Buch lesen: «One Night To Wed»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS a most unpleasant sensation.

The hairs on the back of Felicity Slade’s neck rose slowly and the nasty prickle was enough to make her lose concentration on the pulse she could feel beneath her fingertips.

A reflection of her sudden disquiet showed in the faded blue eyes of her elderly patient.

‘Something wrong, Fliss?’

There were no words that could convey such a formless fear and for a split second Fliss simply stared blankly, still caught by that primeval and totally unexpected physical reaction to a sense of danger.

Her patient patted her hand. ‘Don’t look so worried, love. I’ve been expecting bad news. This old ticker of mine’s been on its last legs for years.’

Fliss was mortified. How unprofessional was she being here? Not only had she allowed herself to be totally distracted from her examination, she had made one of her favourite patients fear the worst.

‘Your pulse feels fine, Jack. Just a little bit faster than normal. I need to have a good listen to the back of your chest now. Can you lean forward a little, please?’ Fliss pulled her stethoscope from where it was hanging around her neck. ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ she added. ‘I just got distracted by the weirdest feeling. Like something was wrong.’

‘Something is wrong. Why do you think I called you out when you should be having your dinner? My shoes feel too tight and I’m short of puff as soon as I try doing anything.’

‘Hmm.’ Fliss was happy to concentrate on her consultation again. ‘Take some deep breaths for me, Jack.’ She could hear some crackles at the base of both lungs. ‘Have a good, hard cough for me.’

The fruity sound Jack produced made her shake her head ruefully. ‘You haven’t cut down on the smoking much, have you?’

Jack’s grunt was amused. ‘As you well know, my dear, I’ve been on the fags for more than seventy years. Trying to stop would kill me quicker than anything else is going to.’ There was a distinct twinkle in the gaze that caught hers as Jack twisted his head and the faint Scottish brogue in his voice, which had never quite vanished despite being in a foreign country for a large proportion of those seventy years, grew stronger. ‘And you’re not going to tell me to get lost just because I still have the odd wee puff, are you?’

‘The odd puff?’ Fliss had to laugh. ‘I reckon you manage twenty a day.’ She placed the disk of her stethoscope halfway down Jack’s skinny back. ‘Let me have another listen now that you’ve shifted a bit of that muck.’

The crackles were still there, which wasn’t unexpected. It fitted with the swelling Jack had in his ankles and his breathlessness on exertion or lying flat.

‘I think the chest infection you’ve had could be making your heart failure a bit worse, Jack,’ Fliss told her patient. ‘You’re accumulating fluid and that’s why you’re getting that puffiness in your ankles and feet. When the levels go up, it makes your lungs soggy as well—so that’s why you’re getting short of puff.’

‘It’s all that water I drink, isn’t it?’ The long-retired fisherman scratched thoughtfully at the fluffy white beard covering his chin and glared at the old valve radio that took pride of place on his cluttered kitchen table. ‘I should never have listened to that so called expert on the wireless. Eight glasses a day, they said! Should have just stuck with my beer, shouldn’t I?’

Fliss widened her eyes. ‘You mean to tell me you’ve been drinking water at the pub every night?’

‘Hell’s bells, lassie—are you mad? I’ve been drinking the water before I go down to the Hog. It’s no bloody wonder I’m waterlogged now, is it? It’s going to be the dry dock for me from now on. As far as the water goes, anyway,’ he added hastily.

Fliss wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around a still surprisingly muscular upper arm. ‘It’s got nothing to do with how much water you drink, Jack. If your heart’s working as well as it should, the rest of your body can do its job properly and the only difference eight glasses of water a day will make is in how many times you have to pee.’

Something made Fliss pause again before she pumped up the pressure cuff and put the stethoscope in place. Maybe it was the memory of what she had felt only minutes before. Her senses were still on full alert and the idea of cutting off her ability to hear something important was creating an odd reluctance.

