‘I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you that if you’re withholding information pertinent to the case, you could get into serious trouble,’ she said. ‘Poppy may be your daughter but if she’s somehow involved in the suspicious death of Ethan Jenson, you’d better tell me now.’
‘I told you she barely knew the guy.’
‘I have reason to believe you’re lying.’
His gaze hardened as it challenged hers. ‘You think so?’
‘You know what they say about gut feelings, Chief Inspector D’Ancey.’
‘Hasn’t anyone told you gut feelings don’t stand up in court, Dr Hayden? If you want to solve this case then you’ll need solid evidence and cold, hard facts.’
Eloise forced her chin up. ‘I know that, you don’t need to tell me how to do my job.’
‘Tread carefully, Dr Hayden,’ he warned in a low deep tone in case others nearby were listening. ‘You might be after the biggest promotion of your career, but you’re dealing with real people here and one of them happens to be my daughter. I won’t allow you to use her as a stepladder to get where you want to go.’
‘This isn’t about my career,’ she said, ‘or your daughter for that matter. It’s about a young man in the prime of his life who suddenly turned up dead. I want some answers for his family as well as the Australian government. That’s what I’m being paid to do and forgive me if I’ve somehow got this wrong, but I was under the impression you were supposed to be helping me.’
Lachlan let a stiff silence pass before he sent one of his hands through his hair. ‘Look,’ he said on a tail end of a sigh, ‘how about we drop the subject? Work takes up enough of my time and yours as it is. We’re both off duty and can surely for the space of an hour or so talk about something else.’
Eloise felt one of his legs accidentally brush against hers. ‘OK,’ she said, tucking her legs well back. ‘What shall we talk about?’
‘Chief Inspector D’Ancey?’ One of the barmaids rushed over with a worried expression on her face. ‘There’s some trouble with the some of the lads outside. Can you come and sort it out?’
Eloise suddenly became aware of the sound of jeering and swearing and glass breaking. Exchanging a brief glance with Lachlan, she followed him quickly outside.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE first thing Eloise noticed was the blood. There were great splotches of it on the cobblestones in the alley and even on one of the rubbish bins. She had to fight down her reaction. It had been several months since she’d attended the murder scene of a twenty-two-month-old girl and yet the sharp metallic scent of blood in the air brought it all back in an instant. Her skin felt clammy, her stomach churned and her head felt as if it had been placed in a vice.
‘Quick! Cops!’ A young male voice called out from further down the alley.
The gang of youths dispersed in all directions, one flying past Eloise so fast he very nearly knocked her from her already unsteady feet.
She watched as Lachlan caught another one in three fast strides, holding him up against the stone wall of the building. ‘What’s this about this time, Brian?’ he asked. ‘Do you want another assault charge on your record?’
The youth scowled at him. ‘He started it,’ he said, pointing to the young man who was now getting to his feet not far away from where Eloise was standing, blood pouring from a head wound.
Eloise went towards him. ‘Are you all right?’
The young man wiped at his face, grimacing as he saw the blood. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘It was Davey I was worried about.’
She frowned and looked up and down the now deserted alleyway. ‘Davey? Do you mean Davey Trevallyn?’
He nodded. ‘The gang were hassling him. They do it all the time.’
‘Where is he now?’ she asked, handing him some tissues from her bag.
He mopped at his face, wincing slightly. ‘I managed to get him out of the alley before the boys set on me.’
‘I think you might need that wound looked at,’ she said when he removed the tissues from his face. ‘It might have some glass in it.’
‘Yeah, I will. It feels like something’s in there,’ he said, wincing again as he dabbed at it. ‘I’ll see Dr Tremayne in the morning.’
‘I think you should call him now,’ Eloise said. ‘Wounds like that can turn septic very quickly.’
‘She’s right, Robert,’ Lachlan said, coming over to where they were standing. ‘It looks nasty. Do you want to press charges?’
Robert shook his head. ‘No, it won’t do any good.’
