cliffs back from the beach, a dry and dusty place where nothing grew. There was a cleft in the rocks and Noa waved the gun at Sarah, motioning her through.
‘Hurry.’
The woman looked distraught to the point of madness. She was still young-though older than Sarah’s twenty- nine years. Her dark hair, braided down her back, was still jet-black, though it was matted with red dust, and the braid had long ago frayed to the point where it was only just recognisable as a plait. Her dark eyes were sunk into a gaunt face, and they were ringed with the telltale shadows of exhaustion.
The hand holding the gun shook with weariness and with fear.
Sarah hadn’t spoken to her as they’d walked up the beach towards the cave. The woman seemed tense to the point of breaking. It therefore seemed sensible to simply do as she asked, with no questions.
‘Go,’ the woman said, and shoved the gun at her. There was no choice. Sarah slid through the cleft in the rock and went.
Behind the cleft was an open stretch of sand, with three walls of sheer cliff face. An overhang gave shade, and the north face sloped upward at an angle that let in the morning sun but was steep enough to stop the wind. As a shelter it was bleak, but it was adequate.
But Sarah wasn’t considering her surroundings.
On the ground before her lay a child, and one look made Sarah’s heart sink. Ignoring the gun, ignoring the woman, she got down on the ground. This was what she’d most feared.
He was tiny. Tinier than she’d expected. Five, the passport had said, but he looked even younger. Four, maybe?
He lay on a bundle of clothing in the dust, his face pressed hard into the mound of cloth. A tiny, gaunt child, as dark as his mother, his tiny frame almost skeletal.
There was good light. This was more a rock shelter than a proper cave. The morning sun glinted downward through the sloping north face of rock, illuminating the deathly shadowed face of the child lying so still that death was a distinct possibility.
He was so tiny. And so dreadfully hurt. He was wearing bloodstained shorts and a T-shirt. A bandage was wound around his leg-white cloth, roughly torn. Through the cloth was the unmistakable sign of a suppurating wound.
Infection.
It had to be. Sarah thought back to the rough metal container, loose in the cargo hold. It had looked rusty and none too clean.
Regardless of the gun, regardless of the woman, she crouched in the dust in an instant. Her fingers were feeling the child’s pulse as she searched his body for more clues to what was happening to him. Somewhere above her the woman was still pointing the gun, but she ignored her. There were no threats needed to make her treat this child.
‘He needs help,’ she whispered. At least he was still alive, but that was all that could be said. The little one’s pulse was thready and weak. He was hot to touch. She could feel the fever in him. Forty? Forty-one?
‘Help him, then,’ the woman told her, and Sarah sat back on her heels and looked up at her.
‘You have good English?’
‘Yes.’
‘We must get more help than just me,’ Sarah said, trying to keep the urgency from her voice. Trying to suppress panic. How long had this infection had to take hold? ‘He needs hospital. Doctors.’
‘You are a doctor. I heard you say…when you shot my husband.’
Sarah took a deep breath. And another.
‘I didn’t shoot your husband,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even. ‘I never would. It was a mistake.’
‘My husband tried to get food. You shot him. Now you help us.’
‘I can’t,’ Sarah said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. ‘Your son needs fluids. He needs antibiotics. He needs specialist equipment.’
‘I have equipment,’ the woman told her. She pointed to a pile near the cliff face. ‘I brought it.’
Sarah stared to where she was pointing, recognising immediately what was there. Alistair’s bag. And groceries. A pile of stuff heaped into an ancient wheelbarrow.
‘My husband is a doctor,’ the woman said, in faltering, fearful English. ‘He is a good man, but not…maybe not very wise. He said…he said he would not take the gun with him when he went to steal. He just wished to take food. And now he’s dead.’
‘He’s not dead.’
‘He’s shot. I saw him. I followed, though he told me not to. But I was so afraid. I was so fearful for his life that I left our son for a little. And I was right to be afraid. They took him away. There was so much blood I was almost ill. So much blood. Almost as much as when Azron was injured. So now my son’s fate lies in my hands and I will do what I must. I took the gun. I went into town and I found these things. I brought them here and then I saw you, walking alone. The gun will do what my husband cannot. The gun will save my son.’
‘Alistair.’
It was Max, dishevelled and out of breath. Larry and Alistair were still staring at the truck when Max pounded into the car park. ‘Do you know where-’ He stopped, recognising Larry. ‘Detective…’
‘What’s the problem?’ The police detective had turned from the smashed car to the storekeeper and his voice was professionally clipped, forcing Max to stop in his tracks and regroup. ‘Stop,’ Larry ordered. ‘Take three deep breaths and then tell us. Slow.’
And Max did. Somehow.
‘She broke into the store,’ he told them. ‘You know I sleep in the room right behind the store? I heard a window smash and she was there, in the doorway, pointing a gun straight at me. A woman. In rags. She looked awful. Scared to death. She made me pack a heap of stuff-water, biscuits, bread-and then she made me carry it all outside. She had a wheelbarrow. A bloody wheelbarrow. It’s the one Florence Trotman uses to plant her pansies in every winter. She’d emptied the whole thing out. And, Alistair, she had a heap of your stuff in it. Then she made me go into the outhouse and she barricaded the door. She said if I tried to break out in less than twenty minutes she’d be standing outside and would shoot to kill. I knew it’d be to give her time to get away but, bugger me, I wasn’t taking any chances. Not for a bit of bread and water.’
‘Twenty minutes?’ Larry snapped, and Max took another couple of deep breaths and looked just a bit sheepish.
‘Maybe thirty. Bloody woman. I wasn’t going to take any chances, and neither of us were wearing a watch.’ And then he shrugged. ‘Look, she seemed desperate. After what happened last time I wasn’t risking her not getting what she needed.’
‘What was she wearing?’ Larry asked, and as Max gave a description his face tightened into grim lines. Max’s description of the woman was graphic, and they could all imagine her desperation. Her fear. Alistair could see why Max had decided to take no chances. This was a description of a woman close to madness.
And she’d had half an hour’s start.
‘She was pushing the wheelbarrow?’ Alistair asked, and Max nodded.
‘Yeah.’
‘Then we can follow the tracks, surely?’
‘I don’t like our odds,’ Larry told him. ‘In this wind?’ While they’d been speaking the wind had been strengthening. Sand was swirling along the street, leaving a film over everything it reached. Half an hour… Maybe they could follow it. Maybe not.
Probably not.
‘You have no idea which way she went?’ Larry asked, and Max shook his head.
‘I’ll fetch the trackers,’ Larry said grimly. ‘We’ll get everyone on this straight away, fanning out between here and the wreck. Alistair, go and fetch Sarah. I suspect what we have here is a terrified woman who’s beyond reason. A terrified woman with a gun. I used Sarah for negotiation once before, and she’s good.’
‘You won’t put Sarah in the firing line?’
‘She’s a cop. A good cop. Sure, she’s a medical specialist, but she’s also done basic training in police work. This is her job.’