She glanced through the glass doors that made up one side of Jack’s kitchen. The side that looked down the hill towards the sea and the river mouth that bordered the tiny coastal settlement on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island.

‘Quiet, isn’t it?’

A rumble of laughter came from the man sitting beside the scrubbed pine table. ‘You’ve only just noticed?’

Fliss grinned. The peace and quiet were certainly two of the most notable attributes of Morriston. She’d been here for three months now in her position as a locum GP and it would seem laughable if she hadn’t acclimatised to the ambience. Then her smile faded.

‘No, I mean it’s quieter than normal.’

Jack swivelled on the spindle-backed wooden chair to join her in staring through the glass. His unpretentious house, which had once been someone’s holiday bach, was further up the hill than many in the village so the view was one of the best.

They could see one of his closest neighbours, Bernice, across the dusty, unsealed street as she stood in her garden, watering tomato plants. At the bottom of the street, where Fliss would turn right to get to her house that incorporated the small surgery, there were two small boys riding their bicycles in the fading light of a warm, spring evening. A couple was walking near the beach with their dog and right over at the river mouth there was more than one person standing thigh deep in the water, dragging in the big, box-type nets using for catching the local delicacy of whitebait.

‘High tide.’ Jack nodded. ‘Been a bumper season for whitebait so far.’

‘Mmm.’ Fliss wasn’t overly fond of the tiny fish because you could still see their eyes when they had been cooked up in the traditional fritters, but she had to accept the satisfied note in Jack’s voice that suggested there was nothing outwardly amiss in the scene.

It was quiet, yes. Peaceful. Picture perfect, in fact. Just the kind of place where Fliss had spent many happy summer holidays as a child. An advertisement for the quintessential security she had sought in order to get through her current life crisis.

With a slow nod Fliss suppressed that odd feeling of persistent unease and turned back to complete her examination.

‘Your blood pressure’s down a bit but it’s not bad,’ she said a minute later. ‘I’m going to keep you on those antibiotics for a few more days to make sure we’ve knocked that chest infection on the head. And I’ll take a blood sample now so I can check some other things.’

Like whether Jack’s increasing level of heart failure was due to a silent heart attack, but Fliss didn’t want to alarm Jack unnecessarily.

‘I’m going to increase your dose of diuretic as well. Hopefully that will do the trick in getting rid of that excess fluid.’ Fliss took a deep breath and ploughed on. ‘I’d really like to refer you to a cardiologist, Jack, for a more expert opinion.’

Jack snorted. ‘You’ll do, lass. Word is that you gave up the offer of a top spot in that emergency department in Christchurch to come over here. Lord knows why, but I reckon I’ve got all the expertise I need right now.’

‘Where on earth did you hear something like that?’

‘Word gets around in these parts.’

‘Obviously.’ The accuracy of the gossip was disconcerting. What else was everybody in Morriston discussing over their jugs of beer? The disaster of her personal life, maybe? The recent, devastating failure in her personal relationships?

The consternation in her tone was enough to make Jack smile reassuringly. ‘We only heard good stuff,’ he said kindly. ‘A mate of mine was in Greymouth hospital for a few days, that’s all. One of the doctors there knew about you. He said we were lucky to get someone with your qualifications who didn’t mind being stuck out in the sticks.’ Jack’s smile was smug. ‘That’s how I know I don’t need to go anywhere else for my medical care.’

‘I can’t give you the best care when I don’t know exactly what I’m dealing with, Jack. There are tests they can do which would tell me a lot. Simple things like a chest X-ray and an echocardiogram. You don’t have to go all the way to Christchurch or anything. Just down to Greymouth.’

Jack shook his head decisively. ‘I’ve told you, Fliss. Just what I’ve told all the other doctors that have come and gone in these parts. I haven’t crossed the river since I retired and I’ve got no intention of crossing it now. I’m eighty-six. Nobody lives for ever and when I pop my clogs I intend to do it in the privacy of my own home. Or maybe down at the Hog.’

Fliss sighed. ‘Fair enough.’

