The Police Doctor’s Secret

by Marion Lennox

  Not Alistair.

  Reluctantly she walked on-and then she paused. There was a figure coming down the sand-hills towards her.

  For a moment she thought it could be Alistair and she felt a jolt of pure wild hope. Stupid hope.

  Was it? She shaded her eyes. The sun had crept over the horizon now, and was a low, golden ball in the morning sky.

  Who was it?

  Not Alistair. No.

  She walked a little further and the figure turned into a woman: a woman dressed in something that might once have been some sort of Eastern European gown but was now ripped and ragged. A bloodstained rag was tied around her wrist. The woman was walking haltingly, staggering a little on the soft sand.

  Sarah stopped. Her heart rose almost into her mouth. Dear God…

  ‘Noa?’ Her voice was a whisper. She raised it a little. ‘Are you Noa?’

  The woman didn’t respond. She kept walking towards her, each step deliberate, her eyes on Sarah’s face. One hand was held behind her back, the other was held out almost in entreaty.

  She neared her. Three yards. Two.

  Her hand came out from behind her ragged gown. A gun pointed straight at Sarah.

  Both women stopped. The gun stayed rock-steady.

  ‘Come with me,’ the woman said. ‘Come with me now. Your people have killed my husband. Now you save my son or you die.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE interview with Howard took a good hour, but maybe it was worth it. Alistair and Larry had listened to Howard’s rambling story. At the end of it they had a formal statement, duly witnessed.

  ‘It’ll help,’ Larry said in satisfaction as they left the room. He glanced down at the name Howard had given them. ‘This is great. I know him. We’ve been after this guy for years. There’s been nothing but suspicions, but now a statement in front of an independent witness… It’s fantastic.’

  ‘All we have to do is find these people.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Larry nodded. ‘We leave at six.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s five o’clock now. Not worth going back to bed.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Who needs sleep?’

  ‘Obviously not us,’ Alistair agreed as they walked out to the hospital entrance together. He thought of what he intended doing right now, and sleep was way down on the list. In truth, it was so far down he couldn’t even see it.

  All he could see was Sarah.

  But then his thoughts were interrupted. His truck…

  Alistair’s truck was parked just by the hospital entrance, and the damage was apparent the moment they stepped out through the door. Someone had smashed the rear window. A shower of broken glass covered the ground around it.

  Why?

  One glance and it was obvious.

  Alistair’s doctor’s bag was gone. All the medical equipment he left permanently ready for emergencies had disappeared.

  The cave was located in just about the last place Sarah would have thought of searching. Where anyone would have thought of searching.

  For a start, the cave was north of the town, and the plane had been wrecked to the south. It was set in the cliffs back from the beach, a dry and dusty place where nothing grew. There was a cleft in the rocks and Noa waved the gun at Sarah, motioning her through.

  ‘Hurry.’

  The woman looked distraught to the point of madness. She was still young-though older than Sarah’s twenty-nine years. Her dark hair, braided down her back, was still jet-black, though it was matted with red dust, and the braid had long ago frayed to the point where it was only just recognisable as a plait. Her dark eyes were sunk into a gaunt face, and they were ringed with the telltale shadows of exhaustion.

  The hand holding the gun shook with weariness and with fear.

  Sarah hadn’t spoken to her as they’d walked up the beach towards the cave. The woman seemed tense to the point of breaking. It therefore seemed sensible to simply do as she asked, with no questions.

  ‘Go,’ the woman said, and shoved the gun at her. There was no choice. Sarah slid through the cleft in the rock and went.

  Behind the cleft was an open stretch of sand, with three walls of sheer cliff face. An overhang gave shade, and the north face sloped upward at an angle that let in the morning sun but was steep enough to stop the wind. As a shelter it was bleak, but it was adequate.

  But Sarah wasn’t considering her surroundings.

  On the ground before her lay a child, and one look made Sarah’s heart sink. Ignoring the gun, ignoring the woman, she got down on the ground. This was what she’d most feared.

