The Police Doctor’s Secret

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE might be feeling useless and exhausted, but Sarah had no wish to go home. After staring at Mariette’s washing, acting on impulse, Sarah called into Max’s store.

She found him distraught. ‘If he needed the stuff so badly I would have given it to him,’ he told her, and she believed him.

And here at least she could be useful. In Sarah Max found someone he could use to debrief. She spent almost an hour with him, and by the end of it, as well as carrying home an armload of ingredients for a decent dinner, she also carried away information about Howard’s shopping habits. What he’d told her cemented her impressions. Howard was in this up to his neck.

Howard might well know who these people were. He had their passports prepared and waiting. Maybe he knew their backgrounds.

Back at the hospital, she went to search for Larry. The team were starting out at dawn to begin their sweeping search of the area, and they’d taken over the pub as accommodation, but they were using the hospital meeting room as a base.

She found Larry with Alistair. She walked in and one glance told her that Alistair was feeling as uncomfortable as she was. The atmosphere between them was dreadful-what he’d said was rolling over and over in her mind, making her sick at heart. Comparing her to Barry…

‘I’m sorry. Am…am I interrupting?’

‘No.’ They’d been sitting at the big meeting room table, used for an assortment of community health meetings, but as soon as he saw her Alistair was on his feet. ‘I was just going.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘I have work to do.’

Right. Of course. His leaving should make her feel better.

It didn’t.

Somehow, with him gone, she gave a stiff, faltering account of what she’d learned, and if Larry, who had worked with her often before, found her demeanour strange he obviously put it down to the events of the afternoon. They’d been enough to shake anyone. Sarah’s work was usually in the aftermath of crime. Not in the forefront.

‘You think this is part of some systematic scheme?’ Larry demanded, and Sarah nodded.

‘The place is set up out there to receive people, and it looks like it’s been done professionally. There was equipment for taking passport photographs. There were clothes. There were blank passport books.’

‘It makes more and more sense,’ Larry said grimly. ‘We’ve been looking at people-smuggling for a while. We’ve come across a few people who’ve used black market means to get here. They’ve all paid an absolute fortune to get here and then been dumped in the cities with nothing. All of them say they were brought initially to some remote farm that none could describe. And the worst thing is that nearly all of them are genuine refugees. They’ve taken the black market option because of panic. They had reason to panic, but if they’d been pointed to the correct authorities they would have been helped without payment. Someone’s making a fortune out of their desperation.’

He rose, purpose in his face. Sarah knew this man well. Larry was a big man, with a ruthless exterior, but inside he was as soft as putty. Sarah had seen him deal with the worst type of criminals and she knew he didn’t hold back. But when he needed to be gentle…there was a core of humanity in the man that made his pursuit of the criminal element take on a dimension not often seen in a man in such a position.

‘I need to talk to your Howard,’ he told her, and Sarah nodded.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘I’ll ask Alistair. He’s the charge doctor. It’d look better on the reports.’

She nodded.

‘Are you getting on okay with Dr Benn?’ Larry asked-almost casually. But Sarah wasn’t fooled. Larry asked nothing casually.

‘We go back a bit,’ she told him. ‘There was a relationship.’

‘Right.’ Larry’s expression cleared. He’d noticed and he’d needed an explanation. He had one now that satisfied him and he’d take it no further.

‘Can you work with the man?’

‘I already have. It’s fine. Just don’t expect us to like each other.’

‘I won’t do that.’ Larry’s eyebrows rose. Well, well, his expression said. Dr Rose with a love-life?

Yeah, fat chance, Sarah thought grimly as he disappeared in search of Alistair. Dr Rose with a love-life?

Dr Rose with nothing.

Feeling closer than ever to breaking point, she made her way back to the doctor’s quarters and spent an hour making a casserole from Max’s offerings. It didn’t help her aching heart, but at least… Well, cooking was comfort. Cooking was something she turned to in moments of absolute bleakness.

Like now.

Alistair walked in as she was spooning the casserole onto a plate. Not that she felt like eating. It was the cooking that was important.

‘Help yourself,’ she told him, and sat and started to eat. Or sat and started to toy with the idea of eating.

He cast her an oddly questioning look, but she wasn’t giving any answers. Finally, without comment, he helped himself to a plateful of casserole and sat down with her. He took a forkful and paused.

