Marion Lennox: The Police Doctor’s Secret

She was left in no doubt he’d prefer not to eat with her. Which was fine. That was the way she wanted it, too. Wasn’t it?

Uncertain, though, she took a long shower, soaking off the grime of the plane journey and the memory of the autopsy. Then she hauled on a soft pink leisure suit-a cross between day-dress and pyjamas-and explored Alistair’s domain.

It was simple, but gorgeous. There was one vast living area, with an expansive kitchenette at one end and two bedrooms leading off the other. All the rooms opened out to the beach beyond. The hospital and associated buildings had been built in a vast line, so every room could soak in the sea.

It was still too warm for comfort. The windows, though, were wide open, and the sounds of the sea were everywhere. Sarah prowled around the little apartment, trying to figure out whether to eat or not.

She wasn’t hungry.

She opened the French windows onto the veranda. A small nondescript terrier, black and white, with one leg seemingly weaker than the rest and a big black patch around one eye, roused himself from an ancient settee where he’d been snoozing. He welcomed her with total politeness and then walked definitely into the room she’d just come from-as if to say, Well, you’re welcome, and I’m very grateful that you’re useful. Thank you for opening the door for me.

‘I hope you belong to Alistair,’ Sarah said doubtfully, and then grinned as the little dog stalked straight to the refrigerator and wagged his tail. Okay, he belonged.

But it still didn’t fit. Nothing seemed right about this, she thought, and the long-set-aside confusion came flooding back. Grant would never have been seen dead with a dog like this, and as far as she was concerned Alistair had higher standards than Grant.

But Grant had told her that. And Grant…

Grant had been nothing but a liar.

There was a stack of bookshelves lining the far wall and she turned her attention from the little dog’s pleading eyes-and tail-to the shelves. Alistair lived to read, she remembered Grant saying. She also remembered Grant had teased him about it. ‘I live life,’ he’d told her. ‘Alistair reads about it.’

Yeah, right.

So many things she didn’t understand. So many things she’d got wrong.

She fingered the books and then moved on.

On one shelf there was a photograph in a simple wooden frame. It was all alone, as if the owner of this place didn’t really want any memorabilia but hadn’t been able to resist this one.

It was a photograph of Sheila and Doug Benn. Alistair and Grant’s parents. They’d been at least twenty years older than this when Sarah had met them, she decided, but she still recognised them. They were on a beach somewhere. Dressed in old-fashioned bathing costumes, they stood arm in arm, laughing at the antics of their twin sons.

The twins looked about ten years old.

She could pick them still. They might be identical, but they’d been different even then. Grant would be the one doing the headstand, Sarah thought, looking at the photograph of her ex-fiancé grinning widely at the camera from upside down. Alistair was smiling down at him.

They were all smiling at Grant. That would have pleased him, Sarah thought, picking up the frame and fingering Grant’s face. Grant had always had to be the centre of attention.

‘Will you leave my things alone?’

She nearly dropped the photograph. She hadn’t heard him come in. She whirled and Alistair was standing in the doorway, his face forbidding.

‘I’m…I’m sorry.’

‘I’d imagine you have photos of your own.’

‘I do.’ She put the photograph back on the shelf so fast that it fell face down. Then she had to adjust it, and her colour mounted all the time. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

He stared at her for a long moment-but then he shrugged. Whatever he’d wanted to say had clearly been deemed not worth the effort.

‘Okay.’ He took a deep breath and seemed to come to some sort of decision. ‘Look, we’re both stuck with this. Just…we need to keep the whole thing impersonal.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ she managed, and he nodded.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I thought I’d wait for you.’

‘Muriel’s casseroles don’t improve with keeping.’ He crossed to the kitchenette and hauled two plates out of the cupboard to lay them on the bench. Then he looked down to where the little terrier was rubbing himself ecstatically on his ankle. He smiled.

‘How about you, Flotsam?’ he asked the little dog. ‘Has she fed you?’

‘She being the cat’s mother?’ Sarah snapped before she could stop herself, and Alistair’s smile widened. It was a great smile, Sarah thought wistfully. A killer smile.

It would never be directed at her.

‘She said it, not me,’ he told Flotsam. ‘The cat’s mother, eh?’

But Sarah was distracted. ‘Um… Flotsam?’

‘Because of the way I found him. Flotsam and jetsam-washed up on the beach. I haven’t found Jetsam yet, but I guess it’ll happen.’

She was intrigued. This was so far from her preconception of Alistair that she had to probe further. ‘You found him?’

‘You don’t think I’d go out and choose a dog like Flotsam, do you?’ Alistair asked. He was concentrating on lifting the casserole from the oven, and she couldn’t see his face, but she thought he sounded as if he was smiling. That’d make a change.

‘I guess I didn’t think that.’ She stooped and fondled the dog’s scruffy ears, and he reached out a scratchy tongue and licked the back of her hand. He was a seriously enchanting little mutt. No, she hadn’t thought he’d choose a dog like this. But neither had she thought a man like Alistair would have a dog like this foisted on him. Or a man like Grant.

She needed to separate the two. Desperately.

‘So how did you find him?’ she managed.

‘He was washed up after a storm,’ Alistair told her, seeming not to notice her discomfort. ‘There was a cyclone here a few months back. A boat was smashed up on the rocks. Indonesian. A couple of sailors were injured and ended up in hospital. The cargo was fish. We suspect it was taken illegally from Australian waters. Anyway, I walked down to the beach a day after the storm and the smell was unbelievable. Tons and tons of tuna, swept up on the beach and left to rot. Our local fisheries officer was taking photographs as evidence, and while he was photographing a pile of fish, the pile moved.’

‘It moved?’ Sarah was still rubbing the little dog’s ears. Flotsam looked up at her with eyes that said, Oh, isn’t this the most pathetic story-rub me some more! ‘You mean- Flotsam was underneath?’

‘He was crushed under a load of rotten fish. Heaven knows how he managed to survive. At that stage the boat had been broken up for forty-eight hours. Anyway, Flotsam’s leg was badly broken and he was barely alive, but I hauled off a fish and he looked at me…’

‘With his patched eye?’

‘It’s a great eye,’ Alistair said, and there was no doubting the genuine affection in his voice as he looked at the little dog-who was rubbing himself round and round Sarah’s hand so every inch of his scruffy little head was covered. ‘Sam-the fisheries officer-said he was probably an Indonesian dog, was breaking all sorts of immigration laws by being here, and would have to be quarantined for six months if he was to stay. The best thing would be to put him down. But still that crazy eye looked at me. So I went back to the hospital and asked the wounded sailors if they knew him. They all swore they knew nothing about a dog. By the time I returned the eye had worked on Sam as well. So Sam and I declared him officially an Australian dog who’d obviously been walking along the beach minding his own business when two tons of tuna landed on his head.’