‘Brian’s got it coming to him,’ Lachlan said gravely. ‘I let him go but I’ll call on his parents tomorrow. He needs taking in hand.’
‘It wasn’t just him,’ Robert said. ‘You know what Gary Lovelace and his gang are like. They give Davey a hard time just for sport. It’s sickening.’
‘I know but it takes all types in this world,’ Lachlan said. ‘Come on, let’s get you to the clinic and cleaned up. I’ll give Dr Tremayne a call to meet us there.’
Eloise followed them out of the alley, listening as Lachlan spoke to Nick Tremayne in his quiet but authoritative manner, his gaze flicking now and again to the young man by his side.
‘You’re the Australian police doctor, right?’ Robert asked Eloise once they were on the Harbour Road. ‘Poppy told me about you.’
Eloise smiled. ‘You must be Robert Polgrean. Mrs Trevallyn told me you were Poppy’s boyfriend.’
‘“Was” being the operative word,’ Robert said with an embittered look. ‘We’re not seeing each other any more.’
Eloise ignored the diamond-sharp look she was getting from Lachlan. ‘Did you know Ethan Jenson at all?’ she asked.
Robert’s expression turned sour. ‘He was a show pony if ever there was one,’ he said. ‘He changed girls more than he changed his board shorts.’
‘Dr Hayden,’ Lachlan interjected. ‘Robert is bleeding, in pain and probably dazed from the roughing up he’s had.’
‘I do feel a bit faint…’ Robert said, and before Eloise could reach him he crumpled to a heap on the pavement.
‘Where’s a doctor when you need one?’ Lachlan said as he knelt down beside the boy and placed him in the recovery position.
‘I’m a doctor,’ Eloise said, feeling more than a little affronted.
‘When was the last time you treated a live patient?’ he asked.
‘A fair while back,’ she answered, ‘but I haven’t forgotten any of my resuscitation skills.’
‘You might want to run those skills past him now,’ he suggested. ‘It’s about four hundred metres to the clinic and I don’t fancy carrying him.’
Eloise checked that Robert’s airway was unobstructed and that his breathing was even. His pulse felt strong and about normal rate. ‘Is it possible to call an ambulance?’ she asked.
‘No point,’ he said, reaching for his mobile phone. ‘They would be half an hour coming from St Piran. I’ll give Nick another call and get him to come this way.’
Within a few short minutes Robert had woken up and Nick arrived almost simultaneously. Robert was bundled into Nick’s car and taken to the clinic, with Eloise and Lachlan riding in the back.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ Robert said as they entered the clinic. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I never faint.’
‘It happens to the best of us,’ Nick said, as he led the way into the clinic. ‘I fainted at my first anatomy lesson. It was damned embarrassing.’
Eloise was expecting Nick put the young boy’s mind at ease by chatting to him about inconsequential things while he cleansed the wound, as most doctors did, but instead he barely said a word. He injected some local anaesthetic and carefully removed a shard of glass embedded in the skin and inserted three stitches before he spoke again.
‘I’ll give you a short course of antibiotics to prevent infection. Your record here says you haven’t had a tetanus booster for seven years, so I’ll give you one now,’ he said as he took
off his gloves. ‘I’ll check the wound in a day or two, but in the meantime take it easy.’
‘I will, Dr Tremayne, thank you. And thank you, Dr Hayden and Chief Inspector. You turned up at a good time,’ Robert said.
‘No problem, Robert,’ Lachlan said patting him on the back. ‘Do you want us to walk you home?’
‘I’m going his way,’ Nick said as he reached for his keys. ‘You and Dr Hayden can get back to what you were doing.’
‘We weren’t doing anything,’ Eloise said, and then blushed furiously as three male gazes turned to her. ‘I mean…er…nothing important…Just work stuff…sort of…’
Nick gave a stiff on-off smile before turning back to his patient. ‘Come on, Robert. Your mother will be wondering what’s happened to you. How’s your father, by the way? He hasn’t been back to see me after his accident. Is he doing the exercises I gave him?’