‘Mrs Granson didn’t make this.’

‘You’d make a fine detective.’

‘You made it?’

‘Well done. Great deduction.’ She wasn’t looking at him. She was concentrating fiercely on her food. ‘Did Howard give any information?’

He sighed. And moved on. It was the only thing to do. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Larry’s pretty sure he knows little himself. Larry showed him the three passports and he said he hadn’t a clue how they got there. He’s still in a fair amount of pain, and he retreated into feigned sleep, but he said enough for us to realise he’s no brain. He’ll have been used. He provides a base, and food for people as they come through, but he asks no questions and is told little.’

‘You don’t think he knows their nationality?’

‘I suspect he hasn’t even heard of any countries smaller than the United States. He’s a serious no-brainer.’

She winced. Another avenue blocked.

More pain, she thought. Her feeling of helplessness was intensifying by the minute-and this man’s presence on the other side of the table didn’t help at all.

There was a deathly silence, broken only by the sound of Flotsam scratching a flea under the table. It was almost unbearable, Sarah thought. Unbearable…

‘Sarah?’

‘What?’

‘What I said to you in Theatre,’ he said at last. ‘Putting your actions in the same context as what Barry did to Amal. It was unforgivable.’

More silence. Flotsam’s leg thumped the floor in a steady rhythm. He was really enjoying his scratch. Sarah stirred her casserole a bit. It was chicken in an orange sauce with Asian vegetables. Max had done her proud, delving into the depths of his cold store for things he kept for his favourite customers and insisting she take them all. But she couldn’t face it. She might just as well be sitting before one of Mrs Granson’s offerings.

What was she supposed to say to this man? she wondered. What? There was nothing.

It seemed he knew he had to speak again.

‘I was appalled,’ he said at last. ‘Shocked. Sick at heart. I wanted to lash out and you were there.’

‘So you lashed out at me?’

‘Yes. Unforgivably. I’m sorry.’

‘But you’ve wanted to lash out at me for six years.’

There was a further silence. It was becoming a habit. Some more casserole stirring. Finally Alistair put down his fork and sighed. He looked up and met her gaze straight on, unflinching.

‘That’s right,’ he told her. ‘I have. Of course I have. And you’re right in that my anger with you is behind a lot of my tension now. Grant was my twin. I don’t know whether you can understand it, but twinship…it’s as if you’re half of a whole-and when it’s ripped away…’

She swallowed and stared at her plate. Half of a whole? Was that how Grant had seen his own twinship? She didn’t think so.

‘You didn’t get on,’ she said bleakly.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘We didn’t. We were different people. But that didn’t stop me being Grant’s twin brother. I’m sure he felt the same. We had our differences, but we would have defended each other to the death.’

Would they? Sarah stared across the table at Alistair and thought, Yes, she could see that in this man. But in his twin?

As he said, they were very different people.

‘I had no right to throw it at you this afternoon,’ he said heavily. ‘Sarah, you’ve changed. I know you have. I can’t get past my anger at Grant’s death-I never will-but it did happen six years ago, and I’m starting to realise that you’ve paid a price, too. You’re a different person to the one you were then.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ She’d been listening with a certain amount of sympathy, but at this her anger surged again. She’d changed, had she? Learned remorse? Learned not to be such a bad little girl that she’d drive a car when she was drugged? That was so good of him. To concede that…

‘Hear me out.’ He was watching her. It was obvious that he saw her anger, but she could see that he didn’t understand. ‘All I wanted to say was that whatever’s changed in you, Sarah, keep it. With Amal this afternoon you were a caring and compassionate human being-’

‘As opposed to what?’ she said dangerously. ‘As opposed to the drug addict of six years ago?’

His face shuttered and she could see him recoil. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘You did bring it up,’ she managed. ‘And how do you think it makes me feel? To be put in the same category as Barry?’

‘I didn’t mean-’

‘You did mean.’ She ate a few mouthfuls of her casserole, heaven knew how. The lovely food was threatening to choke her. Finally she pushed her plate back and rose.

‘Grant had been drinking,’ she said conversationally, and Alistair met her gaze head-on.

‘I know,’ he conceded. ‘Of course I know. So he holds a share of responsibility. Grant got into the car with you when you were on drugs. You don’t think I blame him at all? Of course I do. He was stupid and reckless, and I’m not so blinded by loving my twin that I can’t accept his stupidity. But you were behind the wheel.’

