‘That’s right.’

‘Well, isn’t that just perfect?’ Doris gave another happy wiggle. ‘And they’re saying you can have Elspeth’s wee house, and then…’ She stilled as if wondering whether she dared say something and then decided to go ahead anyway. ‘They’re also saying Dr Rochester is sweet on you. Already. Now, wouldn’t that be something? If you could all live happily ever after.’


More of the same.

Followed by more of the same and more of the same.

The locals knew everything.

Betty must have overheard their conversation back at the refuge last night, Ally decided, and Betty had talked. As the morning wore on, more of her clients disclosed more about what was happening until she was almost ready to scream.

And then the phone rang.

While she’d been massaging she’d turned her phone over to the answering-machine. Now it was almost one and she’d finished for the morning. She washed the oil from her hands, listened to her messages and was just about to turn the machine back on so she could find some lunch-and find her mother!-when it rang.

‘Ally.’

It was Elizabeth, and with that first word Ally knew something was dreadfully wrong.

‘Mum…’

‘You need to go to the police station.’ Her mother was almost incoherent, and without thinking Ally switched into doctor mode. How to get information from someone who was panicking.

‘Three deep breaths,’ she ordered. ‘Now.’

‘I-’

‘Breathe. Calm yourself down and then talk to me.’

There was a tiny hesitation and Ally could hear the breaths being taken. ‘Sorry.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘It’s Jerry.’

‘Jerry?’

‘Kevin stabbed him.’

Ally was already shoving her feet into her outside shoes and was reaching for her keys with her spare hand. Now she paused, shocked into stillness. ‘But Kevin’s in hospital. Jerry’s in jail.’

‘That’s just it,’ he mother wailed. ‘We’re at the refuge. Dr Rochester was here. Ally, he’s so nice. But someone just ran in from the police station next door. The policeman’s wife. She’s still here. She’s so upset. She rang the hospital and they said the doctor was here and she just ran.’

This wasn’t making sense.

‘Is Jerry dead?’ Ally demanded, and it was a learned shock tactic that worked.

‘I don’t know,’ her mother whispered.

‘So what’s happened?’

‘Kevin’s supposed to be going by ambulance to Melbourne this afternoon.’

‘I know that.’

‘Yeah.’ Her mother choked and Ally could hear the sound of a woman sobbing in the background. ‘I… Anyway, while Dr Rochester was here looking after the kids, Kevin apparently headed over to the jail and said he desperately wanted to say goodbye to Jerry. The sergeant was out, but his wife let him into the cells. Just…to stand on the other side of the bars, she said. But as soon as Kevin got close he produced a knife and he started stabbing. Ally, the policeman’s wife says Jerry’s bleeding to death. Dr Rochester’s gone to help, but by the sound of it he’s got more than one stab wound. You have to go, too. You have to do something.’

But… This was Jerry! And her mother was weeping.

‘You still care,’ Ally breathed, appalled beyond belief. ‘After all this time.’

The hiccuping sobs stopped. Immediately. There was a harsh gasp and then a change of tone that was unbelievable.

‘What do you mean, I still care?’ Her mother was suddenly yelling. ‘Sure I care. I care that he goes to court and he gets convicted of every single crime he ever committed. Don’t you dare let him die, Ally.’

‘I’m not a doctor.’

‘Of course you’re a doctor,’ her mother yelled. ‘You’re the best doctor I know. Now stop wasting time and get down to the police station and save that low-life’s life. Now!’


It was only a block and a half and her ancient panel van took valuable moments to start. She ran and she reached the station in minutes.

Nothing. No cars. The door was wide open as if everyone had left in a hurry.

They must be at the hospital. She nearly didn’t go in but there was a sudden harsh expletive from the back.

She went in-and the sight that met her made her flinch.

The cell door was wide open. There was a bunch of keys lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Darcy was in the cell. He was bent over a crumpled form-Jerry-but he was glancing back over his shoulder. Talking. ‘He’s dead, Kevin,’ he was saying. ‘Leave it, mate. He’s dead.’

Stop, she told herself. Take in the whole scene.

Kevin was crumpling back into the corner of the outer office. He was whimpering and his knees were drawn up to his chin. Still in his hospital pyjamas, he was blood-spattered and desperate.

He looked up at her now as if she was a spectre. ‘I had to do it,’ he whispered. ‘I had to.’

He was holding a long, thin knife.

Was she first on the scene apart from Darcy? How fast had her mother called her?

Triage.