  He was tiny. Tinier than she’d expected. Five, the passport had said, but he looked even younger. Four, maybe?

  He lay on a bundle of clothing in the dust, his face pressed hard into the mound of cloth. A tiny, gaunt child, as dark as his mother, his tiny frame almost skeletal.

  There was good light. This was more a rock shelter than a proper cave. The morning sun glinted downward through the sloping north face of rock, illuminating the deathly shadowed face of the child lying so still that death was a distinct possibility.

  He was so tiny. And so dreadfully hurt. He was wearing bloodstained shorts and a T-shirt. A bandage was wound around his leg-white cloth, roughly torn. Through the cloth was the unmistakable sign of a suppurating wound.

  Infection.

  It had to be. Sarah thought back to the rough metal container, loose in the cargo hold. It had looked rusty and none too clean.

  Regardless of the gun, regardless of the woman, she crouched in the dust in an instant. Her fingers were feeling the child’s pulse as she searched his body for more clues to what was happening to him. Somewhere above her the woman was still pointing the gun, but she ignored her. There were no threats needed to make her treat this child.

  ‘He needs help,’ she whispered. At least he was still alive, but that was all that could be said. The little one’s pulse was thready and weak. He was hot to touch. She could feel the fever in him. Forty? Forty-one?

  ‘Help him, then,’ the woman told her, and Sarah sat back on her heels and looked up at her.

  ‘You have good English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We must get more help than just me,’ Sarah said, trying to keep the urgency from her voice. Trying to suppress panic. How long had this infection had to take hold? ‘He needs hospital. Doctors.’

  ‘You are a doctor. I heard you say…when you shot my husband.’

  Sarah took a deep breath. And another.

  ‘I didn’t shoot your husband,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even. ‘I never would. It was a mistake.’

  ‘My husband tried to get food. You shot him. Now you help us.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Sarah said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. ‘Your son needs fluids. He needs antibiotics. He needs specialist equipment.’

  ‘I have equipment,’ the woman told her. She pointed to a pile near the cliff face. ‘I brought it.’

  Sarah stared to where she was pointing, recognising immediately what was there. Alistair’s bag. And groceries. A pile of stuff heaped into an ancient wheelbarrow.

  ‘My husband is a doctor,’ the woman said, in faltering, fearful English. ‘He is a good man, but not…maybe not very wise. He said…he said he would not take the gun with him when he went to steal. He just wished to take food. And now he’s dead.’

  ‘He’s not dead.’

  ‘He’s shot. I saw him. I followed, though he told me not to. But I was so afraid. I was so fearful for his life that I left our son for a little. And I was right to be afraid. They took him away. There was so much blood I was almost ill. So much blood. Almost as much as when Azron was injured. So now my son’s fate lies in my hands and I will do what I must. I took the gun. I went into town and I found these things. I brought them here and then I saw you, walking alone. The gun will do what my husband cannot. The gun will save my son.’

  ‘Alistair.’

  It was Max, dishevelled and out of breath. Larry and Alistair were still s
taring at the truck when Max pounded into the car park. ‘Do you know where-’ He stopped, recognising Larry. ‘Detective…’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ The police detective had turned from the smashed car to the storekeeper and his voice was professionally clipped, forcing Max to stop in his tracks and regroup. ‘Stop,’ Larry ordered. ‘Take three deep breaths and then tell us. Slow.’

  And Max did. Somehow.

  ‘She broke into the store,’ he told them. ‘You know I sleep in the room right behind the store? I heard a window smash and she was there, in the doorway, pointing a gun straight at me. A woman. In rags. She looked awful. Scared to death. She made me pack a heap of stuff-water, biscuits, bread-and then she made me carry it all outside. She had a wheelbarrow. A bloody wheelbarrow. It’s the one Florence Trotman uses to plant her pansies in every winter. She’d emptied the whole thing out. And, Alistair, she had a heap of your stuff in it. Then she made me go into the outhouse and she barricaded the door. She said if I tried to break out in less than twenty minutes she’d be standing outside and would shoot to kill. I knew it’d be to give her time to get away but, bugger me, I wasn’t taking any chances. Not for a bit of bread and water.’

