The Police Doctor’s Secret

CHAPTER FIVE

THE dolphins were the stuff of fantasy. Sarah sat on the rock ledge with water lapping over her toes and watched, seemingly entranced, while Alistair watched from behind.

What had that last comment meant? he wondered. Didn’t she like being a forensic pathologist? Hadn’t she been free to be whoever she wanted to be?

He knew so little about her, he realised. She’d been his brother’s chosen wife and yet she was a total enigma.

Or maybe not completely. What did he know? Only what was written in the sort of glossy magazines Claire collected for his waiting room.

So he did know something. Sarah Rose was the daughter of a media magnate and one of his numerous wives. Alistair knew nothing of her mother-she seemed to have faded into insignificance since her brief marriage-but Sarah had been raised by her famous father in a glare of publicity, where very public marriages, very public divorces and far, far too much money were the order of the day. She had four half-sisters, all much older than Sarah and all of whom had gone on to be society wives of wealthy men. Sarah, though, had surprised the jet set by quietly going off to medical school. She’d surprised them even more by doing well.

Alistair remembered the first phone call he’d had from Grant. ‘Hey, I’ve got a date with Sarah Rose. The Sarah Rose. How cool is that? Wish me luck, twin. Money, looks, class and brains-the girl has everything.’

Maybe she did have everything, but now… What did she have now? Shadows, he thought. He watched her as she watched the dolphins, hugging her knees and smiling that enigmatic little smile that told him of inner pleasure. Where was her jet-setting past in all this?

Would she ever have been happy with Grant?

Grant would have been happy with her, he thought bleakly. She was everything Grant had ever wanted in a woman.

She was everything he ever wanted in a woman.

No. She wasn’t. That was a crazy thing to think. There were parts of her hidden right now. She might be sitting on her rock as if she desired nothing more in the world than to wiggle her toes in the water and watch dolphins at play, but behind her was money and corruption and a sleaziness that he couldn’t begin to comprehend. She’d been drugged when she drove the car that killed Grant.

She was all things to all people, he thought savagely. She came here and she acted as a competent doctor-a competent pathologist-and indeed she was. But put her back in the city and she’d fit right back into her social milieu and heaven help any poor sod that got in her way.

She wanted to be a schoolteacher instead of a forensic pathologist? An ordinary person? That was a joke. She just wanted to play at life, as she always had.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ She was turning to him, laughing with the delight of the moment.

‘I’ll watch from here,’ he told her, and watched the shadows shutter down on her face. It had been a verbal slap and she’d felt it.

Damn, he felt a rat. For no good reason. What was he supposed to do-court her?

Her pleasure had faded but she was still looking determinedly bright. ‘Can I swim out to them?’

That was easier. ‘Of course you can swim out to them.’

‘Won’t there be sharks?’

‘Sharks don’t like dolphins. You don’t need to worry.’

‘How perfect.’ She stood, took a deep breath, and hesitated just for a moment before she dived in.

And he had to agree. She was perfect.

Or not completely perfect. He frowned-just a little-noticing something for the first time. There was a long, jagged scar running the length of her left thigh. On anyone less lovely than Sarah it might not be noticed, but on Sarah…

No. The scar would be noticed anyway. It must have been caused by a major trauma.

Had that happened in the car accident when Grant had been killed? He frowned again, trying to remember. He’d hardly enquired as to the extent of Sarah’s injuries.

There’d been no need. It had seemed such a minor accident. He remembered the call-Grant ringing to tell him about it.

‘Sarah’s smashed my car,’ Grant had told him. ‘Dratted women drivers. I should never have let her take the wheel in the first place. And it’s a pain because I’d promised to come home and see the oldies this weekend for Dad’s birthday. Tell them I can’t come, will you?’

It had been yet another excuse for Grant not to visit their parents, Alistair had thought. It had sounded really minor, but he’d also known enough of Grant’s lack of concern for others to enquire further.

‘What sort of smash? Was anyone hurt?’