Ally glanced across at Darcy. Darcy looked up at her, and then at Kevin. His hands were pushing down hard on Jerry’s chest.

He’s dead, he’d said. But he was applying pressure.

The knife.

Darcy didn’t move. At a guess, he couldn’t. By the amount of blood, a major blood vessel was ruptured.

Was Jerry dead? Ally didn’t think so. Her eyes moved again to the knife.

She walked across and knelt before Kevin.

‘You’ve killed him,’ she said softly, and she was carefully blocking his view of Jerry and Darcy. If Jerry moaned…

‘I… Yes,’ he whispered. ‘He’s dead. He says he’s dead.’

‘Then it’s over,’ she said. Still gently. Still feather-soft. ‘It’s over, Kevin. All the awful things that have happened are finished. You don’t have to do anything any more.’

‘But-’

‘We’ll look after you now,’ she said. She put a hand on Kevin’s bloodstained arm. ‘You know it was me who had Jerry arrested. Let me take over now. Give me the knife, Kevin.’

He looked up at her with eyes that were blank with incomprehension-but then, like an obedient child, he held out the knife.

Dear God.

It was a vicious weapon. Some sort of filleting knife? He must have found it in the hospital kitchen, Ally thought. The knife had a long, vicious blade, with blood still thick along its length. It was pointed straight at Ally.

She swallowed-and then reached behind its point to take it by the handle.

He let it go.

Still she didn’t move. If she moved, he’d be able to see Jerry, and if Jerry moved…

There was no sound from Darcy. She could hear him moving-he’d be frantically trying to stop blood flow-but he’d guess what she was doing.

He wouldn’t mess it up by talking.

And then, blessedly, there was the sound of a car screeching into the main street, siren blaring. A skid of brakes.

Ally’s eyes held Kevin’s. She was ready to back away with the knife-to run-but she had a better chance of holding him with her eyes.

‘We’ll take care of you,’ she told Kevin. ‘Trust me. Jerry can’t hurt you any more.’

A car door slammed. Feet against gravel, moving fast. A man’s gruff voice, calling out. Sergeant Matheson.

She rose on feet that were decidedly wobbly, with the knife behind her back. She didn’t take her eyes off Kevin.

‘We’re through here.’

‘Kevin’s killed Jerry,’ she told the sergeant as he stopped in the doorway, appalled. She kept her voice carefully neutral, and behind her back and out of Kevin’s view she held out the knife toward him. ‘I think Kevin needs to go back to hospital now. Can you take him, Sergeant?’

He was good. His eyes swept the room, taking in the scene before him, but even before he was done he had the knife from her and it was pushed into a recess behind the desk. Then he went to kneel before Kevin.

‘Help the doc,’ he told her, glancing over to where Darcy was pushing desperately downward. ‘I have this.’


It took the next three hours and all their combined skill to save the man Ally hated most in the world.

Kevin’s first stab wound had been to Jerry’s chest. Instead of backing away from the bars, he’d slumped against them, and Kevin had stabbed wildly at everything else he could. Luckily Jerry had fallen with his head out of reach, but his legs were a mass of deep lacerations, any one of which could have been fatal.

They almost lost him. Darcy had shoved a chair under his legs to raise them above the level of his heart, trying to stop the pressure of the blood surging out onto the floor.

For those first few minutes Ally worked with him. They put pressure pads on every spot they could find, fighting desperately to stop the bleeding.

It seemed an age, though in truth it was only three or four minutes, before back-up arrived, in the shape of Betty, driving her own car but carrying bags of saline and more dressings than Darcy’s meagre doctor’s bag provided.

The three of them worked on.

Sergeant Matheson took Kevin away but they didn’t notice. Did Kevin realise that Jerry wasn’t dead? Ally wondered, but it didn’t matter.

He could still die. His blood pressure was dropping and dropping.

But somehow, somehow he lived on. To lose this much blood and live was almost miraculous.

Still they worked.

Finally Darcy sat back. The last of the spurting sources of blood had been quelled. Maybe there was a hope. The fluids were pouring in now, the IV line set to maximum. He had a chance.

Or did he?

‘His trachea has moved,’ Darcy said. He’d hardly looked at Ally. There’d been no time. The three of them had worked as a solid medical team, as if they’d trained together for years and were working in the emergency ward of some huge city hospital instead of in a lake of blood on the floor of the number one cell of Tambrine Creek police station. Now, though, Darcy had time to sit back and assess the whole situation.