  ‘Twenty minutes?’ Larry snapped, and Max took another couple of deep breaths and looked just a bit sheepish.

  ‘Maybe thirty. Bloody woman. I wasn’t going to take any chances, and neither of us were wearing a watch.’ And then he shrugged. ‘Look, she seemed desperate. After what happened last time I wasn’t risking her not getting what she needed.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’ Larry asked, and as Max gave a description his face tightened into grim lines. Max’s description of the woman was graphic, and they could all imagine her desperation. Her fear. Alistair could see why Max had decided to take no chances. This was a description of a woman close to madness.

  And she’d had half an hour’s start.

  ‘She was pushing the wheelbarrow?’ Alistair asked, and Max nodded.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then we can follow the tracks, surely?’

  ‘I don’t like our odds,’ Larry told him. ‘In this wind?’ While they’d been speaking the wind had been strengthening. Sand was swirling along the street, leaving a film over everything it reached. Half an hour… Maybe they could follow it. Maybe not.

  Probably not.

  ‘You have no idea which way she went?’ Larry asked, and Max shook his head.

  ‘I’ll fetch the trackers,’ Larry said grimly. ‘We’ll get everyone on this straight away, fanning out between here and the wreck. Alistair, go and fetch Sarah. I suspect what we have here is a terrified woman who’s beyond reason. A terrified woman with a gun. I used Sarah for negotiation once before, and she’s good.’

  ‘You won’t put Sarah in the firing line?’

  ‘She’s a cop. A good cop. Sure, she’s a medical specialist, but she’s also done basic training in police work. This is her job.’

  ‘Right,’ Alistair managed, and Larry gave him a strange look.

  ‘Look, I don’t put my officers in the firing line without due cause,’ he told him. ‘But Sarah’s a woman, and that might help. Besides…’ Larry gave a rueful grin. ‘It’s more than my life is worth not to tell Sarah what’s going on. The lady has a temper.’

  Alistair had to agree with that. ‘She has.’

  Another strange look-but Larry didn’t have time to waste on anything but imperatives. ‘Let’s move, then,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want anyone working alone. Max, do you want to help?’

  ‘I sure do.’

  ‘Then how about waking any locals who might be useful and organising teams? We’re not trying to arrest this woman-I want no one going near her until I have Sarah on hand to help-but I want to find signs of where she might be.

  Alistair, I want you to stay here. If the woman’s stealing medical supplies then maybe she’ll figure that she needs a doctor. I want you to be here if she comes back.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Stay,’ Larry snapped. ‘But wake Sarah for me.’

  ‘Sure.’ He had no choice. Alistair left them and strode around to the doctor’s quarters.

  Sarah’s bedroom door was wide open. She was gone.

  Alistair was worried, but Larry wasn’t. ‘We can’t wait.’ The detective was annoyed, but not concerned. Sarah’s nightgown was neatly folded and her bed made. Every sign said she’d gone somewhere of her own accord. ‘What a day to decide for a morning walk.’

  He checked his watch. ‘We were supposed to be leaving at six,’ he told Alistair. ‘That’s in less than an hour, but by then there’ll be more sand obliterating tracks. We’ll move without her.’ He motioned to the radio on his belt. ‘Contact me the minute she gets back and I’ll organise to meet her. We leave now.’

  Barry watched the searchers leave-a team of the police force’s crack searchers with locals attached.

  No one had come near him. No one wanted him. He was a cop with local knowledge and they didn’t want him. The thought made him feel so angry he was almost numb with rage.

  He could tell them where to look. He could.

  Not one of them came near him. No one asked his advice. The knot of resentment and rage twisted his gut until he felt as if he was going to vomit. But as he settled-as he watched the last of them leave-the resentment turned to a fierce determination.

  He could do this.

  His gun was still in the safe at the back of the police station. His suspension wasn’t official yet. Larry might have the clout to take him off the case-to tell him to take leave pending an inquiry-but he didn’t have the authority to do more. So if he discovered whoever was out there north of the town he could make an arrest. It might have to be a citizen’s arrest, but it’d still be an arrest.

