But she’s conscious now. The Sydney doctors will be doing all sorts of tests in Sydney and we’ll tell you the minute we know.’
‘What are they testing for?’
‘For insurance,’ a man’s voice said behind Morag, and it was Grady.
Grady.
Morag had been working solidly for about four hours. She hadn’t realised how exhausted she was, but when she turned and saw him she felt the pressure lift-just like that. He was dressed in a green theatre gown, with his mask pushed down as if he’d just emerged from surgery. She’d guess that he’d been working as hard as she had, if not harder.
So there was no reason for her to look to him for support. Was there? But as he pushed aside the curtain dividing Lucy’s bed from the rest of the tent, it was all she could do not to stand up and hug him.
He saw it. He gave her a small, reassuring smile, which should have been nothing but it gave her the strength to take another deep breath and carry on.
Grady’s smile had moved to Lucy. Good. The girl needed more reassurance than Morag could give.
‘I was the one who assessed your mother before she left,’ Grady was telling her. ‘She was drifting in and out of consciousness then, but I think shock might have been having an effect, as well as the pain from her broken leg. There didn’t seem to be any intracranial swelling.’
‘Intracranial swelling?’
‘Sometimes when people hit their heads they bleed into their brains,’ Grady told the girl. ‘Pressure can cause major problems. But usually when that happens you can tell. You open people’s eyes and check their pupils. I checked your mum’s eyes and her pupils looked fine.’
‘What would they look like if they weren’t fine?’ Lucy demanded, almost belligerently.
‘When you shine a light in people’s eyes, a normal, undamaged brain makes the pupils get smaller,’ Grady told her. ‘I shone a light into your mother’s eyes and her pupils reacted just as they should. Also, her pupils stayed exactly the same as each other. That’s a really good sign.’
‘So why did you send her to Sydney?’
‘Just as a precaution,’ Grady told her. ‘So if things change or if I was wrong and she does need an operation to relieve pressure, then she’ll be in the right spot. And your dad was going anyway.’
‘Why couldn’t I go?’
‘No room on the helicopter,’ Grady told her bluntly.
Lucy hesitated. ‘What about Hamish?’
‘We’re still looking for Hamish.’
Lucy hesitated. Her face closed in what almost seemed teenage rebellion. ‘I don’t want to stay on this island any more,’ she whispered. The teenager’s eyes were determinedly defiant, but there was more than a hint of moisture behind them now. It was as much as Morag could do not to gather her in for a hug-but she knew instinctively that it wouldn’t help. It was a fine line-when a kid turned into an adolescent and when a hug from an adult became patronising and claustrophobic.
It was only for a few short years that teenagers became untouchable and it was dreadful that this had happened right in the midst of it. But if it got worse…
Grady flicked a questioning look at Morag, colleague asking permission, and he got an imperceptible nod in return. It was fine by Morag. This was no time for being precious about patient boundaries. She wanted all the help she could get.
‘If Dr Morag is worried about your arm, maybe we could look at it together,’ Grady suggested.
‘My arm’s OK.’
‘There’s no medals for heroes in this game,’ Grady said gently. ‘Lucy, I’ve been treating grown men this morning with lesser injuries than you, and some of them have been crying. You don’t need to pretend, and no one will tell anyone if you have a really good howl. Now…let us look at your arm.’
Lucy stared at Grady for a long moment. Grady gazed calmly back.
And Lucy cracked first.
‘OK,’ she conceded.
‘Sensible decision,’ Grady told her, without a flicker of relief that the girl had agreed.
Then, as Morag watched from the sidelines, he sat on the bed and carefully lifted Lucy’s arm.
‘Can you move your fingers?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Try.’
He got a belligerent look, but he met Lucy’s gaze calmly and dispassionately. He was a fine doctor, Morag thought. He had so many skills. But, then, she’d known that about him all along.
‘Who’s looking for Hamish?’ she whispered, and Grady met that with calmness as well.
‘We have every fit islander, plus a team of almost fifty army personnel, combing the island.’
‘He was swept away with the wave?’
‘I guess he must have been,’ Grady told her, feeling each finger and watching her face. ‘The wave hit you and your parents with such force-’
‘But Hamish wasn’t with us.’
Morag stilled. The search for the small boy-for Robbie’s best mate-was centring around the fact that he’d been swept out from his parents’ front yard. His parents had been too dazed to do any more than ask for news of their son, and Lucy hadn’t been questioned. The searchers were working in the assumption that he’d been with his parents when the wave had struck.
Dangerous assumption. She saw Grady focus, and his hand came out to take the girl’s good one.
‘Lucy, we’ve been searching for Hamish around your house. Are you saying he could be somewhere else on the island?’
‘He went over to Morag’s.’
‘To the lighthouse?’ Morag’s heart sank. The promontory that held the lighthouse had been swept clean by the force of the wave. If Hamish had been out there… ‘Did he come over to see Robbie?’
‘Yeah. Mum said he should do his school project but Dad said he it was too good a day to keep a kid inside.’ Her face crumpled and she gave a despairing whimper. ‘It’s not fair. He shouldn’t have gone. Where is he? I want my mum.’
‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ Grady told her, as, like it or not, Morag moved to hug the girl close. Lucy was so distressed that she suddenly almost seemed to welcome it, her body curving into Morag’s like she belonged there. Only for a moment. Only for a second. Then she regrouped and pulled away. But somehow…her hand stayed just within contact with Morag’s.
‘We’ll X-ray your arm. If, as I think, you’ve fractured your forearm, we’ll put it into plaster so it doesn’t move and it stops hurting,’ Grady told her. ‘And then we’ll organise a helicopter flight for you to the mainland so you can be with your dad while you wait for your mother to get better.’
‘But Hamish…’
‘We’re doing all we can, Lucy.’
‘Can I ask your Grandma to come in?’ Morag asked, and the girl’s face closed again.
‘No,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t want to see her again. Grandma started crying. Grandma never cries. I don’t know what to tell her. Hamish…’
‘Can you remember,’ Morag said carefully, trying to make it sound as if it was important but not too important, ‘how long it was between Hamish leaving home and the wave hitting?’
‘He left home just after lunch and we have lunch at one,’ Lucy said fretfully. ‘I remember ’cos Dad said he couldn’t go until we’d done the washing-up.’
‘We left the lighthouse just before two,’ Morag told Grady. ‘He must have just missed us.’
‘Mum said if Robbie wasn’t home he had to come straight back,’ Lucy told them. ‘He had loads of homework to do. It was Dad’s idea to let him go but I think Mum was a bit pissed off.’
‘Where else would Hamish have gone?’ Grady asked her. ‘If Robbie wasn’t home, were there any other friends he’d contact?’
‘I don’t know.’ The teenager seemed to realise Morag was still in contact with her hand, and she pulled back some more, whimpering a little as her arm jarred. She hauled up her bed-covers as if they could protect her from