That the local pub qualified as a second home made her smile. The old stone building near the general store that Mrs McKay ran was far more of a social hub than the pretty church or the memorial hall opposite the doctor’s surgery, but Fliss didn’t mind. She liked being at the end of the quietest street with plenty of time to soak in the peace and quiet in the hope of unravelling the tangled knots in her head and heart.

Pulling a tourniquet and the items she needed to take a blood sample from her bag, Fliss kept a straight face.

‘Which arm today, then?’ she queried.

Jack pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Make it the right one,’ he said finally.

The look they shared acknowledged the joke that had forged the bond Fliss had formed so quickly with the very first patient she had treated in Morriston. The query of which arm the patient preferred to have the sample taken from was automatic and it had popped out on that very first consultation, probably due to Fliss being still unsettled.

The fact that Jack only had one arm, thanks to the fishing mishap that had forced his retirement nearly thirty years ago, had made the question a potential insult, but the old man had given it due consideration to save Fliss’s tongue-tied embarrassment and it was thanks to him that she had suddenly felt at home. Even the disturbing reminder of what she’d left behind that came with the Scottish lilt she could hear in her patient’s voice could be dealt with. She was in exactly the right place at the right time in her life.

As she tightened the tourniquet and smiled at the memory, Fliss finally shook off that sense of unease and felt herself relax. She would finish this home visit in a few minutes and then hurry back to her surgery where she knew Maria was probably waiting—amongst others. Convinced that her fifth child was going to put in an early appearance, Maria was attending the evening surgery a couple of times a week now for reassurance, while her husband and children did the evening chores on their rather isolated farmlet.

It was then, in that moment of relaxation, that they heard it.

A sharp crack. Loud enough to make the loose glass pane in one of Jack’s doors to rattle just a little. Unexpected enough to make Fliss jump and drop the needle she was about to fit to the end of her ten-ml syringe.

‘Just as well you weren’t about to stick that into me,’ Jack muttered.

‘Yeah.’ The agreement was wholehearted. ‘What on earth was that? It sounded like a gun.’ Fliss knew her shudder was probably visible. ‘I hate guns.’

And anything to do with them. Like the danger they represented.

And the way they automatically made her think of Angus.

‘Probably a car backfiring,’ Jack said casually.

‘Hmm.’ Fliss reached into her kit for a fresh needle. An unlikely explanation. Her car might be parked out on the dusty street but that was because she could be needed in a hurry somewhere else. As a rule, people didn’t bother driving cars on this side of the bridge. Once in the village they could easily walk where they needed to go. Or ride bicycles.

‘More likely it’s those Johnston boys.’ Jack was watching Fliss as she ripped open an alcohol swab. ‘Guy Fawkes is only a week or so away. They’re probably having a test run of their crackers.’

Fliss glanced outside again to where the young Johnston twins had been riding their bikes. Sure enough, two bicycles lay abandoned in the middle of the street, one with its front wheel still spinning slowly. Under one end of the long macrocarpa hedge that bordered the Treffers’ property, a pair of short legs could be seen protruding. A small boy hiding, perhaps—avoiding the potential consequences of an illicit act.

The second crack was even louder.

‘Now, that did sound like a gun,’ Jack said. ‘Maybe Darren’s doing something stupid in his back yard.’

It was quite possible. Darren was a local resident who shot possums in the vast tracts of native bush that cut Morriston off from the Southern Alps. As one of New Zealand’s most destructive pests, the culling was commendable but the way Darren left the carcasses piled in his driveway awaiting his taxidermy skills before being sent to the tourist shops was fairly unpopular with his neighbours.

‘Mind you,’ Jack added when a series of cracks made the windows as well as the doors rattle, ‘that’s no shotgun he’s using.’

Fliss unsnapped the tourniquet as Jack stood up. There was no way she could concentrate on taking a blood sample until they discovered the cause of this disturbing interruption.

They both moved to the glass doors.