She could break this now, she thought. She could smash his memories of his beloved brother.

But were those memories all she’d thought they were? What had he said? That Grant had been stupid and reckless. Yes. Yes, he had. And more.

But Alistair still loved him. Could she destroy that? She’d come so far down this road. How could she back out now?

She couldn’t. She found now that she didn’t even want to. She’d carried this with her for so long that to destroy it… She glanced across at the photograph on the sideboard-Grant laughing and Alistair smiling down at him.

No. She couldn’t, and she didn’t wish to. Not now. Never.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ she told him. ‘I’ve eaten enough. I’ve listened to enough.’

‘I’ve apologised.’

‘Yes, and I’m very glad you did. It was incredibly noble.’

‘You lost your fiancé, too,’ he said, looking up at her with eyes that were intent and searching. ‘You loved Grant, too.’

Had she?

‘Yeah.’

‘Sarah…’

‘Leave it.’ She bit her lip and carried her plate to the sink. ‘Leave the dishes. I’ll do them when I come back. I need to go.’

Flotsam came with her. The little dog had decided Sarah was a fun person to be with. He attached himself to her heels and was the only comfort available to her.

The night was still and warm. Sarah walked slowly down the track from the hospital leading to the beach behind.

The tide was out. Miles out. She could barely see the glimmer of surf in the distance. The beach was a vast expanse of wet sand, shimmering golden in the moonlight. Waders-herons, cranes, sandpipers-were paddling in the wet sand, searching for food.

Flotsam made a half-hearted attempt to chase, but she clicked him back to her side. He came obediently and sat beside her as she hugged her knees and looked out into the lonely distance.

‘I should never have started this,’ she whispered, and Flotsam gave an anxious wuffle and huddled close.

Maybe I should get myself a dog. That was a good thought. It brought a faint smile to her face. She could do it. She could move from her hospital apartment into a bigger place, get herself a yard…

I’m away for most of the day. What sort of life is that for a dog?

No life at all. Her glimmer of pleasure faded.

What am I thinking about? She gave herself a mental swipe-or tried to give herself a mental swipe. She didn’t really need it, she decided. She felt pretty battered already.

But it’s nothing to what’s happening here, she told herself, and she turned so she was looking out at the crags and cliffs along the coastline.

Somewhere out there was a woman and a child, hiding in terror. They’d be waiting desperately for Amal to come back to them, and Amal was fighting for his life in a Cairns hospital. He was probably being operated on right now.

‘What can I do to help?’ she asked Flotsam, but there was no answer. She felt so…futile. There was nothing. She couldn’t search at night-no one could. Tomorrow there’d be a squad of highly trained professionals trawling the hills. Maybe if Amal pulled through they could at least find out his nationality. Then maybe they could pull in translators-people who could call out in the woman’s own language. Reassure her…

Oh, sure. As if she’d accept reassurance from the people who shot her husband.

‘Can I join you?’

She jumped a foot. Flotsam gave a yelp of excitement and whirled to face his master. Alistair was six feet away.

‘Stupid dog,’ Sarah managed, thoroughly flustered. ‘Great watch dog you’d make. You’re supposed to bark.’

‘He’s barking.’

‘When my attacker is right on me.’

‘Um…your attacker is the dog’s owner,’ Alistair said mildly. ‘Plus, I’m not exactly intent on rape or pillage.’

‘Yeah, but you might have been.’

‘You can be very sure I’m not.’

She hugged her knees even harder. Of course. Rape? She had to be kidding? He wouldn’t touch her. She was Grant’s fiancé.

And why would she even want him to? He’d kissed her once, out of anger and frustration, and there was no way in the wild world she wanted him to do it again.

Was there?

Where were her thoughts going? All over the place. She felt as if she was splintering, disintegrating into sharp shards that hurt.

‘I came down here for some peace,’ she told him, and he nodded and sat down on the sand beside her. Obviously her definition of peace wasn’t his.

‘You’re worried about these people?’

‘Of course I’m worried about these people.’ She flashed him a glance that was pure fury. He still thought of her as a careless, stupid…criminal.

The knowledge cut like a knife.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he said heavily, and she nodded, forcing herself to think about problems that weren’t hers.

‘I can’t think of a thing,’ she managed. ‘They must be securely hidden by now. And if she’s terrified when Amal doesn’t return…’

‘She’ll have to come out.’

