‘Look, don’t ask me.’ Charlotte spread her hands. ‘I’m only the intermediary. I only know that this girl’s from Melbourne. She told me about Luke’s illness-apparently she hasn’t seen him since then. She’s worried sick about him and came north to try and locate him. I heard she was asking the staff if anyone had heard from him-I stuck my oar in and told her where he was and I told her you were coming down. She was due to fly back to Melbourne today but has held over to try and talk to you. Will you see her?’
Nikki frowned. ‘I suppose so.’
‘So what’s the story?’ Charlotte linked arms again and kept walking. ‘Has he murdered someone?’
‘Who? Luke Marriott?’ Nikki tried to laugh. ‘I wouldn’t think so.’
‘So why’s he running?’
‘Who knows?’ Nikki said lightly, much more lightly than she felt. ‘Who knows?’
Luke’s sister, Megan, was a more petite version of Luke, in a feminine form. She was blonde, blueeyed and beautiful, and her smile would turn men’s hearts. Her smile was tentative when she met Nikki, as though she was afraid of what she might be about to hear.
‘I hope you don’t mind me bothering you,’ she started awkwardly as Nikki ushered her into her sparsely furnished little bedroom an hour later. ‘Miss Cain says you have exams tomorrow.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Nikki pulled out the hard chair from the desk, motioned her guest into it and then perched on the bed. ‘How may I help you?’ They were both so nervous, the air was brittle, she thought.
‘I thought…I just wondered if you could tell me about Luke.’ The girl gripped her hands together and held them hard. ‘We…we were so worried. My company sent me up here for a conference and I thought I’d try to find out about him while I was here.’
‘You haven’t heard from him for a while?’
‘No.’ Megan bit her lip. ‘Oh, we heard about his illness. He rang from Sydney and my oldest sister flew up to be with him during the worst of it. But then… then he just seemed to withdraw. Since he left Sydney we’ve received the occasional postcard from different places and nothing else. It’s as if…it’s as if he doesn’t want us any more.’
Join the club, Nikki thought bitterly, but she didn’t say it. Instead she looked sympathetically across to Megan. The girl was young, maybe only twenty or so, and looked miserable.
‘You’re fond of your brother?’ she asked.
‘We all are.’ The girl took a deep breath. ‘We’re a really big family, Dr Russell. I’m the second youngest of eight children and Luke is the oldest. My father died when I was two and my mum died three years ago. Luke…well, Luke’s been more a parent than a big brother…to all of us.’ She looked at the floor. ‘We know he’s not working-at least, until I heard about you I didn’t think he was. My young brother’s still at university, though, and the cheques keep arriving from Luke to keep him there. I don’t know how he’s doing it.’
Nikki did. This explained why he had to do the locum work. But…
‘But why doesn’t he contact you?’ Nikki was talking almost to herself.
‘We…we wondered if he was still ill. If his cancer had come back. If he didn’t want to face us?’
Nikki shook her head. ‘It hasn’t,’ she said gently. ‘He’s fit and healthy and I’d be willing to bet he’s going to be one of the lucky ones who’s in for a complete cure.’
‘And is he happy?’ Megan asked tremulously. ‘It’s driving us crazy not knowing. Last Christmas…well, we all got together-all of us and husbands and wives and children-do you know that Luke now has eleven nieces and nephews with two more on the way? And the only one not there was Luke. The only one. And you know-’ she lifted a woebegone face ‘-I would have said, of all of us, to Luke the family was the most important.’
And maybe it still is, Nikki thought slowly. Maybe the sight of his brothers and sisters marrying and producing their own families when he can’t is just too painful for him to face.
She didn’t say that. She couldn’t. Instead Nikki leaned forward and gripped Megan’s hands.
‘Megan, I can’t answer your questions,’ she said gently. ‘I don’t know the answers myself. All I can do is assure you that Luke seems healthy. If you like I’ll tell him I’ve seen you, and tell him you’re worried. That’s…that’s all I can do.’
‘But he is at Eurong?’ Megan’s tear-stained eyes met Nikki’s. ‘I can’t extend my stay now, but one of my brothers or sisters will come up. I know they will.’ She grimaced. ‘Maybe if you don’t tell him we’re coming…’
‘Megan, he won’t be there.’
Megan paused. ‘N-no?’
‘No. Luke’s doing a locum for me and he leaves on Thursday. And I don’t know where he’s going.’
Something in her tone caught Megan’s attention. She stared. ‘You…you care for him too,’ she said slowly.
Nikki nodded. ‘I do.’
‘Well, then…’
‘Megan, Luke won’t let me near him. He won’t let anyone near him.’ Nikki closed her eyes, with remembered pain. ‘For now…for now Luke wants to be alone, and I think…I think we have to respect that.’
‘Do you think it’s because he’s sterile?’
Nikki looked up sharply. ‘You know about that?’
Megan nodded. ‘My sister was so worried, she made a special trip to Sydney to see Dr Olsing six months ago. He’s the one who looked after Luke when he was ill. Dr Olsing thought that might have something to do with why…why he’s avoiding the family.’
‘Luke would have been fairly upset when he found out,’ Nikki said carefully and Megan nodded again.
‘Dr Olsing said there was some reason Luke couldn’t bank sperm…and almost as soon as the last chemotherapy session was over he asked to be tested and his count was really low. Dr Olsing said if Luke hadn’t been a doctor he would have pushed him to counselling but…well, if you know Luke you’d know he wouldn’t take to counselling very well. He’d reckon he could cope. Luke hasn’t been back to Dr Olsing since then. We assume he’s getting his regular check-ups-but he could get them done anywhere, couldn’t he?’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Nikki said gently. ‘Luke’s sensible, Megan. He’ll be being careful.’
Careful and remote as the South Pole, she thought bleakly.
Megan left soon after, and Nikki faced a long and sleepless night.
In the morning she sat the first of her exams. They seemed easy, or maybe that was just because Nikki’s mind was elsewhere. She answered perfunctorily and if sometimes one of her examiners seemed annoyed, well, Nikki couldn’t help it.
She was nervous, though. She must be. Nikki had sat down in the hospital cafeteria for breakfast on the Monday morning only to be nauseated by the sight of so much food. She’d been ill before she’d gone into the exam. Her stomach had settled as she worked, but on Tuesday morning it happened again.
Nerves? It was almost as if…
The thought struck Nikki out of the blue halfway through an oral examination on bone-structure on the Tuesday afternoon. Strange sensations suddenly slid into frightening place.
Somehow Nikki managed to answer the professor’s questions. There was one other written exam, which she completed in not much more than half the time stipulated. She walked out of the examination-room and didn’t stop until she reached the hospital pharmacy.
An hour later Charlotte knocked on Nikki’s door. Hearing no response, she turned the knob to find it unlocked. Nikki was sitting on the bed staring out of the window.
‘Hey, what’s this?’ Charlotte chided her. ‘I thought you’d be out painting the town red.’ She plonked herself down on the bed beside her friend. ‘Or did the exam go badly?’
‘It went OK,’ Nikki said listlessly.
‘Well, what-?’ Charlotte broke off. Her eyes
caught sight of what lay on Nikki’s bedside table. A small bottle, a plastic box and an eye-dropper. Charlotte leaned forward and picked up the box. The paper in the window on the front of the box showed a firm, definite cross.
Charlotte glanced across to where Nikki was still staring intently out of the window, and then looked back at the box.
‘A cross,’ she said conversationally. ‘Who’s the lucky girl, then?’