‘Sarah’s got a bit of concussion and minor lacerations,’ Grant had told him. ‘Nothing serious. Hell, she deserves something. She drove like a maniac on a road with ice on it, so maybe it’ll teach her to slow down in the future. I’ve got a bit of a stiff neck but that’s all.’ He’d laughed down the phone, as he always had when trying to brush things aside. ‘As far as I can tell the tree Sarah hit doesn’t even need stress counselling. But my gorgeous car… The passenger side’s crumpled all along the wheel base. It’ll take weeks to repair. Tell Mum and Dad it’ll be a month before I get home.’

‘Did you get your neck X-rayed?’ Alistair had asked-only because he was a doctor and it was an automatic reflex where head and neck injuries were concerned. But Grant had laughed again.

‘Hey. I’m the older twin. I’m supposed to do the worrying. It was a slight bump that’s not about to give me grief.’

So Alistair hadn’t worried-until the next morning when Grant’s cleaning lady had found him in bed. Dead. He’d refused advice to have his neck X-rayed-there’d been a party he was late for and he couldn’t be bothered-and during the night an undisplaced fracture of the vertebrae had shifted.

Death would have been instantaneous. End of story.

And all Alistair’s attention had had to be on his distraught parents. Alistair hadn’t gone near Sarah. He’d read the police report, stating there were drugs present in Sarah’s blood, and he’d been so angry he hadn’t gone near.

But what had Grant meant when he’d said minor lacerations? He gazed across at her lovely tanned legs with their marring white streak and thought, This was never a minor laceration.

At the funeral Sarah had been on crutches.

So was he supposed to feel sorry for her?

No. He couldn’t. But as her long, lithe body slipped seamlessly into the water and she started stroking out towards the dolphins he thought suddenly that he’d very much like it if he could.

He left her alone. It was the only thing to do.

Alistair swam by himself for a little, and then made his way up the beach to the picnic basket. Sarah joined him five minutes later, flinging herself down onto the sand and rolling like a sensual puppy in the sun-warmed sand. She rolled and rolled and then she pushed herself up and grinned.

‘It stops sunburn,’ she told him, correctly interpreting his look of astonishment. ‘I coat myself like a rissole and, hey, cheap sun protection.’

‘Have some lobster,’ he said faintly, and she smiled and took a dollop of the lovely white flesh straight from the shell.

‘Yum. Heaven.’

It was all he could do not to stare. She was growing lovelier and lovelier.

‘Wine?’

She shook her head. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’

‘You don’t drink?’

‘No.’

‘Not wine?’

‘Not alcohol,’ she told him. ‘My mother had a problem. There’s heaps of medical research saying alcoholism is a genetic trait. I figured early I could do without the risk.’

‘You went out with Grant but you didn’t drink?’ More and more he was feeling stunned.

‘That’s right.’

‘But you used other things to make up for it,’ he said, and her hand stilled in the process of taking the lobster meat to her mouth.

There was a moment’s silence while she appeared to consider how to answer him. And finally she forced her hand onward. Forcing herself to relax. Seemingly forcing herself not to slap him.

‘This lobster isn’t as good as I thought it would be,’ she said. ‘I think we should finish it fast and go home.’

She showered and went straight to her bedroom, and he didn’t blame her. He’d messed it. He shouldn’t be sorry, he decided-after all, her actions six years back were unforgivable and she should never be allowed to forget them-but all the same…

He showered himself, and did a ward round, and tried to do some paperwork, but all he could think of was the look of blind pain as he’d accused her.

But you used other things to make up for it.

It had been an appalling thing to say.

It was the truth. She’d killed his twin.

No. Grant had been in it up to his neck. The accident report had said that Grant had obviously been drinking. They hadn’t breathalysed him because he hadn’t been driving, but it had been clear. That was probably why he hadn’t had the sense to agree to X-rays, and it was certainly why he’d been stupid enough to allow a clearly drug-influenced Sarah to take the wheel.