‘There’s a gun,’ she said inconsequentially, and he stared.

‘A gun?’

‘The pilot was wearing a holster,’ she told him. ‘It was empty. In my experience when people wear holsters there’s usually a gun in the vicinity. We all know that. That’s why Barry searched. But there’s more than that. The smear of blood on the seat beside the pilot doesn’t belong to him. It’s AB. The pilot is O. So someone-a bleeding someone-checked the pilot before we reached the plane. Discovered he was dead. I’m deducing that whoever it was removed the gun.’

Alistair stared. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

‘I told Larry.’

‘Does Barry know?’

‘I’d have been a fool to tell Barry,’ she said wearily. ‘At least this way he yelled three times before he shot. If he’d known for sure that he had a gun, rather than just suspected it, he might not have given him even that courtesy.’

Alistair sat and thought about it. The silence between them had changed. There was still the tension of anger, but overriding it was the thought of the unknown. A terrified, hurt group of people huddling somewhere in the hills. With a dreadfully wounded child.

‘What would you do?’ Sarah asked, almost conversationally. ‘Let’s assume your child is desperately ill. Mortally ill. Your husband goes for help and leaves you hidden. He doesn’t return. Two days. Three days. Maybe the child dies. You’re bereft in a strange country. Everything you have is gone. And you have a gun.’

‘You’re imagining things,’ Alistair said strongly. He knew where she was headed and the thought was dreadful. ‘Anyway…’ He hesitated. ‘The badly wounded one might be the mother.’

‘Would that make it better?’

‘No, but…’

‘It’s not, though,’ she told him. ‘The father’s blood group is O. Most of the blood in the back of the plane is A. There’s also a smaller amount of AB, and there’s also the blood in the cockpit. An O father and an AB mother can have an A child. An O father and an A mother can’t have an AB child.’

‘There are assumptions all over the place there,’ he said slowly, and she nodded.

‘There are. But assumptions are what I do. Acting on scientific evidence, I best-guess and hypothesise. I try and keep an open mind for as long as I can, but when people are depending on me for answers sometimes I just have to guess. I always state absolutely that it’s a guess, but it’s still a guess, for all that.’

‘So what have you guessed?’ he asked, and she flinched.

‘You sound…sardonic. As far as I know I don’t have to answer to you.’

‘No.’ He was silent for a moment, and then added in a different tone, ‘No, you don’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound sardonic. I would like to know what you’ve guessed.’

She stared out to sea for a long moment, as if she was considering whether to speak or not. In truth she wasn’t being difficult. She just needed time to adjust-to adjust to the feel of him sitting beside her. The sensation of the night.

The sensation of him.

But finally she spoke, forcing her mind to track again through what it had tracked over and over again over the last days. What she’d expounded to Larry as the most probable course of events.

‘We have a smuggling ring,’ she told him. ‘A team set up to take advantage of desperate people who, for whatever reason, can’t use or don’t know about the normal refugee channels. Amal looks Middle Eastern, and we know how much unrest is over there. So for some reason he was in serious trouble. He needed to get his family out of the country fast. He looks as if he’s been well dressed, his hands are those of a professional, rather than a manual worker, and his clothes aren’t cheap. So let’s say he had money.’

‘Assumptions.’

‘Do you want to hear this or do you want to leave me to my beach? Alone.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He held his hands up, placating. Asking her to proceed.

‘Fine,’ she snapped. She tugged Flotsam to her and hugged him. She was wearing shorts and T-shirt; the night wind was soft and warm and she wasn’t cold, but still she shivered. She had need of Flotsam.

‘Okay,’ she continued finally. ‘Our people paid through the nose to be taken out of the country-say to some nice safe country like Australia. They were kept well clear of normal channels of transport. Normal refugee channels. They were taken overland, or by cheap flights to Asia, then onward by boat and landed on a remote beach somewhere up north. Then our pilot picked them up, only he was a fool, with a plan for more easy cash, and he died. They crashed.’

‘I’ve figured this out-’

‘Bear with me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m thinking out loud, and it helps if I do the whole scenario. So they crashed. The child was badly wounded-a lot of blood. The mother was slightly wounded.’

