‘Yes?’
‘I’ve just got a call from Howard Skinner.’
‘The Howard Skinner on the list?’
‘That’s right.’ His voice was clipped and efficient-totally business-like. The kiss last night had been an aberration. Nothing more. He’d moved on. ‘He’s in trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘By the sound of it he has renal colic,’ Alistair told her. ‘He’s just phoned in saying he can’t move for pain. The symptoms sound spot-on for renal colic, and with his history of gout…’
‘The uric acid will have caused kidney stones.’
‘That’s what it sounds like. Anyway, I’m heading out there now. Do you want to come?’
Did she want to come?
This was none of her business. It was Barry who was the policeman. She was the forensic pathologist and her role was clearly delineated.
Or was it? She was a member of the police force and she was deeply concerned.
There was no choice. Of course she wanted to come. It was a heaven-sent chance to talk to someone she was really interested in.
‘I’ll let Barry know,’ she told him. ‘Maybe he’ll want to come, too.’
‘I’m not asking you as a police officer,’ Alistair snapped. ‘If you want to do any police work then that’s a separate issue. I’m asking you as a visiting doctor. I might need help.’
Right. She thought about it. Police sniffing round at this stage might do more harm than good. But as a doctor…
‘You’re right. I’ll leave my badge at home,’ she told him. ‘I’ll come, and I’m only wearing a stethoscope.’
The farm was thirty miles out of town, and the country was some of the most barren farming land Sarah had ever seen. For as far as the eye could see there was red dust, a few straggly ironbarks, and sad-looking windmills that looked as if they’d long given up on their task of trying to eke any moisture from this dusty soil. The wind was rising and tumbleweeds were rolling aimlessly in the wind.
The land up to five miles from the coast was still lush and green. But here…
‘The hills act as rain catchment,’ Alistair told her. ‘Out here the rains haven’t come for the past three years.’
‘It’s dreadful.’
‘It won’t always be dreadful. That’s why the international conglomerates hold on to their properties. There’ll be a few years of lean, and then the rains will come and this country will be some of the richest grazing land in Australia. They’ll stock it up, make a fortune from it, milk it for all they’re worth and then sit back while the dry takes over again.’
‘So Howard gets to sit and wait?’
‘He’ll be doing basic maintenance,’ Alistair told her. ‘He’ll make sure the main buildings aren’t vandalised. Once the rains arrive the place comes alive, and no one wants to waste time rebuilding ruined homesteads.’
‘But it must be the pits of a life,’ Sarah said, staring around her in dismay. ‘So lonely…’
‘There are people who love it. People who make a lifetime career of it. There’s a chap further south who’s a really well-known poet. He sits up here, takes a wage for doing minimal maintenance and has all the time in the world for his poetry.’ He smiled suddenly with that engaging smile Sarah loved so much. ‘Mind, it’s pretty bleak poetry. There’s not a lot of “hosts of golden daffodils” in this lot.’
‘I wandered lonely as a tumbleweed,’ she agreed, smiling.
He laughed, and the tension took a backseat again. Sarah found herself relaxing. No, she didn’t want to go home, she thought. She wanted to stay here until the case was solved.
She wanted to stay here by Alistair’s side for as long as she could.
‘Barry wasn’t helpful?’ Alistair asked, and she had to haul herself back to thinking of something other than the way she was reacting to this man.
‘Barry’s appalling.’
‘So put in a report when you get back.’ Alistair grimaced. ‘We need to get rid of him.’
‘You won’t get rid of him unless he puts a foot wrong. And he won’t.’
‘I hope he won’t,’ Alistair said grimly. ‘The man’s a loose cannon. I don’t trust him.’
‘He’s all you have.’
‘Yeah.’ He cast her a sideways glance. ‘He’s all I have. And it’s not much at all.’
The homestead was surprisingly pleasant. Alistair’s truck bumped over the cattle grid, and she saw there were trees lining a long driveway. They were poor excuses for trees, but they were trees for all that, and there was even the semblance of a garden around the long, low house.
‘Howard will be using bore water to keep the trees alive,’ Alistair told her. ‘When the rains come it’s important to get competent staff, and they won’t come if the place isn’t good.’
‘So Howard won’t get to stay?’
‘No, but he knows that. They all do. People usually have a reason for doing what he’s doing.’
‘It’d work,’ she said slowly, staring at the outbuildings. Everywhere looked deserted, but by the look of the small cottages scattered around the main homestead the place was built to accommodate half a dozen families. ‘As a base for accommodating people while they process papers-teaching them rudiments of language-sorting places for them to go-it’d be perfect.’
‘You really are serious?’
‘How many people come out here?’ she asked, and Alistair shrugged.
‘No one.’
‘There’s an airstrip.’ She looked over at the back of the house, where a windsock was waving wildly in the wind. ‘I’d like to see if it’s been used recently.’
‘We need to see to Howard.’
‘Yeah. Medicine first.’ She grimaced. ‘Okay, I’ve put the handcuffs away for the moment. Let’s play doctors.’
They needed to play doctors. Howard was in real trouble.
Renal colic was something that was commonly used as a ruse by drug addicts to get young and unsuspecting doctors to prescribe strong narcotics. It was a good fake diagnosis, as kidney stones caused pain that was well-nigh unbearable. The pain was distinctive, crippling, running from the loin into the groin. So drug addicts often arrived at emergency rooms screaming, doubling over in pain, swearing that they’d had kidney stones before.
But an experienced doctor could usually tell if it was real, and it wasn’t hard now.
Howard was doubled up on a bed in the back of the house. When they found him he looked up at them with eyes that were despairing.
He was a slight man in his late forties or early fifties, lean, weathered and hollow-eyed with shock. His face was drenched in sweat, he felt clammy, and his pulse-rate was up to a hundred and ten.
All symptoms almost impossible to fake.
‘I’ll give you some morphine straight away,’ Alistair told him. ‘Then we’ll get you into hospital.’
‘I don’t want to go to hospital.’ It was a whispered plea.
‘You can’t stay here,’ Alistair told him. ‘It’s the same problem that’s causing your gout. A build-up of uric acid.’ He was injecting morphine as he spoke. ‘Now the uric acid will have caused stones. We need to do something about them.’
‘Operate?’
‘If we’re lucky the stone will pass by itself. But you need a urologist, Howard. We’ll take you back to Dolphin Cove. I’ll watch for a couple of days, but if you don’t pass them then we’ll arrange an air ambulance to take you to Cairns.’
‘I can’t leave,’ he gasped. ‘I can’t.’
‘The place is dead quiet,’ Alistair said firmly. ‘You don’t have a choice.’ He signalled to Sarah, who was standing behind him. ‘This is Dr Rose, who’s assisting me for a few days. Dr Rose will back me up.’
‘I will.’ Sarah gave the man a sympathetic smile. All she had on this man were vague suspicions, and she could certainly be sympathetic until they were confirmed. And even if they were confirmed, a sentence of renal colic was