Could he ever stop thinking about it? He must. He had work to do.

He had a life to live.

The phone call came through at about nine-thirty and Alistair called Sarah out of her bedroom to take it. She’d obviously decided sleeping naked in this house was a bad idea. She emerged wearing pale pink pyjamas-cute ones-and fluffy slippers. Her pyjamas had clouds all over them, and her soft auburn hair swished against the silk of her pyjamas as she stalked past him to take the phone.

He was being sent to Coventry, he realised and thought suddenly that Sarah was really cute when she was angry.

She was also businesslike. She had a pad and pencil in her hand as she emerged. The call was from the crime squad in Sydney-the team who’d done the cross-matching of locals with criminal records for her. The call took a while, and her notes were extensive at the end of it.

Alistair was brushing the sand out of Flotsam’s coat while she talked, trying not to listen. Trying not to think how cute she looked. She put down the phone and started back for her room.

‘Can I help?’ he said softly, and she hesitated. But he knew she needed help, regardless of the fact that neither of them wanted to be near each other.

‘You have a list of locals with some sort of police record,’ he told her. ‘That’s no use at all without local knowledge. I have a lot more of that than Barry does.’

She sighed and swung round to face him. Her gorgeous hair swished against the silk again. He shouldn’t even be thinking how beautiful it was-but it was-and he was!

‘I’m not supposed to show lists of criminal convictions to you. It’s unethical.’

‘You’d rather go through them with Barry?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then. What use is a list of possibilities without local knowledge? I know where they live, whether they’re dead or not, whether there’s anything to say they can’t be involved.’

She hesitated.

‘Go on,’ he said, frustrated. ‘You know you need to. If we get this over then we can go back to hating each other afterwards. Agreed?’

She glared-but she was obviously stuck. He had a point and she obviously knew it. ‘Fine,’ she said at last. ‘Can we go through them now?’

‘I’m ready when you are. Shall I make some tea?’

‘I’ll make my own tea,’ she snapped. ‘I’m here to work. Nothing else. Tonight was a big, big mistake. Work or nothing, Alistair. Right?’

‘Right.’

So they sat and went through the list. One after the other. And somehow they kept their minds on the job at hand. Somehow.

Luckily there were things on the list that were really distracting.

‘Hilda Biggins has a criminal record?’ Alistair stared down at the list, astounded. ‘She’s the head of the Country Women’s Association. I’d have sworn she’s never had so much as a parking ticket in her life.’

‘It says here she stole four bricks from a building site when she was a student,’ Sarah told him. ‘Thirty years ago. I bet she used them to make bookshelves or something really minor, and here it is, still showing up thirty years later. What a way to get a conviction. It’s probably shocked her into leading a blameless life since.’

‘I guess we can cross her off our list, then.’

‘Unless she’s been harbouring a secret resentment all these years,’ Sarah said thoughtfully. ‘Four bricks and she was caught. Resentment builds. She spends a life under cover, making pumpkin scones and running cake stalls, and then-wham-big-time crime. You haven’t noticed her buying any dark sunglasses lately, have you?’

Alistair grinned. Sarah really was a chameleon, he thought. When she wasn’t remembering the past she was just…enchanting. He could see how his twin had fallen so heavily for her.

He could see how he could fall just as heavily. How he already had…

No. He was trying really hard not to see any such thing.

‘No sunglasses,’ he managed, somehow managing to focus on Hilda. ‘Actually, I think she’s in Sydney at the moment, visiting a daughter who’s just had a baby.’

‘Aha! That’ll be a ruse. She’s probably recruiting hit-men as we speak.’

He choked at the thought of the buxom and matronly Hilda with dark glasses and hit-men. The tension eased and they worked their way through the list with the bitterness of the past somehow set aside.

It took a while.

‘I’m really not supposed to be showing you this,’ Sarah told him, growing more and more uncomfortable as Alistair looked at a more recent conviction for assault against the name of yet another pillar of the community. Alistair nodded with a certain amount of sympathy.