‘I think so,’ Robert said, as he followed Nick outside.
Eloise glanced at Lachlan on their way out. ‘This is all your fault, you know.’
‘What’s my fault?’
She pointed to Nick and his young patient a few steps ahead of them. ‘It will be all over the village tomorrow and you know it,’ she said in low whisper.
‘What will be?’
She rolled her eyes at his innocent look. ‘We were seen having a drink at the Penhally Arms.’
‘I hate to contradict you, but we didn’t actually get around to having a drink.’
Eloise had to look away from the temptation of his mouth. ‘Yes, well, the service was a little slow,’ she grumbled.
‘We didn’t have a drink because you were too busy trying to cross-examine me,’ he said. ‘The bar staff were probably too frightened to come over to take our order in case they were suddenly whipped up onto your makeshift witness stand.’
She gave him a droll look. ‘The truth is, Chief Inspector, you were too busy trying to withhold information from me.’
‘Actually, I was too busy thinking about how it would feel to kiss you.’
Eloise stared at him for a moment, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish. ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’
‘It’s true, Eloise,’ he said. ‘Or do you prefer being called Ellie?’
She turned away. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘You have something against shortened names?’
‘I have something against men who won’t accept no for an answer,’ she said. ‘I’m here to work. I’m not interested in taking the place of your ex-wife.’
‘I wasn’t exactly offering you marriage.’
She turned around to look at him. ‘Just what is it you are offering, Chief Inspector D’Ancey? A quick fling to pass the time until someone more suitable comes along?’
His rueful smile totally disarmed her. ‘I’m not very good at this, am I? Too long out of the saddle, isn’t that would you would say back in Australia?’
She pursed her mouth at him. ‘I’m sure it’s like riding a bike, you never forget the steps.’
‘Have you had dinner?’ he asked.
Here we go again, Eloise thought. Did this man not understand the word ‘no’? ‘You’re asking me to have dinner with you?’ she asked.
‘Just dinner,’ he said, with another one of his stomachtilting smiles. ‘I wouldn’t rule out a kiss, though, but maybe just one to be on the safe side.’
‘What about your daughter?’ she asked, trying her best to ignore the way her heart was jumping about in her chest at the thought of feeling that mouth pressed against hers. ‘Shouldn’t you be at home, looking after her?’
‘Poppy is staying with her friend tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m a free man.’
She gave him a probing look. ‘Have you checked that she is actually where she says she is?’
A small frown creased his brow. ‘Listen, Dr Hayden, my daughter isn’t out all the time neither does she sleep around if that’s what you’re thinking. I admit she’s young and wilful but, then, she hasn’t long witnessed her parents going through a difficult divorce. I also admit she’s no angel, but if she says she’s staying at her friend’s house, I see no need to check up on her. It’s tantamount to a betrayal of trust.’
‘It’s also your duty as a parent,’ she pointed out. ‘Do you know how many parents I have met who thought their kids were safe at a friend’s house, only to have to go and identify them at the morgue the following day?’
His jaw tightened. ‘You’ve been in forensics too long, Dr Hayden. You’re seeing everyone as a potential victim.’
‘I thought you said I didn’t have enough experience?’ she said with a little jut of her chin.
‘The experience you’ve had has obviously coloured your judgement,’ he said. ‘Is that why you put your hand up for this job—to get away from something too distressing for you to get to sleep at night?’
Eloise blinked at him, her mouth going dry as little Jessica Richardson’s features swam before her eyes. The last autopsy she’d done before she’d left, she would vividly remember that tiny body, still dressed in a pink fairy costume, her skin porcelain pale in death.
‘Are you all right?’ Lachlan asked, touching her on the arm.
She bit her bottom lip, struggling for control. ‘Jet-lag,’ she said, blowing out a ragged breath. ‘I guess I haven’t adjusted yet.’