‘You don’t know-’

‘Wait.’ She glowered. ‘As I said, it’s assumption. But we have a dreadfully wounded child, a slightly wounded mother, and a father who’s okay. He’d have got them all out of the plane. His attention would have been on the child. But what was his next action?’

‘Check the pilot?’

‘Yeah. But the kid needed him. His wife maybe had a bleeding hand-something-not too much. So he’d have told her to check. She climbed up, leaving blood. She saw that the pilot was dead. And she saw the gun. She was in the middle of nowhere. Scared silly. Terrified. Of course she’d have taken the gun.’

‘So why didn’t he bring it?’ Alistair said slowly. ‘When he came to rob the store?’

‘Two reasons I can think of,’ Sarah said. ‘Either he doesn’t know she has it, or he’s left it with her. To defend herself. And neither scenario appeals. What we’re left with is a terrified, desperate woman with a gun.’

‘Hell,’ Alistair said softly, and Sarah nodded.

‘It is. For her it must be.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Hope Amal pulls through,’ Sarah said. ‘Hope he can tell the police in Cairns where he comes from so we can at least call out in the woman’s own language. Larry agrees that we need to remove every uniform and every gun or anything that can be remotely taken for a gun at a distance from searchers.

If she thinks anyone’s armed it’ll make things worse. We’ll try and figure out through their names where they come from-there are people trying to do that now. As for the rest…’ She hugged Flotsam some more. ‘Nothing,’ she said bitterly. ‘Until the searchers go out tomorrow morning…nothing.’

‘You really care, don’t you?’

‘What do you think?’

There was a long, long silence. Sarah dug her toes into the sun-warmed sand. The night was closing in on them now-the moon was full over the sea and the shimmer of its light over the far-off waves made this place look lovely. An enticing land.

But it wasn’t, Sarah thought. It was deceiving. In a couple of hours the tide would sweep in and this would be underwater. There was no shelter. The mangrove swamps held crocodiles; there was no food; every scratch would fester in this warm, muggy climate.

Somewhere…

‘Sarah?’ Alistair said, so softly that at first she thought she’d imagined it. But she looked up and he was watching her, his eyes gravely questioning.

‘Yes?’

‘I wanted to ask you…’ He hesitated, as though not sure how to begin. Or even if he wanted to begin.

What was he going to ask? Sarah thought, half fearful.

And she was right to be fearful. His question, when it came, was right out of left field. He put a hand down and his finger traced the deep and jagged scar running the length of her left leg. ‘Sarah, how did you get this scar?’

He shouldn’t have asked. Long ago he’d had an odd and occasionally silly great-aunt who’d drummed in her Rules To Live By. ‘Don’t ask questions, boy. You might get answers you don’t like, and then where would you be, hey?’

That was how he felt now. But the question had been growing. The deep sense of unease. The feeling…

No. He wasn’t going to begin to acknowledge the feeling he had. The foreboding. He couldn’t. Until he heard the answer.

But he knew that he was right the moment he looked up from tracing the scar and saw her eyes. He saw the fear.

‘In the accident,’ she said, so softly that he had to lean forward to make sure he heard it.

‘In the accident-when Grant died?’

‘Yes.’

‘But…’ He was motionless. It was as if the whole world was holding its breath. He should shut up, he thought. He should back out right now. This was Grant they were talking about. It was as if he had to make a choice right now-Grant or Sarah.

Grant was his twin.

But Grant was dead. Six years dead. And Sarah was alive, living with consequences he could hardly bear to think about.

‘This is a jagged tear to the outside of your left leg,’ he said slowly, as if each word was torn from him. ‘And the only side of the car that was damaged was the passenger side.’

‘Well, then.’ She swallowed and tried to rise. His hand stopped her.

‘Sarah…’

‘Don’t ask, Alistair,’ she begged. ‘Grant’s your twin. You love him. Don’t ask.’

But he didn’t have to ask. He already knew the answer.

‘Grant was driving,’ he whispered. ‘My God…Grant was driving. But how…? How…? Did you agree to take the blame?’ And then, as she stayed silent, he thought back. ‘You had concussion. I remember. When Grant rang he said you had concussion and lacerations. That’d fit if you were in the passenger side. But he told me that you were driving.’

‘We hit a tree,’ Sarah told him. ‘When the police arrived Grant had hauled me out of the car.’

‘That’s what he told them?’

‘I assume. I was unconscious.’