‘I know you’re not. And of course I won’t use them. But Herbert Storridge…’ He frowned. ‘I’ve been a bit worried about Herbert’s wife and kids, and this makes me even more worried. Amy Storridge has a haunted air, and last month one of the kids had a broken arm that didn’t sound right. Herbert’s a stalwart of the church, but he’s never seemed…well, honest, if you like. Now here’s a jail sentence for assault and it’s only three years back. Just before he moved here. I might make enquiries. And keep an eye…’

‘But he’s not our problem,’ Sarah said gently.

‘He’s my problem. Or at least his wife and kids are.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s neat for you, isn’t it? Compartmentalise one problem, solve it or file it and then move on. Country medicine isn’t like that.’ Then, at her raised eyebrows, he grimaced, acknowledging priorities. ‘But you’re right. We need to focus.’ He looked down again at the list. ‘What about Howard Skinner?’

‘Howard Skinner?’

‘He’s on your list.’ Alistair thought about it. ‘He’s a possibility. He’s come up with a conviction for fraud six years back. It must have been a fairly major fraud as he got two years’ jail.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘That’s just it,’ Alistair said. ‘He’s overseer of a property about thirty miles from here. The place is owned by an international conglomerate that never goes near the place. Since the last drought they’ve hardly stocked it-it’s been let go. It’s my belief it’ll soon be sold. But meanwhile Howard lives there alone.’

‘It’s a bit of an odd job,’ Sarah said thoughtfully. ‘How did he get it? Overseer to an outback cattle property when you’ve been a fraudster? I’d have thought they’d run a check for criminal convictions.’

‘Overseeing derelict properties is a bit of a thankless task,’ Alistair said. ‘Sitting out in a dust bowl all by yourself, preventing squatters and vandals wrecking the place. Most owners have to take who they can get. It’s hard enough to attract employees to the prosperous stations.’

‘Do you know Howard?’

‘I treat him for gout. He’s a loner. Drinks a bit, but who can blame him?’

‘Where does he get his supplies?’

‘The local store, I imagine. He comes in once a fortnight or so.’

‘Is the storekeeper a helpful type?’

Alistair grinned at that. ‘That’ll be Max Hogg. Max will be so helpful you need to put aside the entire morning to be helped.’

‘I’ll wander into the store tomorrow,’ Sarah said thoughtfully, staring down at the list.

‘Why?’

‘Because if Howard’s involved in people-smuggling, he’ll need more than one can of baked beans a day. He looks our most likely prospect. A guy on his own on a disused property. People could be taken there and given a crash course in assimilation. Fitted out with false documents and then taken on to cities or other rural communities. Maybe even bled into industries where cheap labour is short. It’s a possibility.’

‘It’s a long shot.’

‘It’s better than doing nothing.’ She looked up from the list and her green eyes flashed fire. ‘You don’t know how frustrating it is. Those people-if they’re who I think they are, if my suppositions are correct-they’re in a foreign land. They’ll be scared stiff and they’ll be wounded.’

‘The searchers are doing the best they can.’

‘They won’t want to be found.’ Sarah sighed and rose, stretching cat-like. ‘I’m pooped. I need my bed. But tomorrow I’ll talk to the store owner and then I’ll pay a visit to your Howard. If I can organise transport.’

‘You’ll go out there alone?’

‘Yeah. If I can borrow some transport. I’ll figure out some pretext for dropping in.’ She grinned. ‘Guys are usually nice to me when I drop in.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, before he could stop himself, and her smile faded.

‘Nope. That wouldn’t be just a tourist being a nosy parker. It’d make him suspicious.’

‘I don’t know what you hope to achieve.’

‘I don’t either,’ she agreed. ‘But if I could find out who they are…if I could find out their nationality…I could get interpreters up here. I could get a paper drop in their own language, telling them that illegal arrival isn’t a hanging offence and we’ll look after them first and ask questions later. I could do… I don’t know. Something.’

