Marion Lennox: The Police Doctor’s Secret

Sarah stared-and then choked. ‘Oh, of course. That’s the obvious thing to think, isn’t it?’

‘It was the obvious thing to think if we didn’t want to put him down,’ Alistair told her, deadpan. ‘Anyway, we treated his leg-and a tricky little piece of surgery it was, too. Broken tib and fib with resultant complications. Then he had to stay here in these quarters just in case quarantine was called for, and afterwards…’

‘You couldn’t get rid of him,’ Sarah said on a note of something akin to amazement, and Alistair scooped casserole onto three plates and managed a rueful smile.

‘See? I’m not always the evil twin. And as for putting him down…could you?’

‘No.’ She looked doubtfully at the dinner plates. And then at Flotsam, whose short, stumpy tail was doing helicopter rotations.

I’m not always the evil twin.

Did he know what Grant used to say about him?

It didn’t matter. Not any more. She had a job to do here, and a little dog to concentrate on to break the tension. ‘Does he sit up at the dinner table, too?’

‘He’s fussy who he dines with,’ Alistair said ambiguously, and carried the dog’s plate through the screen door out to the veranda. He set it down on the step while Sarah watched through the screen. ‘Here, mate-you can eat in privacy out here.’

Sarah stared. And felt her anger build. Whew. There was only one way to meet this hostility, she decided. Head-on. ‘Are you suggesting you’d rather eat out there, too?’ she demanded, and Alistair appeared to think about it.

‘Maybe. But I’m hungry. I’ll eat fast.’

‘Meaning you want as little contamination from me as possible?’

‘You said it, not me, lady,’ Alistair told her. ‘But let’s just leave it there.’

The silence was deafening. They ate, and the tension was growing all the time. Sarah stirred the casserole-which was some sort of indiscriminate stew-and wished she could be anywhere but here.

One mistake…

No. It had been more than one mistake. She’d been hauled into Grant’s world. She’d been caught in the bright bubble of laughter and excitement and sheer buzz, and she hadn’t looked below the surface until it was far, far too late.

She’d met his family.

She remembered the night Grant had given her the engagement ring. He’d taken her up to the top of the Rialto Tower in Melbourne, where the lights of all the world had spread out beneath them.

‘Now, when all the world is at our feet, I’m at your feet,’ he’d told her, and he’d knelt and given her the most exquisite diamond.

The moment had been something out of a fairytale. It had seemed…fantastic. But she’d looked down at that gorgeous laughing face and she’d felt a stir of disquiet. It had happened so fast-it had been as if they were playacting. Was there any substance there?

But she’d accepted. Of course she’d accepted. He had to be special. After that wonderful Christmas she’d wanted so much to be a part of his world. So she’d worn his ring, and she’d loved him and laughed at his jokes and been carried along in his world, until reality had finally hit and she’d seen what really lay beneath. And she’d realised the real reason she’d agreed to marry Grant.

Loving one twin was no basis for marriage to another.

Crazy thought. It was a crazy time, long past. She needed to focus on now. On what Alistair was saying.

‘You don’t wear his ring.’

Alistair was watching her from the other side of the table. His voice was carefully neutral-neither approving nor disapproving.

‘I thought you wanted to stay impersonal.’

‘So I do.’ His eyes stayed calm-watchful and appraising. ‘But I’m still wondering.’

‘I’m not in another relationship, if that’s what you mean,’ she told him. ‘But, no, I’m not still pining for Grant. I’ve moved on. Don’t you think it’s time you did, too?’

‘I don’t think you can move on from Grant.’

‘He’d have liked to hear you say that,’ she said, and there was no way she could keep the note of bitterness from her voice. ‘He had us all dancing from his strings. You included.’

‘I never did what he wanted.’

‘No, but you judged on his behalf.’

‘You killed him.’

It was like a punch to the face. Dear God…

She took a great lungful of air and it wasn’t enough. She found her eyes filling. Numbly, blindly, she stood.

What had she told him? That she’d moved on?

She’d done no such thing. The pain was right there, waiting to slam back. And it slammed back now.

She was not going to let this man see her cry.

‘Are…are the blood samples here yet?’ she whispered, turning away so he couldn’t see her face. Taking her plate to the sink. Avoiding his gaze.

‘Not yet.’ The brief flash of fury had faded. There was a trace of something else in his voice now. Confusion? She didn’t know. She couldn’t care. ‘They won’t be here until the searchers return to town.’

‘When will they be back?’ she managed.

‘Any time. I’d assumed they’d be in by now.’

‘Then I’ll wait in my bedroom,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for dinner. It was better than the company. Let me know when the blood samples arrive.’

Enough. Her voice wobbled dangerously and she turned before the first tear could fall. She was moving out through the door before he could speak.

‘Sarah…’ It was a tentative call of her name. He sounded unsure. Concerned.

But she didn’t turn. She couldn’t. She had to get out of here right now.

As Alistair cleared up the casserole he swore. Over and over again. What was going on here? What had Sarah said? That the casserole was better than the company.

Maybe she was right.

He really had to do something about Mrs Granson’s housekeeping, he told himself, in a vain attempt to distract himself from what was really important. The casserole was disgusting.

Right. The casserole was disgusting. Which made him…what? Even more disgusting?

No. He refused to accept judgement from someone like Sarah. What right did she have to criticise?

What right did she have to look as she did? As if he’d struck her-hard.

He thought suddenly of that last time he’d seen her. At the cemetery as they’d buried Grant. His parents had been inconsolable. And Sarah had appeared, wobbling on crutches, looking pathetic. She’d even tried to smile.

He’d been so…wild! Wild with grief at such an appalling waste. Such an appalling loss. At what had seemed such an ultimate betrayal of how he and his parents had felt about her.

So he’d pushed her away with his hurtful words and she’d looked just as she looked now. Like a wounded animal who’d been hurt even unto death.

Six years ago, standing beside his brother’s open grave, he’d felt an almost unbearable urge to recant. To take back what had been said. To follow her and take her into his arms.

He hadn’t done it then and he was darned if he’d do it now. But once again that urge was there.

What right did she have to look so wounded?

At his feet, Flotsam was gazing up at him, a worried look on his scraggy little face, and Alistair abandoned the clearing up, scooped the pup into his arms and took him out onto the veranda. The sea always had the capacity to soothe him. Maybe it could tonight.

He sat on the back step and Flotsam kept right on looking at him. Was he imagining it, or was there reproach in 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.