  They’d look pretty stupid when they came back from a day’s hunting and he had them safely in the lock-up.

  It might even help.

  If he’d been taken off the case then he shouldn’t wear uniform. He should wear plain clothes.

  But the pain in his gut was still there. The fury. He was a cop. He was a bloody good cop. Why shouldn’t he wear what he liked?

  He liked his uniform.

  And he liked his gun.

  Determination building by the minute, he dressed and loaded his gun. He checked that no one was watching and made his way outside.

  He turned north.

  ‘Noa, we need to take Azron to hospital.’

  There was no answer. The woman had her back to the cliff face. The gun was pointing straight at Sarah.

  Sarah had done all she could. She’d set up a drip. Fluids were the most important thing. The child had lost far too much blood and his fluids were badly depleted. Even if his father was a doctor, there were limits to what he’d have been able to do.

  The child should have had plasma and saline two days ago.

  She didn’t have plasma now. She only had the saline that had been with Alistair’s kit.

  And antibiotics. She had them running through the drip now-thankfully Alistair’s bag was really well equipped-but the child’s rampant infection needed stronger ones than she had available.

  She’d checked the wound. It had been cleaned but it needed debridement, and Sarah was fairly certain that slivers of metal were still embedded deep.

  She wanted X-rays. More-she wanted an intensive care unit. He must be severely anaemic. His whole body seemed to be shutting down. His breathing was so weak. There was no oxygen. She had a mask, but no cylinder.

  ‘Noa, please…’

  ‘Just fix him.’ The woman’s voice was harsh.

  ‘You need help yourself.’

  ‘No.’

  Sarah sat back and looked at her. Looked at her drained, exhausted eyes. Looked at the stained bandage around her wrist.

  ‘Let me help you.’

  ‘No one can help me.’

  ‘I can help you,’ Sarah said softly. ‘I’m a doctor. I have nothing to do with the man who shot your h
usband. I have nothing to do with the immigration authorities. All I know is that you’re in trouble.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At least drink something.’ Sarah made a movement to the stockpile of water and the woman’s hand jerked. The gun followed Sarah.

  This was hopeless. Dreadful.

  ‘I’m getting you water. And then I’m going to treat your arm.’

  ‘Look after my son.’

  ‘I’ve done all I can for Azron. He’s in the shade. He’s being rehydrated. I’ve started antibiotics. But when your husband and your son are both well then they’ll need you. You need to be well, Noa.’

  ‘Stay…’

  ‘I’m not going to stay,’ Sarah said, keeping her voice soft and steady. Her eyes didn’t leave Noa’s face. ‘I’m going to look at your arm. You can shoot me if you must, but that’s a really stupid thing to do. All I want is to help you. Point the gun at me all you want. But I’m helping.’

  In the house next to the general store Mariette saw the searchers and made her own decision. Donny had been vomiting intermittently all night and it had gone on too long. She was starting to worry. If the search team was out, then surely Dr Benn would be awake?

  She phoned, and three minutes later Alistair appeared.

  ‘I’m glad of the work,’ he told her as he gave Donny an injection. The little boy was dehydrated, but the metoclopramide worked fast. This tummy infection had been spreading through the local schoolchildren and he wasn’t too concerned. ‘I’m not very good at staying behind waiting for news.’

  ‘I imagine you’d all be worried,’ Mariette told him as she saw him out. ‘I wish there was some way I could help. All I’ve done so far is donate a sheet.’

  ‘Donate a sheet?’

  So she told him about the missing sheet, and as she did Alistair’s unease deepened. There was someone else near town, then? Was someone hiding closer than the wreck?

  Where was Sarah?

  He didn’t want to wait, he thought fiercely. He wanted her back here now!

  By the time he returned to the hospital it was six o’clock, and his concern was growing by the minute. Sarah’s bedroom remained ordered and neat. No one had broken into the hospital. Flotsam would have barked. Nothing was out of place.