He stared at her and then rose slowly to his feet. ‘You care, don’t you?’

‘Why ever would I not?’

He thought back to the Sarah he’d met six years ago. Not the Sarah whose first impression had been so wonderful, but the Sarah whose image he’d held in his head for six long years. A Sarah who took party drugs; who was rich and spoiled; who cared for nothing but herself.

Had she changed-or had she always been like this but he hadn’t been able to see?

He was seeing now. He was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. She was gazing up at him, her eyes questioning, and suddenly…suddenly-irrationally-crazily-she was just there-she was so close-she was so beautiful and he wanted to so much…

Stupidly, senselessly, and for no reason at all, he took her into his arms and kissed her.

What was it supposed to be? A kiss of what? A kiss of why? There was absolutely no logic behind this kiss-no reason at all that this couple were being hauled in together as if they were magnetised, magnet to metal, irresistible force meeting irresistible object.

Whatever the logic-or the lack of logic-what was between them now was unmistakable. It was a full-blown explosion. The moment Sarah’s lips met Alistair’s the whole world changed.

Or stopped.

What was happening here? This was crazy, Alistair thought as he felt passion surge between them. There’d been nothing but businesslike efficiency and a coldness caused by shadows that the past could never eradicate.

But now… Now he was holding her, kissing her, this slip of a girl with her wondrous green eyes, with her glorious hair, with her beautiful silk pyjamas…

He was kissing Sarah.

And there was the nub of it. She was Sarah. No more and no less. Sarah. She was kissing him back, he thought dazedly, and she was kissing him as he wanted to be kissed. Her lips were opening slightly under his mouth. Her body was yielding to his, her breasts moulding against his chest. Her arms were holding him as he was holding her.

She was on fire!

No. It was he who was on fire.

The heat of the moment was almost overpowering. His body felt as if it was melting inside, being consumed, transformed, changing to something he hardly recognised.

He wanted this woman and he wanted her with a force that was outside his imagining.

Sarah…

His hands were moving almost of their own volition. They were holding her waist, hauling her close. Closer. And, joyously, she was yielding. Yielding with such sweetness. Her lips were fastened on his. He could feel her tongue against his mouth. He could taste her…

Sarah. Her name was a prayer. A joyous refrain. A desperate, aching need.

What was happening? How had this started?

But he knew how it had started. He knew. It had started six long years ago, when he’d first stared down at her on the floor of the kids’ ward and he’d fallen in love.

In love.

The words slammed into some dark recess of his brain, registered, shocked.

Love.

She was his twin’s fiancée. She was Grant’s love. She had nothing to do with him.

She was a part of him that had died along with Grant. A searing, aching pain that could never go away.

An impossibility.

And she felt it. He could sense the moment when she tensed and moved back, just a fraction, so she could see his face. Her eyes resting on his were huge in the shadowed light cast by the table lamp. She looked ethereal. Not of this world.

She’d destroyed Grant, he thought desperately. She could well destroy him.

‘What…what do you think you’re doing?’ she asked, in a voice that was distinctly tremulous, and he tried to collect himself. He tried to think.

Had he kissed her against her will? How had this craziness started?

He hardly knew. Somehow he dragged himself back. They stared at each other and his horror was reflected in Sarah’s eyes. She was as appalled as he was, he thought. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him.

But she had.

And he’d kissed her.

‘It’s hormones,’ he managed, and his voice came out a sort of hoarse croak. ‘I never meant…’

‘Neither did I.’

‘It’s those pyjamas.’

‘It’s because you look like Grant.’

Yeah. There it was.

Grant.

He lay between them like a physical barrier that they could never overcome. Alistair’s twin. The other half of his whole.

Sarah’s fiancée.

‘I need to go to bed,’ she whispered, and he nodded.

‘So do I.’

‘Goodnight.’ And she didn’t wait for an answer. She turned and she fled.