Mother, father and son? Amal, Noa and Azron.
Five years old?
‘Where are you?’ It was a faint whisper. She found she was staring down at the passports as if she could see their owners. All she saw was that tiny, bloody footprint.
‘Where are you?’ she whispered again, but nobody answered. If anyone was to find the answer it had to be her.
I need to find Barry, she told herself. And Alistair.
Why did she have more confidence in Alistair than she did in the local police force?
CHAPTER SEVEN
SERGEANT BARRY WATKINS was fretting. There were ten members of an elite police squad due to arrive in town in four hours and he was nervous.
He’d done everything right-hadn’t he? He’d spent half his time out at the wreck scene searching, and he still had a group of locals organised there now. Not that they’d find anything.
He’d thought it through. Something had happened in that plane, that much he could tell, but it might have happened anywhere. The pilot was a dope addict. What was the bet there’d been a fight in the back of the plane at some time? Some time past. Some time when the plane had been off his patch. There was nothing to say when the blood had been spilled.
All the same…
If there were criminals out there it’d look so much better if he found them. But spending the day scouring the stinking hot country near the wreck wasn’t his scene.
Maybe it’d be better if he was out there when the search party arrived, though, he thought. Maybe.
He thought about it and decided he was right. But it was so hot. If he was going to go he’d go down to the general store, buy himself a packet of fags and a few bottles of water. He’d pack the backpack with the medical kit so it looked like he was expecting to find someone. Yeah.
He’d just go down to the store now and then head straight out to the wreck.
Alistair settled Howard into the ward. He rang the urologist in Cairns and wrote up orders for morphine, but there was little else he could do.
‘Stones usually pass of their own accord,’ the urologist told him. ‘I’d advise you to sit on him for a couple of days before you send him on to Cairns. Keep an eye on his urine-the stones may well fragment themselves and come loose. Check for blood in the urine. Keep the pain under control. Give me a ring tomorrow and let me know what’s happening.’
Fine. And that was fine with Howard, too. Or, at least, it was better than going to Cairns. He didn’t even want to be in hospital. ‘Just give me painkillers,’ he whispered, his voice fuzzy from the drugs he’d been given. ‘I want to go home.’
‘I can’t give you morphine unless you’re in hospital, and until the stones pass nothing else will keep it under control. Can you cope with that pain on your own?’
‘No, but…’
‘Do you want to go to Cairns?’
‘No!’
‘Then settle back and accept a couple of days’ enforced rest,’ Alistair told him.
‘My car…’
‘Sarah’s bringing it in. I’ll go and check if she’s here, shall I?’
‘Yeah,’ Howard told him. ‘That’d be good.’ He closed his eyes and thought about it…for about two seconds before he stopped thinking about anything at all. After a night of agony, sleep was all Howard was going to think about for a long time.
Sarah drove down the main street of Dolphin Cove and, on impulse, drew to a stop outside the general store. Howard had bought those groceries here. How often did he buy those sort of packs? she wondered. It was a clearly defined set of items-bigger than one man would go through. If she found a helpful storekeeper he might be able to recall Howard’s spending patterns.
Maybe this wasn’t the first time this had happened. Maybe there’d been more people in the past. There was something about the cottage she’d just been in that spoke of organisation. It hinted at more than one group of people coming in and out.
There were so many questions. Shopping patterns might well answer one of them.
If there were wounded people… Time was so short.
She could but ask.
Howard’s car wasn’t in the hospital car park. Alistair glanced at his watch and felt a sharp stab of unease. Surely she should be here by now? It had seemed like a good idea to leave Sarah at the property alone so she could have a good poke around, but now…
He gazed along the main street and gave a sigh of relief. Here was Howard’s car-a distinctive yellow Ford- coming now.
No. It wasn’t coming here. She was stopping at the general store.
Why was she stopping? She’d know Howard would be nervous. She wouldn’t know that he’d fall asleep so fast.
He glanced at his watch. He had fifteen minutes before he was due in clinic. He might just walk down and meet her.
Desperation drove people to do things they’d never dream of doing in their lives. Amal had never before stolen so much as a loaf of bread. He wouldn’t have dreamt of doing so. But he had no currency. Nothing. His family were starving and Azron was so ill…
So what else could he do?
‘If they catch you before you have the necessary papers they’ll deport you straight away,’ he’d been told. ‘They don’t care what happens to you and your families. They’ll send you straight back to the authorities. You’ll be killed.’
He would be killed. He knew that for a fact. Dr Amal Inor was deemed a state criminal.
He hadn’t always been so. Of course he hadn’t. And that he was a criminal now seemed unthinkable. A successful and caring family doctor, Amal remembered with awful clarity the night when he’d become one-the night only seven weeks ago when he’d been woken abruptly from sleep. There’d been an assassination attempt on the head of the political opposition-a learned old cleric in his seventies-and it was only too clear who’d ordered the assassination.
No matter who had ordered the killing, it had gone awry. The old man hadn’t been killed. Dreadfully wounded, he’d been dragged to Amal’s house by his terrified friends. Why? Because Amal was known to be good-hearted. It was known everywhere that he was kind. The men had been sure that Amal would never turn anyone away.
They’d been right. Amal hadn’t been able to refuse, despite knowing the dreadful cost. So Amal had treated the old man, knowing in his heart that this was the end.
The man had survived, to be spirited out of the country. And Amal had fled too. He’d had no choice. He’d gathered what he could, paid the price demanded by the black marketeers who organised people-smuggling, and when they had finally come for him-as he had known they would-his house was deserted.
Amal and his wife and son were on their way to Australia.
Australia. To horror upon horror. To this.
How long could they survive? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to try.
He’d been watching the store for an hour now. People walked in, made their purchases and walked out. There was a petrol pump out at the front. The owner came out periodically to pump petrol. He stood at the petrol pumps
