John and his wife, a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman, had come back to their own lawn. “Can we help? Is it safe enough, now?” the woman asked Tavie. “I’m Janet, by the way.” Then she turned to Kieran. “Kieran, I’m so sorry. Anything we can do . . .”
Kieran made a sound that might have been a whimper.
“How about a towel and some water?” Tavie said briskly. “And John, can you direct the boats?” They both went quickly to their tasks.
“Now.” Tavie turned to Kieran. “I’m going to have a look at your head.”
“Leave it,” Kieran mumbled, but the protest was weak. His gaze was fixed on the fire.
Tavie opened her bag and started pulling out supplies, taking the opportunity to say quietly to Ian, “Radio the captain. Tell him what Kieran said about the petrol bomb. They’ll need to keep onlookers away from the scene and notify the police as soon as possible.”
When Janet returned with towels and a bowl filled with water, Tavie thanked her and waved her away. Kieran jerked when she began to dab at his face.
“Hold still, damn it.” She shone her torch on the damage, but as she wiped the blood away, she breathed a sigh of relief. The gash ran from his forehead into his scalp, messy, but shallow. The bleeding had already slowed to a seep.
“You need stitches. We’ll get you to A & E in no time.”
Kieran started to shake his head and winced. “Just close it up, Tavie. It’s nothing. And I’m not concussed.”
“Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that.” Using her small torch, she looked at his pupils and found them normal and reactive, a good sign. But when she saw his eyes move with little repetitive jerks, she sat back, concerned. “Kieran, you’ve got nystagmus. Have you been drinking?” She hadn’t smelled alcohol on his breath, but checking for involuntary movement of the pupils was a common sobriety test for both medics and law enforcement.
“No. It’s vertigo,” he said reluctantly. “Chronic. There was a bomb, in Iraq . . .”
“Oh, bloody hell, Kieran.” She hadn’t known that his injury had given him vertigo. That explained the eye movement and his sporadic “bad days.” “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
He glanced at her, then back at the diminishing blaze. “Would you have let me on the team if I had?”
She didn’t want to admit he was right. “And what were you going to do if you fell flat on your face in the field?”
“Tell you I tripped.” He gave a ghost of a smile. “And it’s not always this bad.” A note of pleading entered his voice. “Really. It’s just the storm, and the last few days, and—and the bang on the head . . .”
“You’re definitely going to hospital.”
“No. Tavie, please.” He put his hand on her arm, and it occurred to her that he seldom touched her voluntarily. “I’ll stay here. John can lend me a sleeping bag. I don’t want to leave the shed.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“I’ll sleep in the Land Rover, then, by the museum. I’ve done it often enough.”
“Kieran—”
“I’m conscious. You can’t force me.”
Nor could she. And when she thought of what associations hospitals must have for him, after Iraq, she put her mind to coming up with another solution.
“Come to me, then,” she said. “You and Finn. I can put you up until you’re sorted. And keep an eye on you.”
A uniformed police officer—a sergeant by his stripes—appeared out of the darkness. “This the owner of the shed?” he asked, peering at Kieran. When Kieran nodded, the sergeant went on. “What’s all this about a petrol bomb? Neighbor said you repair boats in there. Sure you didn’t get careless and set some solvent alight, mate?”
All Tavie’s fear and adrenaline suddenly condensed into a wave of fury, cold and bright. She stood up, her face inches from the sergeant’s, and jabbed her finger at his chest. “Don’t you dare take that tone with my patient. Detective Inspector Singla’s already been informed about this attack. For your information, this man was on yesterday’s SAR team, and he bloody well knows a petrol bomb when he sees one. He could have been killed tonight.”
Finn had been glued to Kieran’s side, but now he stood and made a low sound in his throat, a hint of a growl.
The sergeant gave him a wary glance and backed off a step. “Singla, is it? Don’t know him.”
“You will. Thames Valley CID. And he didn’t seem the sort to suffer fools gladly.”
“Now, look here. There’s no need to—”
Finn growled again, a bit more loudly this time.
The sergeant took another step back and seemed to decide to err on the side of prudence. “Right. DI Singla. I’ll just make certain Control is on it.”
But then, having distanced himself from Tavie and the dog by a few feet, he puffed up with renewed authority. “Mind you, whether this was arson or an accident, it’s a crime scene, and you”—he looked at Kieran—“are not to go on the property. Or remove anything from it. We’ll need a fixed address for you, Mr.—”
“Connolly,” said Tavie.
“Mr. Connolly, then,” said the sergeant. “Someone will be along to interview you shortly. And I’d advise you to keep that dog under control.”
“Finn, easy,” said Kieran.
“Mr. Connolly is going to stay with me. They both are.” Tavie gave the sergeant her address.
Kieran put his head in his hands.
Tavie looked at Kieran standing in the middle of her sitting room and wondered what on earth she was going to do with him.
He not only towered over her, he dwarfed the small room. And he was swaying slightly, like a large tree about to topple.
“Sit,” she ordered, as if he were one of the dogs, and pointed at the biggest chair.
He sat, if a little unsteadily, and she felt more comfortable now that she could look down at him. She realized she’d spent most of her time with Kieran in unenclosed spaces, where the foot’s difference in their heights hadn’t seemed so apparent.
And then, as she looked round the sitting room that suddenly felt claustrophobic, it occurred to her that the only men who had even set foot in her house were her mates from the fire and ambulance brigades who had helped her move.
The little house had been her rebellion against the sort of life she’d led with her ex, Beatty. She’d lived with her parents until she and Beatty married, when she’d moved into the flat Beatty owned in Leeds. A year later, they’d both taken jobs in Oxfordshire, and the semi-detached house on the new estate outside Reading seemed to have scooped them up of its own volition.
Eight long years later, their marriage had been fractured beyond repair, and that suburban life had paled for them both. Beatty had discovered that what he really wanted was a pliant woman who needed a manly man, and had no trouble acquiring an obliging red-haired nurse.
And Tavie had found that what
Hence the doll’s house, and she’d loved it. She loved her single life, her job, her dog, and her work with SAR. Still, there were times when the house had begun to seem a bit empty, but sudden occupation by a large, bloody, surly man and his equally large dog was not quite the solution she’d had in mind.
The dogs, having finished greeting each other with thorough sniffing and much tail wagging, sat, too.
“Okay,” she said, glancing round the room a little wildly. “Let’s get your feet up.” Spotting the small trunk she used to store extra blankets, she pulled it over and plopped a cushion on top. “There you are, then.”
“I’m not crippled. I’ve just had a bang on the head.” Kieran glared at her, but the effect was somewhat lessened by the butterfly bandage on his forehead, which pulled the corner of his eyebrow up in an involuntary query.
There’d always been a rakish quality to his looks, she thought, with his pale skin, deep blue eyes, and dark, shaggy hair. Maybe a scar would suit him. At least this one would be visible.