‘Look!’ Fliss point towards the river mouth. ‘The whitebaiters are coming in in a hurry.’

Jack picked up a pair of binoculars from the end of his kitchen bench with an ease that suggested it was an automatic gesture. ‘It’s those Barrett boys,’ he told Fliss.

The fact that the Barrett ‘boys’ were both well into their fifties failed to raise a smile. She knew the brothers lived well out of the village, worked sporadically at a sawmill down the coast and relied heavily on the whitebait season to supplement their income. Right now, they were wading ashore with a speed that was at complete odds with the impression of laziness Fliss had gained on the one occasion she had met them.

The speed was enough to see one of them stumble and sprawl headlong into the slow-moving water.

‘Why have they left their nets behind?’

Jack didn’t answer the question. The way his grip on the binoculars tightened was enough to make Fliss catch her breath and it wasn’t just Jack’s sudden focus that brought those hairs up again on the back of her neck.

Her eyesight was more than good enough to see that the man who had stumbled wasn’t getting up again.

He was floating, face down in the water, while his brother continued his dash to the shore.

‘Jack?’ The tone was urgent and Fliss took the binoculars that he handed over in stunned silence.

Now Fliss could see something she would never have seen with the naked eye. Something she had not wanted to see.

A dark stain in the water to one side of the floating figure. Quickly dispersed, of course, only to re-form.

‘Oh, my God,’ Fliss breathed. ‘He’s been shot, hasn’t he, Jack?’

‘Come away from the window.’ Jack took Fliss’s elbow in a firm grip and propelled her back into the kitchen, but not before she took a wild visual sweep of the view closer to hand.

The impressions were momentary. Someone was running past the end of Jack’s street. The boys’ bicycles still lay in the dust and a small boy’s legs could still be seen under the Treffers’ hedge. Bernice was nowhere to be seen and the hose she had been using to water the tomatoes lay abandoned, the nozzle twisting gently due to the pressure of its undirected spray.

‘What’s happening, Jack?’

‘I dunno. But whatever it is, I don’t like it.’ Jack reached for the telephone on the wall beside an interior door. ‘I’m calling Blair.’

The local police officer was bound to be at the Hog at this time of day, having a quiet beer and keeping his finger on the pulse of his district. Luckily, he lived in Morriston and not one of the other scattered villages that he shared with Fliss as part of his responsibility. But Jack put the receiver down a moment later and shook his head.

‘Line’s busy.’

‘Call the emergency services,’ Fliss instructed. ‘We need help.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Someone needs to rescue that man in the river. He’s going to need treatment fast.’

‘I reckon it’s too late for that,’ Jack said heavily. Neither of them wanted to look towards the river mouth and see if the body was still floating. Neither of them could help themselves. Jack made a sound of frustration but then shook his head. ‘Nobody’s going to be crazy enough to wade out there while someone’s taking potshots at people.’

‘But who would be doing something like that? Why?’

Jack shrugged. ‘I’ve heard rumours about the Barrett boys. I suspect they grow more than veggies up there in the bush.’

‘People don’t get shot because they grow a bit of cannabis on the side.’

‘Don’t be too sure. It’s big business in these parts and the police chopper operations don’t find all the plantations by any means.’

‘You think this is deliberate, then? Some kind of patch warfare?’

‘Let’s hope so.’

Fliss said nothing. Jack was right. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. Far better that Jack was guessing correctly and there was a specific target that would only endanger innocent people if they got in the way.

Jack had entered the three-digit emergency number into his phone.

‘Police,’ Fliss heard him request brusquely. Then he said ‘Morriston’ in response to what had to be a query regarding location.

Then he was silent for what seemed an inordinately long time. Finally he nodded.

‘Right you are.’ The call was disconnected.

‘You didn’t tell them anything,’ Fliss protested.

‘They already know. There’s an armed offender operation already under way. They got the first call about fifteen minutes ago.’

‘But that was before we even heard the first shot.’

