‘What am I doing?’ She stooped and hugged Flotsam, who seemed entirely happy to be hugged. It was as if the little dog sensed her need and was pleased to oblige. ‘Alistair hates me. I don’t know what that kiss was about. It was crazy. He just hates me. And I…’

What was she feeling? She knew what she was feeling, and it was all about that kiss. Which was crazy.

She should go home. There was nothing here for her.

There was nothing at home for her.

‘I’ve stuffed it so badly,’ she said bleakly. ‘All I can do…all I can do, Flotsam, is see if I can redeem myself somehow. Where are Noa and Azron? If I could find them, if I could help in some way… There has to be something I can do.’

She thought of that wisp of cloth she’d seen back at the shop as she’d helped load Amal into the truck-cum-ambulance. Did it have any significance? Probably not, she thought, but she could go down and have a look. She could see if there was anything there that could explain it.

‘You’re making excuses to stay,’ she told herself fiercely. ‘You think there’s anything you can do that will make any difference?’

Of course there wasn’t. She was clutching at straws.

It wouldn’t make any difference at all.

‘To me, no,’ she told the little dog. ‘But maybe it’ll make a difference to Noa and Azron.’

Yeah, right.

She couldn’t help it. She hugged the little dog closer and knew that she had no choice. She was staying.

Like it or not, Sarah was involved. Right up to her heart.


Alistair watched the helicopter fade into the distance and he turned to the head of the police squad with a heavy heart. He was feeling sick. He should have prevented it. He knew Barry was a loose cannon. He should have pushed…

But he had to focus now on what lay ahead. The helicopter had brought back-up-a crack force of eight, with authority, intelligence and purpose. At least now they had some real help.

‘We’ve taken Barry off active duty pending an enquiry,’ he was told.

Larry, the head of the police team, had heard an outline of what had happened and was looking grave himself. News of the shooting would surely hit the national press. The last thing the Australian police force wanted was to be seen as gun-happy. And for one of their number to shoot unnecessarily, when he already had a record for unwarranted force…

There’d be questions right to the top.

‘It’s too late now,’ Alistair said, but the man beside him shook his head.

‘The prognosis is hopeful.’ Larry Giles was a senior detective with the Federal Police. He was good at his job and he’d spent time this morning and on the flight here getting up to speed on this case. By the time he landed he’d already been briefed by the consultant who’d talked Alistair through the operation and who’d be taking over Amal’s care back in Cairns.

A lot depended on Amal’s surviving. Larry hadn’t put pressure on-not exactly-but he knew Amal would get the very best medical care available to anyone. ‘All we need to do now is find the rest of his family,’ he told Alistair.

The man obviously had more confidence than Alistair felt.

‘The rest-whoever they are-are wounded,’ he said heavily. ‘And Sarah’s sure there’s a child.’

‘If Sarah says there’s a child there’ll be a child,’ Larry told him. ‘She’s good. With her remaining here we have an excellent medical team. We have decent trackers and we’ve brought a couple of sniffer dogs. We’ll work fast. We’re giving it our best shot.’

‘Sarah’s staying?’ He hadn’t really thought about her leaving, but now… Why didn’t she leave? If she left then maybe he could relax.

But it wasn’t to be.

‘For the time being I’ve asked that she stay,’ Larry told him. ‘I’ve worked with her before. She’s the best police doctor we have. I understand she’s been more than useful already.’

‘Yeah.’ Alistair’s response was no more than a grunt, and Larry gave him a curious look.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘No.’ Alistair gave a weary shake of his head. ‘No problem at all.’


Washing. It was nothing but laundry. Plus an over-vivid imagination.

Sarah stood where she’d stood earlier and stared at the fluttering line of laundry in the backyard next to the shop. There were sheets flapping in the wind. While she watched, a corner of the sheet whipped up and fluttered against the corner of the fence.

That was what she’d seen. It must have been. She was getting so desperate she was imagining things.

Damn. She stared at it with hopeless eyes. She was so weary she was almost asleep on her feet. She hadn’t been able to sleep here. She was so confused.

She was useless.


In the yard next to Max’s store, Mariette Hardy carried her second load of washing out into her backyard and started pegging it out. There’d been so much going on today she was running way behind. Her second son had some sort of tummy bug-he’d been ill now for two days, and she was starting to worry. On top of that there’d been the shooting next door. So upsetting.

But the washing had to be done. She’d changed Donny’s sheets twice today already. If she hadn’t known Alistair was busy she’d have taken him in to see him. But she’d give Donny another night before she called for medical help, she thought. If she had enough sheets.

She started pegging and then she faltered. There was too much room on the line.

There was a sheet missing.

Where was it?

It was windy. Hadn’t she pegged it hard enough?

She put her nose over the fence into the backyard of Max’s shop. Sometimes her washing ended up there.

Nothing. All she could see was a pool of blood where Amal’s body had lain.

She winced. Ugh.

Maybe it’d blown over and they’d used it, she thought, and good luck to them if they had. A sheet wasn’t a great price to pay for a man’s life. It might have helped keep the poor man alive.

She shrugged. She wouldn’t enquire, she decided. The police had enough on their minds without worrying about one sheet, and she had enough on her mind worrying about Donny.

Mariette went back to her laundry.


Up in the hills behind the town Noa cradled her son and she wept. She’d rewrapped his wound as best she could, in torn pieces of the clean sheet, but she didn’t have the knowledge to do more. He was feverish.

His father would know what to do.

Amal.

His father was dying. Maybe he was already dead.

No. She refused to believe it. The girl-the woman with the bright red hair-what had she said?

‘We’re doctors. We’re trying to help you.’

She’d hardly been able to see them. She’d kept back-Amal hadn’t known that she’d followed, but she’d been so fearful. So fearful.

We’re doctors. We’re trying to help you.

Could she believe it?

No. She could believe no one. Trust no one. Not any more.

And Amal was no longer capable of helping. There was only Noa between her son and death. Amal had done what he must and now it was her turn.

She ran her fingers through her little son’s soft curls, and with her other hand she cradled her last hope.

The cold, grim comfort of a small and ugly pistol.

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.’