cruel. ‘The good news is that renal colic is easily treatable,’ she told him. ‘You may well pass the stones in the next couple of days and be able to come straight home again.’
‘You’re a doctor, too?’
‘Sarah’s doing a bit of training with me for the next few days,’ Alistair told him. ‘She’s a city doctor-never seen places like this.’
‘Yeah?’ The man was too intent on his pain to care. ‘Can’t you just give me something to stop the pain here?’
‘I can. I am. But in four hours you’ll need more.’
‘I don’t want to be stuck in hospital.’
‘Tell you what,’ Alistair said, appearing to think it through. ‘You have a car here? What if I take you back in my truck-it’s set up so you can lie comfortably in the back-and Dr Rose follows us in your car. Then when you want to leave you can. If you pass the stone tonight you can come straight home.’
The man was trying to think. They could see the effort it took. Renal colic was one of the worst types of pain and the morphine hadn’t kicked in yet. Maybe Alistair should have waited until the painkillers took effect before planning, Sarah thought, but then she thought, No.
She was under no illusion. Alistair had suggested this plan for a reason.
‘Tell us where your house and car keys are,’ Alistair told him. ‘I’ll get you straight into hospital-get you comfortable. Dr Rose can lock up here and bring in your car in behind us.’
Howard stared up, desperation clearly written in his face. He looked from Alistair to Sarah and back again.
‘She’s a city doctor?’ he said doubtfully.
‘I can drive,’ Sarah said, in a voice that said she was a little bit unsure-maybe a little younger than she was-a little less confident. Certainly nothing like as confident as a police forensic pathologist should be. ‘If you think I can manage, Dr Benn?’
‘I think you can manage,’ Alistair told her. He turned back to the man on the bed and Sarah could see that he was trying to hide a smile. ‘She’s a real newbie,’ he told Howard. ‘But I think we can trust her to drive a car. Just go really slowly, Sarah, and don’t take any risks.’
‘No, Dr Benn.’
The thing was done.
Which was how Sarah stood on the veranda, watching Alistair’s truck disappear in the distance, holding the keys to the homestead in her hand. All the keys.
She looked down at them and grinned.
‘I won’t take any risks at all,’ she murmured.
‘Is she following?’
Howard was stretched out on the permanent bed Alistair used as often as not to transport patients. Dolphin Cove did have an ambulance, but it was old and rickety and usually it was less trouble for Alistair to use the Land Cruiser. He’d made Howard as comfortable as possible and, with the morphine kicking in, Howard was now able to think of something other than his pain. His brain might be woozy from the drug, but he obviously didn’t like the idea that he’d left someone behind with his keys.
Alistair nodded to himself. Maybe Sarah was right. Maybe Howard did have something to worry about. But he could reassure him. He looked in the rearview mirror as though he expected to see her and sighed and shook his head.
‘Nope. And I wouldn’t expect it.’ Alistair turned his truck onto the main road. ‘Speed is not our Dr Rose’s strong point. She’ll probably be trying to fit the front door key in the ignition of your car.’
‘She’s not real bright?’ Howard asked, obviously relieved at the thought.
Alistair appeared to think about it. ‘Let’s just say she’s not your ideal family doctor,’ he said at last. ‘To be honest,’ he confessed to Howard, ‘I don’t mind if she does take a while. She’s come up to the country for a stint of country medicine and she’s driving me nuts. I’ll be pleased to be shot of her for a while.’
‘That’s okay.’ Howard lay back and relaxed. A dopey female doctor posed no threat at all. ‘That’s great.’
The dopey female doctor was being anything but dopey. Left on her own at the deserted homestead, she prepared to take every advantage. Aware that she really couldn’t be more than half an hour behind Alistair without questions being raised, she worked fast.
First she headed for the airstrip-and there was the first of her questions answered. Although there was no aeroplane present, and the building obviously used as a hangar was empty, the strip had had been recently used. It must have rained a little recently-there were the first faint tinges of green shoots-but along a strip in the centre of the runway the shoots had been broken off. There was a dusty patch near the house-signs of people gathering, staying for a while in the one place?
The strip was used.
Maybe the owners came and visited. There was nothing illegal in that.
The homestead?
She looked at the house Howard had come from and decided against it. Instead she made her way to the first of the little cottages. They were obviously used for the workmen who ran this station in bustling times. Alistair had said that those times were at least three years past.
The bundle of keys in her hand was like a jigsaw. It took her five minutes of frustrated fiddling before she found the key to the first cottage, and by then she was growing nervous. The wind was whistling eerily around the buildings. She was intensely aware of being alone.
I’m a doctor, not a detective, she told herself-but she still wanted to see. And Alistair had given her the opportunity.
The key clicked into place. She walked in. And stopped.
The place was set up for human habitation. This was not somewhere that hadn’t been used for three years.
It was Spartan-two bedrooms opening from a central living room, and each bedroom holding two sets of double bunks. Each bed had a pile of folded linen and blankets at the foot-army issue grey. Nothing fancy. Serviceable.
Three beds had linen.
She stared at them, and then looked into the kitchenette.
A box of groceries lay on the bench. She walked over and checked it out. Dried milk. Biscuits. Dry pasta. Tinned meat and vegetables. Baked beans.
Sugar, coffee, tea.
There was a refrigerator, and the hum indicated it was operating. She swung the door wide.
Butter. And the freezer held bread. She checked the use-by date of the bread.
It had been bought a week ago.
She stood and stared around her. The place looked unused now, but it looked-expectant. Waiting.
Were the people in the back of the plane supposed to be coming here? Were they even now trying to make their way here?
A scratch at the door made her start. She whirled around. A tumbleweed had hurled itself at the screen door in the wind. It rolled against the flywire, was caught by another gust and was gone.
She’d never make a detective, Sarah decided. She’d turn to jelly in a minute.
She needed to concentrate. Fast. What now?
There was a folder on the table. Sarah walked forward and flipped it open with the tip of a finger.
Three passports. Australian passports.
No photographs.
She flicked each open in turn and read.
Amal Inor. Male. Aged thirty-five.
Noa Inor. Female. Aged thirty-six.
Azron Inor. Male. Aged five.
No photographs. The section for photographs was missing. These passports were waiting to be collected-by whoever was in the plane.
