breakers on the power supply or they’d both be dead.’
‘She’s not…?’
‘There’s still a pulse-faint. No, she’s not dead. Go, Jess…’
Jess went.
Outside, the yard had come alive. The electricity servicemen had arrived and set up huge floodlights to show them what they were dealing with. Jess grabbed what she needed, threw orders for stretcher bearers and returned at a run.
She worked beside Niall in silence, concentrating fiercely on anticipating his needs.
He had the pressure points.
‘Take over here, Jess,’ he ordered in the same clinical tone he’d use for a theatre nurse. ‘Press down here-hard. If the bleeding restarts then you’re not pressing hard enough.’
With Jessie controlling the bleeding, Niall was free for other things. In minutes he had the worst of the bleeding staunched by pressure bandage, a drip set up and morphine administered into Ethel’s limp body.
Still the woman didn’t stir.
How badly had she been electrocuted? It couldn’t have been lethal if she’d moved afterwards.
‘Blood pressure about ninety on fifty.’ Niall swore. ‘And dropping. We’re going to need some plasma fast. I’ll radio ahead to Geraldine to prepare for crossmatching.’
He looked up then, assessing his manpower.
‘OK, let’s move her,’ Niall said swiftly. There were men crowding into the room behind them and he snapped a warning.
‘Watch your feet,’ he told them. ‘Don’t move until you see what you’re standing on. There are two fingers missing-and if they’re intact they might be salvageable. Find some ice in the refrigerator and bring them down to the hospital after us. Jess, I need you to come. Now.’
They shifted Ethel’s slight weight to the stretcher and Jess followed the bearers back into the night As she went she cast a sympathetic glance at the dog.
‘There’s a kennel out the back,’ she told the men remaining. ‘Carry the dog out, tie him up and remove the muzzle before he wakes. Make sure he has plenty of water available. I’ll decide what needs to be done for him in the morning.’
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