Bentley’s transportation now?’
‘I’m on it now, Doctor,’ Miriam told him, grabbing Oscar’s wheelchair and propelling it toward the door with savagery. ‘The hospital’s downhill from here. Permission to stand at the door and push?’
They didn’t know what had been said to the child. No one had caught it. Whatever it had been, though, it was as if Madison’s fragile shell had been shattered. She was limp and unresponsive in Ginny’s arms and her bravado had disappeared completely. This was the Madison of three weeks ago.
‘I need to take her home,’ Ginny said, and Fergus agreed.
‘I’ll take you.’
‘Sam has the official car at the door,’ Ginny said gently. ‘Fergus, leave us be. Please. We need to start as we mean to go on.’
With Ginny and Madison gone, the wake was over. Fergus’s cellphone rang and it was a woman from Ginny’s antenatal class with a threatened early labour.
‘I’m only twenty-eight weeks,’ she quavered into the phone. ‘Oh, Doctor, we want this baby so much.’
Of course she did, Fergus thought grimly as he climbed into his truck and returned to medicine. Why wouldn’t you want a baby?
Why wouldn’t you want a child?
It was as if the medical needs of the community had been put on hold for the funeral and wake, and now, with it over, the queue was suddenly enormous.
Fergus tried his best to stabilise the young woman and then bailed out, calling in the air ambulance to transport her to Sydney. Maybe his efforts to stop the labour were enough but maybe they weren’t and prem babies had a habit of coming in a hurry. In Sydney a twenty-eight-week baby had a chance. Here there were no facilities for premies.
If we had two doctors here, he thought, but he got no further than that as his phone was running hot. A cow had stood on a foot. A urinary tract infection had suddenly become unbearable. Someone was drunk and drifting in and out of unconsciousness and the local policeman wanted him checked before letting him sleep it off in the cells.
Ginny would have to cope with this alone when he left, he thought as he worked on into the evening. Plus she’d need time with Madison. Madison needed a huge commitment if she was to revert to the little girl she should be.
The vision of her in church stayed with him, a tiny girl who’d held the responsibilities of the world on her shoulders.
What had Oscar said to her to make her disintegrate?
He didn’t go near Oscar. ‘He’s fine,’ Tony told him. ‘Settled back into his bed with a self-satisfied smirk. Why he had it in for that family…’
‘It’s going to be hard for Ginny to have to keep caring for him here,’ Fergus said, and Tony grinned.
‘Yeah, well, there’s a few of us have been thinking… We reckon Oscar’s asthma makes him needful of a nursing home where there’s round-the-clock access to a doctor. This place doesn’t qualify. We need to declare he’s too sick to stay here. A nursing home in Sydney would be much more suitable, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?’
‘What the hell did he say to Madison?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tony admitted, his face growing grim. Then he shrugged. ‘I hope Ginny can defuse it, whatever it was. Meanwhile, mate, there’s another call. Seven-year-old Mathew Torney. He fell out of the top bunk and his mother thinks he’s dislocated his shoulder.’
‘But Ginny…’
‘Some of Richard’s friends were going back to the house,’ Tony said gently. ‘Mate, we can’t do anything there any more. You know that.’
No. A child with a dislocated shoulder. Medicine.
Hell.
It was midnight before Fergus finished work. He walked out of the hospital and hesitated.
He so wanted to go to Ginny.
She’d be exhausted. She hadn’t slept for days.
She wouldn’t need him tonight.
‘But tomorrow,’ he said into the night. ‘Tomorrow, please…’
The call came at two in the morning. He’d been staring at the ceiling and it was as if he’d been expecting it. He lifted the receiver and when he heard Ginny’s voice at the end of the line, maybe it was as if he’d expected that, too.
‘Fergus.’
‘Ginny,’ he said softly. ‘Love.’
‘Fergus, help.’
The tension slammed into him as he heard her fear. He heard her terror.
‘What is it?’
‘I…’
‘Say it,’ he said strongly, ridding his voice of all emotion, making it curt and businesslike. ‘What’s happening?’
‘It’s Madison.’
‘What’s wrong with Madison?’
‘She’s disappeared.’
Five minutes later he pulled up at the farmhouse. Ginny was waiting, standing at the gate, staring hopelessly down the road.
Fergus emerged from his truck and Ginny walked straight into his arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AFTER the funeral the little girl had been wan and listless, saying nothing, and nothing Ginny could say had broken through.
Richard’s friends had been there, back at the house, wanting to sit on his veranda, wanting to feel close to him, and she’d been hamstrung. They’d driven for hours to be there-some having come from interstate. She hadn’t been able to send them away. So she’d cuddled Madison until she’d slept. At seven, when Madison had seemed deeply asleep, she’d tucked her into her own bed and she’d checked her every half-hour or so.
At a little after one a.m. the last of Richard’s friends had said goodbye.
Ginny had walked into the house to find Madison’s bed empty.
‘We’ll have people searching from one side of the valley to the other within half an hour.’ Ben Cross, the police sergeant, had been there within minutes of being called and was now in organisation mode. ‘You’re sure the people who were here were OK? None of them could have…?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ginny whispered, appalled beyond belief. ‘They were Richard’s friends. There were about twenty of them. Some of them I know but some I’d never seen before. I was so careful. I was so worried.’
‘Hey, Ginny,’ Fergus said, and hugged her tighter against him. ‘This is not your fault, love. Let’s just focus on finding Madison. Let’s think. She wouldn’t run away, would she? Where would she go if she ran?’
‘I don’t know.’ There were car lights coming up the hill. Two cars. Three. Four. Ben’s calls for help were being answered in spades. ‘She seemed almost happy today. We talked and talked. She was so wonderful at the funeral. And then Oscar…’
‘We all saw that,’ Ben muttered, not bothering to hide his distress. ‘What did he say to her?’