‘He’d been drinking.’ Alistair swallowed. All the old anger came flooding back. The fury. The waste of it. The sheer bloody waste. And this girl…

‘He’d have been over the legal alcohol limit. To save losing his licence he dragged you out and he blamed you. Is that right, Sarah? Is that right?’

Sarah flinched. It had never been said. It had never been faced. And now it was harder to admit than she’d thought possible.

‘It’s right,’ she whispered. ‘I never had the chance to ask him-to confront him-but it must have been right. To lose his driver’s licence…to have it in the newspapers that he’d crashed while driving under the influence… You know how much he’d have hated it. But me… I had sedatives in my bloodstream, but there’s no law against that. Rumours were that I’d taken all sorts of illegal drugs, but there was nothing illegal about it. Grant knew that. He knew that if he said I was driving I wouldn’t be charged.’

‘But…he was dying.’

‘He didn’t think there was anything wrong with him.’ Sarah gave a bitter laugh. ‘You know that. He mustn’t have been wearing his seat belt. Not even that. He was drunk; he wasn’t wearing his seat belt; and he thought he’d walked away from the wreck without any injury.’

‘And you let him… You let him accuse you.’

‘I had concussion,’ Sarah said. ‘I lost a lot of blood. I was taken to hospital, and as soon as I came round they gave me an anaesthetic and stitched my leg. It was a big job, so they used a general anaesthetic. I was hazy-in and out of consciousness for almost a day. And when I surfaced they told me Grant was dead. Dead. That was it. No one interviewed me. No one asked me questions. I didn’t have to tell anyone what had happened because Grant had made a full statement to the police naming me as the driver. No one even asked me to explain the traces of sedative they found in my bloodstream.’

Alistair sat, silent. Trying to absorb it. He scarcely could. But it fitted. Dreadful as it was, it fitted.

But Sarah… To wake like that. What must it have been like, regaining consciousness? Waking? Being told Grant was dead?

Being told that Grant had stated that it was all her fault.

‘They believed it when you agreed you were the driver?’ Alistair whispered, and Sarah gave a bitter laugh.

‘No. I told you. They didn’t have to believe me. Not one person has ever asked me whether I was driving. No one. They believed Grant. How much easier to believe than to ask questions? The coroner’s verdict was that the car had spun out when it hit ice. An accident. No need for questions.’

‘But-’

‘Why do you think I decided to be a forensic pathologist?’ she demanded, her voice laced with the bitterness of years. ‘When the people at work shunned me because of what I’d done and I decided to change careers it was the obvious choice. I figured if I could stop one person going through what I’d gone through it’d be worthwhile. Join the police force, study forensic medicine, save the world.’ She tried to smile, but there was an obvious and dreadful pain behind the smile. A pain he couldn’t believe he’d missed until now.

‘They were all so stupid,’ she whispered. ‘They believed. And what was I to do?’

‘You could have told the truth.’

‘Right.’

‘You could have.’

‘Could I? Could I really? Could I have told the world that not only was Grant dead but he was a liar? Could I have told your parents that? Shattered their world still more? Could I have told you? I knew how unwell your father was-he was the nicest man. And you…’

Her voice faded almost to nothing, but then she regrouped-just a little. ‘How would you have felt?’ she asked, ‘Not only was your brother dead, but he’d been driving drunk and in the few minutes when he should have been trying to stop my leg from bleeding he’d carted me around to the other side of the car and made it seem as if I was the driver. Afterwards I went to see the car, where it lay in the wrecker’s yard. If you knew what you were looking for it was so obvious. Do you know, he even wiped my blood from the passenger door? The doctors told me I almost died through blood loss. I lay bleeding while he covered his traces. But then he paid the ultimate price. He died.’

Alistair thought it through, and thought some more. It didn’t help. His head felt as if it was close to bursting. Whichever way he looked at it he felt sick. Unbearably ill.

He’d seen the car. He hadn’t looked. He hadn’t asked questions. And Sarah had paid the price.

‘You’ve carried this all this time.’

‘I had no choice. Grant gave me this legacy.’

‘But you…’ He stared at her in the moonlight, trying to see… Trying to see what? He didn’t know. ‘You were on drugs…’

Anger flared then. Real and dreadful. ‘Does that make it easier to bear? Your brother blamed me but, hey, it’s okay, she’s just a hophead?’

