will be here on Thursday and I’ll get him to see you.’ Ross Harper was a visiting cardiologist and he’d treated Marilyn before.
‘That will be very nice, dear,’ Marilyn said serenely. ‘And do you know what else I want to do while I’m in your hospital?’
‘What?’
‘I want to have a nice little massage. I’ve heard our Ally is wonderful. Do you think she’d do hospital visits?’
He practically choked. Massage visits…
‘I can’t see why she wouldn’t,’ Marilyn added, serenely confident that her plan would go ahead. ‘Can you?’
‘Um…’ Think of a reason, he told himself desperately. ‘I haven’t had her professional qualifications checked.’
‘Do you think she’s a liar?’ Marilyn sounded shocked, and he had to bite his tongue.
‘No,’ he said shortly as he helped her into his car. ‘I don’t.’ There was silence for a bit as he drove but he was sure Marilyn had been a glorious gossip all her life. Maybe…
‘Do you know someone called Gareth Hatfield?’ he asked her.
‘Oh, no, dear.’ Marilyn nestled back on the sumptuous leather and sighed with pleasure. One of the reasons he’d bought this car had been that his patients loved it. Sure, there was an ambulance for transporting patients but it was an ancient battered truck. If possible, most of his patients elected to use Darcy’s free Mercedes service.
Did she know Gareth Hatfield?
‘Not any more,’ she told him.
‘But you did once?’
‘He was a few years older than I was. Not a very nice man, dear. He owned so much land around here and he made such a profit selling it to those who’d leased it from him for years and years. No. Not a nice man. He never lived here-he just used to come and harass people into paying more than they could afford. And then that boy of his…he was a bad lot.’
‘Jerry?’
‘Jerome. He lived with his mother, and as far as I know he hardly ever came here, but when he did-ooh, he was a nasty little boy. His father used to come to check on his properties, and while he and the bank manager discussed how much they could make from the locals, Jerome would swagger round as if he owned the place. I seem to remember he and Ally’s father were friends for a while-or Jerry ordered and Tony followed-but that came to nothing. They were worlds apart.’
Friends? Jerry and Ally’s father had been friends?
There were so many unanswered questions.
But there was no time to think of the answers. For the next thirty minutes Darcy had to force himself to concentrate purely on medicine. He had to force himself to treat Marilyn as she needed to be treated-as someone who was in real danger of coronary disaster.
But the questions stayed in the back of his mind. There was so much he wanted to know.
Dr Ally Westruther…
He knew so little, but the more he found out, the more he wanted to discover.
CHAPTER FOUR
BY THE time Darcy reached the refuge, it was ten at night. Maybe they’d be settled, he thought. Most of the lights were out. The big central room was still illuminated, however, and he walked in to find Ally standing in front of the fireplace. Someone had lit a fire and the crackle and glow of the flames was a warmth all by itself.
There was a woman in an armchair before the fire. Lorraine? Ally was standing behind her, gently running her fingers through her hair.
The scene was so different to the chaos of the afternoon that he stopped short in astonishment. Lorraine looked almost asleep, her head tilted back and her eyes closed.
Ally looked across at him and smiled, but her fingers kept on with their dreamy rub.
‘Here’s Dr Rochester,’ she said softly. ‘Come to check on all of us. Too late. Everyone’s asleep, Dr Rochester, except for Lorraine and she soon will be.’
I would be, too, Darcy thought, dazed, if those hands did that to me.
‘The kids?’ he managed, and Ally’s smile deepened. There was huge personal satisfaction for her in this day’s work, he thought, though he couldn’t understand why.
‘They’re washed and fed and settled. Tommy and Deidre and Lilly and baby Dot. I’ve checked them all. There’s no signs of illness, though all of them are still bearing their chickenpox scars.’
‘I need to check.’
‘I don’t want you waking them.’
‘You want me to accept your word?’
‘I do.’ She was still calmly massaging Lorraine’s head, running her hands through the woman’s newly washed hair again and again. Lorraine’s hair was a nondescript brown, normally plaited, greasy and dull. Now it hung down her back in soft, shimmering waves. The woman’s face, strained and distressed every time Darcy had seen her, now looked years younger.
‘Isn’t she pretty?’ Ally asked, as if guessing his thoughts. And then, as Lorraine cautiously opened her eyes, Ally let her hands drop to Lorraine’s shoulders. ‘Better?’
‘You can’t believe how much,’ Lorraine whispered. ‘You’re sure… We… He can’t…’
‘I’d imagine Jerry’s in jail and likely to stay that way,’ Ally told her.
‘But without him…’
‘Without him you’ll do very well. You and Penny and Margaret are firm friends and the kids love each other. There’s no need to separate. You can pool your pensions and live happily ever after, somewhere where you don’t have to cart water or go without food or put your kids at risk. Isn’t that right Dr Rochester?’
‘That’s right.’ Darcy was still struggling with the sensation that he was out of time-out of space. ‘Um…the men?’
‘Robert and Greg are sleeping in the other wing,’ she told him. ‘Robert’s face is the biggest worry. It’ll need attention almost straightaway. I was hoping you might be here soon enough to give him something for the pain, but after a hot shower and a big dinner he thought he might go to sleep anyway. I gave him as much paracetamol as I could.’
‘You…’
‘I don’t think it’s affecting the eye yet,’ she told him, seemingly oblivious to his astonishment. ‘But you need to see him first thing in the morning.’
‘You’re organising me?’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ she said meekly-and to his absolute astonishment, Lorraine giggled.
A giggle.
Since Sam’s death he’d been going up to the ridge once a month, whether they liked it or not, checking on the children. In all of that time he hadn’t seen so much as a smile.
And here was a giggle.
He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe it. He
‘Is Marigold OK?’ Lorraine asked, but there wasn’t the desperate concern he’d assumed she’d have for her daughter. Ally’s massage almost seemed to have her drugged. ‘And Jody and David?’
‘They’re fine,’ he told her. ‘Jody’s settling. We’ve put Marigold on intravenous antibiotics and I think her arm should show signs of recovery within twenty-four hours. She’s already asleep. And David was sitting up in bed drinking a thick-shake as I left him.’
‘There,’ Ally said in quiet satisfaction. ‘All fixed. Didn’t I tell you Dr Rochester was wonderful? A real-life hero. With a name like Darcy Rochester, what do you expect?’
She smiled at him. They were both smiling at him. The look they were giving him was a sort of female
