The Police Doctor’s Secret

the little dog’s eyes?

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he told him. ‘She killed my twin.’

Flotsam cocked one ear and kept on looking. Explain, his look said. Or maybe his look didn’t say any such thing, but Alistair needed to explain it to himself, to go over the whole thing one more time.

As he’d gone over it thousands of times before.

‘They were drunk,’ Alistair said wearily. ‘Or rather Grant was drunk. He used to party heavily. And drive fast. All the time. Not like you and me, mate, with our nice sensible truck. Grant had a Ferrari, and he and Sarah used to speed around the town looking like something out of Who Magazine. Heaven help you if you got in Grant’s way. What he wanted he got. And Sarah…she was so desirable. Everyone loved Sarah. Everyone. Because of her father she was famous. She had money, looks-everything. That’s why Grant wanted her-why he wanted to marry her when he’d never shown any sign of marrying any other woman in his past-and there were plenty of those.’

He was being sidetracked. Flotsam was giving him a sideways look, as if this wasn’t explaining anything. Which it wasn’t.

‘Okay. Cut to the chase. She drove his car,’ Alistair said heavily. ‘Sure, she was under the legal alcohol limit, but she was on drugs. Sedatives, uppers, downers-I don’t know exactly what. They must have been legal prescriptive drugs or she would have been charged, but it doesn’t matter. Grant used to use them, too. I thought…we hoped Sarah might influence him. Stop him using them. But, no, it seems she was just as bad as he was. So he was drunk and she was drugged. And she drove him home in that damned car. Not over the legal limit, but too fast for the icy road they were travelling. They were showing off, the pair of them, and they crashed.’

Flotsam was looking worried now, as well he might. There was such anger in Alistair’s voice. Such unresolved fury.

‘Of course they crashed,’ Alistair continued, his fury fading to a deadly weariness which was almost worse. ‘And Grant died. I can’t tell you what that feels like, can I, Flots? You’d need to be a twin to know. Grant and I…we didn’t get on, but he was my twin. Part of me. I can’t get away from that. And she killed him. She had concussion and lacerations and Grant got death. The driver’s side of the car-her side-was hardly touched. Even at the end she veered so that she wouldn’t cop the impact. But Grant would. Grant did. Grant got death. He had an unstable neck fracture which wasn’t picked up and the day after the accident he died in his sleep. It killed my parents. You have no idea, Flots. You have no idea…’

Silence. Flotsam seemed to take in the enormity of what he’d been told. The little dog stirred in his arms, reached up and licked him, nose to chin.

‘Gee, thanks. A kiss better.’ He grimaced. ‘It doesn’t help.’

He sat on, the dog in his arms, staring out to sea. Was she sleeping? he thought. He shouldn’t care.

He did care.

Why had she looked like that?

It was a life skill, he thought savagely. Manipulating. She’d manipulate people as Grant had manipulated people.

The phone rang indoors and Alistair almost welcomed it. Work. Work had been his salvation in those first months after Grant died. It had been a long time since he’d felt like that. He’d grieved for Grant but he’d moved on. He’d built himself the life that he’d always wanted-as a family doctor in a community that depended on him. He had fun. He dated. He knew what he wanted from life.

Or did he?

Suddenly she was here and his whole life was tumbling about him. It’d be transitory, he told himself. Tomorrow or the next day this mystery would be cleared up and she’d be out of here. His life could resume.

Only…

Go and answer the phone, he told himself. For heaven’s sake get back to work. Leave this pain alone.

Easy to say. Impossible to do.

Sarah was reading the report for the fourth time when Alistair knocked on her bedroom door, and she was almost glad of the interruption. If she’d known it was anyone but Alistair she’d have been delighted. She was climbing walls.

How could he make her feel like this? How could he have the capacity to tear her apart all over again?’

Maybe because she’d never healed in the first place.

‘Damn him,’ she whispered. ‘Damn them all. I don’t need any of them. I’m fine by myself and I always will be. Alistair Benn can condemn me all he likes and it doesn’t affect me.’

Liar.

‘The searchers have come back,’ Alistair called. ‘They haven’t found anything but you might like to talk to the police sergeant in charge of the case.’

Of course she would. She’d like to talk to anyone but Alistair.

At least now there was work to do.

There’d been a tarpaulin on the floor of the cargo area and it was heavily bloodstained. Maybe there was enough here to work with, Sarah thought, as one of the men unfolded it for her. The blood shouldn’t have soaked in so far that she couldn’t retrieve enough to put under a slide.

The first and the most imperative medical procedure, however, was to attend to one of the team. Despite having found no one, they’d come back with a patient.

Don Fairlie, the local publican, was about sixty pounds overweight. He was supported by a mate, and by the look of exhaustion on his mate’s face it was lucky Alistair didn’t have another heart attack on his hands. As Sarah and Alistair entered the emergency department Don was groaning in pain and looking sick.

‘He tried to do some rock-hopping,’ the local police sergeant told them.

Barry. Dolphin Cove’s only policeman.

Barry Watkins needed no introduction as the representative of the law. A big man, he was muscled rather than pudgy, with the shirt of his police uniform stretched far too tight across his barrelled chest. His close-cropped hair was cut to look deliberately macho and he stood with the aggressive stance of a male who was ready for anything. Sarah recognised this stance and winced every time she saw it. To finish the whole macho image he carried a wicked-looking pistol at his hip.

Sarah, standing back as Alistair took control, thought instinctively, There’s no love lost between these two.

She could soon see why.

‘Bloody pansy,’ Barry muttered as he stared down at Don. ‘Wasting our time by breaking his arm. And we didn’t find anyone. If I could have a decent search party…’

‘We’re operating with volunteers,’ Alistair said brusquely. ‘I’ll get you something for the pain, Don, and we’ll get you through to X-ray. Meanwhile, Barry, you might like to have a talk with Dr Rose. She’s done the autopsy and has information you need.’

‘I’m glad someone has.’ The policeman shifted away from the publican and Sarah, casting a doubtful glance at the pallid and sick Don-did Alistair need help?-moved reluctantly with him. She had no choice. Alistair’s body language said he’d like to be shot of the pair of them.

Duty decreed she had to work with this policeman, though when she outlined what she’d found in the pilot’s body she discovered her reaction to the policeman was exactly the same as Alistair’s. Distaste. Even dismay.

‘Drug-runners.’ The big man’s eyes lightened and his hand went instinctively to his gun. ‘You mean the people we’re looking for might be serious crims?’

‘If everyone aboard the plane was involved in running drugs I hardly see why the pilot needed to carry so much more in his stomach,’ Sarah said mildly, but he shook his head.

‘Maybe he was trying to smuggle a bit more on the side. Or maybe they were drug-runners simply paying our man to pilot the plane and he was trying to make more profit that he should. Any way you look at it they’ll have drugs. That’s why they’ll have run. There’s no other logical explanation. What’s the bet they’re hiding up in the hills with a planeload of drugs? They won’t come out until we stop searching.’

‘Whoever they are, they’re wounded,’ Sarah told him, and he nodded. He had to agree with her there.

‘Yeah, that’s right. And that’s our best shot at making them break cover. They could stay for weeks up there