‘No, but-’

‘You want to know the truth about that, too?’

He didn’t. But he must. ‘Yes.’

‘It was because of my mother,’ she told him.

She stood then, pushing herself up, walking away and looking out to sea-as if she couldn’t bear to face him.

‘I’ve already told you my mother was an alcoholic,’ she said. ‘She never got over my father walking out on her, and that happened before I was born. She suffered from depression, exacerbated by the alcohol. She was in and out of nursing homes from the time I was tiny-on uppers, downers, the works. She and I hadn’t had any real relationship for years, though I tried. Heaven knows I tried. Anyway, that night she rang me, when I was working at the hospital, and said I had to come around to her apartment. She had a surprise for me. Something she wanted me to share with my father. She was insistent. I had to come. God help me, she even sounded excited.’

‘And?’ Alistair found he was holding his breath, and he didn’t know how long he’d been holding it. For ten minutes? Longer. An eternity. He took a long, searing breath and tried to concentrate.

‘She’d suicided,’ Sarah said flatly. ‘Of course she had. Some things are inevitable. It was her last sick joke on the world. On me. On life. She’d planned it so I’d find her and I had to cut her down. She thought…she’d have thought that by hurting me she’d somehow hurt my father. The sick thing is that he couldn’t have cared less.’

‘Oh, Sarah…’

‘I called the police, the undertaker-everyone,’ she said. ‘A doctor arrived at some stage. I was… Well, I was in a mess. Despite everything, I still loved her. The doctor who came knew Grant, and he knew who I was. He thought I was still… Well, he knew about our relationship. So he called him and Grant came.’ She gave a shrug of her shoulders, eloquently expressive in the moonlight. ‘That sort of thing-drama, suicide, me being distraught-would have appealed to Grant. I knew him pretty well by then. Too well. Because of my father, the suicide would hit the headlines, and Grant knew that. It was what he most liked about me. My famous father. It had taken me a while to see, but I knew it then, and I never should have let him be called. If the paparazzi were nearby then Grant would relish it. Only there weren’t any paparazzi. My mother had got past the stage where the press were interested.’

Alistair was scarcely breathing. At the time of Grant’s death he hadn’t seen either of them for a couple of months, but what she was saying made sense. Every time Grant had talked about Sarah the name of her famous father had come up.

Would Grant have loved Sarah if her father wasn’t famous? He couldn’t ask. But he knew the answer.

‘Couldn’t your father come?’ he asked her, and watched as she shook her head, bleakness intensifying.

‘What do you think? He was in Switzerland-with another of his women. Being famous. Sure, there’d be paparazzi where my father was, but the suicide of an elderly, drunk ex-wife could be hushed up. I told Grant that was what I wanted-that things be kept quiet-and he had to agree.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ she asked bleakly. ‘Do you? Because that’s how it happened. He’d been drinking, and I was too upset to think straight. He came into my mother’s apartment and he acted the real doctor. Specialist in charge. Which, of course, he was. “I’ll take charge,” he told everyone. He gave me sedatives and I didn’t argue. “I’ll take you home,” he said, and that was the last thing I remember.’

‘Why did I know nothing of this?’ Alistair felt sick. To say he was appalled… There was no way he could begin to describe how he felt. His world was shifting under his feet. Grant. Grant had done this-to Sarah. ‘Why did I know nothing about what happened to your mother?’

‘You didn’t ask,’ Sarah told him, weary now beyond belief. ‘I told you. Nobody asked. No one came near me. I made my decision to wear Grant’s blame because I didn’t think your parents could bear it if I didn’t. I wore it. And you all just accepted it. Because, of course, you loved Grant. Everyone loved Grant. God help me, for a short, short time I thought I did, too. But I’ve paid for that loving. It’s a long time since I loved him, but everyone else still does.’

There was an end to it. Her voice faded to nothing. Her world seemed to fade to nothing. Or maybe it had faded a long time ago.

Sarah stood looking out to sea for a long, long time, while Alistair stayed silent behind her.

There was nothing to be said. Nothing to say. She’d made her decision six years ago. If she’d had a choice that decision would have been held for life. But now…

Grant was his twin. What she’d just done to Alistair was inexcusable. But he’d asked. He’d probed as no one else ever had.

‘I’m going back to the house,’ she said at last, and she walked away without looking back.

Not even Flotsam followed her.