His hand was warm and solid on the bare skin of her forearm. She looked down at it, her whole body registering the tingle of his flesh where it connected with hers. What would it feel like to have his mouth and tongue rub and stroke against hers? What would it feel like to have his hands shape her breasts, or slide down her thighs, or even delve into that secret place between them that had been empty for so long?
‘You need some food,’ he said. ‘If you’re not comfortable with eating in public with me then why not come back to my house and have something with me there? It’s not far from here, if you think your foot will manage it.’
Eloise could feel herself weakening. She didn’t feel like spending her first night in Cornwall on her own. She had spent far too many nights alone with pink fairy wings flapping inside her head to torment her. ‘I can get something back at the guest-house…’ she said.
‘Yes, like food poisoning,’ he said with one of his sudden and totally disarming grins. ‘Bea Trevallyn isn’t the best cook in the world and certainly not the most hygienic. The place was almost closed down a few months back after a salmonella outbreak.’
Eloise gave a whole-body shiver. ‘You’re seriously starting to tempt me,’ she confessed.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m not quite up to celebrity chef standard or anything but I can rustle up something to get by.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ she asked, reluctantly removing her arm from the comforting hold of his.
His smile this time revealed his two crossed bottom teeth. ‘You know what they say about rejecting an invitation the first time around.’
‘OK, what do they say?’ Eloise asked, as she fell into step beside him, a small smile beginning to tug at her mouth.
He glinted down at her. ‘You might not get another chance. The invitation might not be repeated and you could have missed a golden opportunity that you might end up regretting for the rest of your life.’
‘I make a point of not dwelling on regrets,’ she said as she looked away. ‘They don’t change anything.’
Lachlan glanced at her bent head, taking in her pleated brow and the downturn of her mouth. Dr Eloise Hayden may be a career-woman on a mission but she had a soft side that she valiantly tried to keep hidden. He couldn’t help wondering what she had faced so far in her career to make her present such a tough, suffer-no-fools-gladly exterior. He knew it was a tough call, being a forensics specialist. He had seen many a colleague turn to alcohol to try and block out the images of gruesome murder scenes or heavily decomposed bodies. Their relationships suffered as well. It was hard to deal with distressed relatives of victims while t
rying to maintain their own family relationships. Divorce rates were high in the force and higher still amongst top-level officers. He often wondered if his career had had more to do with his divorce from Margaret than anything else. She hadn’t really understood the demands of the job and had come to resent the unpredictable hours he had worked. He had learned the hard way to loosen up a bit. He didn’t want to do what so many did and burn out completely.
‘What do you think of Nick Tremayne?’ he asked as they walked up a slight incline to his house.
‘He’s seems very competent,’ Eloise answered. ‘But I have a feeling he’s not comfortable dealing with me. I spoke to Kate Althorp earlier and she said he’s like that with everybody.’ She sent him a quick glance. ‘Is there something going on between them?’
Lachlan gave a could-mean-anything shrug. ‘Hard to tell,’ he said. ‘Nick is a bit of a closed book. He lost his wife Annabel to peritonitis a couple of years back. He blamed the surgeon at St Piran Hospital for her death. Nick’s a hard nut to crack—pretty much keeps to himself, if you know what I mean. I guess it’s understandable really. He still feels he would have been able to save Annabel if he’d got there in time, but Ben Carter did his best. Ben’s his son-in-law now so things have settled down in that quarter. Nick of all people should know it happens like that sometimes. Cases go horribly wrong and no one’s really to blame. The human body is not something you can predict the outcomes of in regard to medical intervention. Patients and relatives still expect things will turn out perfectly every time.’
Eloise glanced up at him again. ‘You sound like you really understand the life of a medico.’
He gave her a brief smile before looking away. ‘My father was a doctor, an O and G specialist, actually.’
‘Was?’
His smile faded a little as he stopped outside a white house, his hand going to the back pocket of his jeans for the keys. ‘He died a few years back,’ he said. ‘A ruptured aneurysm. My mother has never really come to terms with it. A bit like Nick, she feels guilty that she didn’t see the signs in time.’
Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 2 Page 37