‘Maybe someone saw something. Or maybe someone was making threats.’ He gave Fliss a curious glance. ‘You knew, didn’t you? That something wasn’t right?’

‘I wouldn’t have called the police on the strength of a premonition,’ Fliss said wryly. ‘But at least we know help’s on the way.’

‘They said to stay put. Not to go outside under any circumstances. They said to lock our doors and windows, keep the lights off and stay hidden. They’ll let us know when it’s safe to come out.’

‘What?’ Fliss was horrified. ‘I’ve got patients waiting at the surgery. What if someone’s been shot and needs urgent treatment? I can’t stay hidden!’

‘Yes, you can, lass,’ Jack said firmly. ‘It’s getting dark out there. We have no idea what’s going on or where the idiot with the gun is. What use would you be to anyone if you go out there and get shot yourself?’

There were no streetlights in Morriston. When it got dark, it got absolutely dark. It might only be a few hundred metres to the surgery but it would be a long way to travel with the knowledge that any movement could attract the attention of someone with little regard for the law or the sanctity of human life. Even absolute darkness was probably not enough cover for someone with bright blonde hair like Fliss’s—especially when she was wearing a white shirt over her jeans.

‘I’ve got a cellar,’ Jack told her. ‘Damp little hole carved into the hill that’s been no use for storage so it’s empty. Won’t be that comfortable but it’ll be safe enough. You can come out and do your bit to help when the police arrive and you’ve got some protection.’

The notion of hiding was undeniably attractive. Fliss was good at hiding. It was why she had come to Morriston in the first place, wasn’t it? To hide from the painful reminders of what could have been if only things had been different.

Fliss had achieved the isolation she’d sought but how ironic was it that she was now in a situation in which she needed Angus more than she had ever needed anyone?

Or that the reason she needed him so badly was the very reason that had forced her to end the relationship? Angus knew what it was like to face danger like this. He had the training and skills to deal with it. To protect himself and others.

But he was hundreds of miles away in Christchurch. Would SERT—the specialist emergency response team—be activated in response to an armed offender callout in Morriston?

Probably. They got sent to any kind of hotspot that needed police and paramedic personnel.

Would Angus be on duty?

Fliss didn’t know. She had worked hard to try and stop thinking about him all the time. To stop imagining what he might be doing on a particular day or at a particular time of day or night. To stop wondering whether he had got over being furious to find he missed her as much as she missed him.

Success in her endeavours had been patchy. Fliss still thought about Angus far too often for her peace of mind, but she had forgotten his roster.

If he came, dressed in operational gear like his armed police team members, the sanctuary Fliss had found would be gone. Morriston, as much as Christchurch, would remind her of Angus. Of the direction his career as a paramedic had taken him. Of its call to put him in dangerous places and situations that had the potential to claim his life. A potential that had spelt the end of a future together as far as Fliss had been concerned.

But the safety of Morriston was already violated, wasn’t it? Fliss had never been this afraid in her life. It wouldn’t matter if Angus was still furious with her for the way she had ended things. It wouldn’t matter if she only saw him for a moment or two in the distance. Just knowing he was nearby would give her the strength to do what she knew she had to do.

Something that could in no way include the safety of Jack’s underground cellar.

The Iroquois helicopter ferrying the personnel equipped to contain and deal with whatever the situation evolving in Morriston could produce was being buffeted by strong wind gusts as it crossed the island’s spine of the Southern Alps near the Lewis Pass.

The majority of people on board were part of the special operations squad—an elite division of the police force. Only two of the men were specially trained paramedics whose training crossed the boundaries between police and ambulance. One of those medically qualified SERT members on board the helicopter was Angus McBride.

He nudged the man sitting closest to him and leaned in to be heard above the engine noise.

‘Do you think this is for real?’

His partner, Tom, shrugged eloquently. Then he grinned and Angus could hear the message as clearly as if it had been shouted. If the early and somewhat hysterical calls to Police Control were to be believed, there was definitely some kind of battle going on in the sleepy seaside settlement of Morriston.

It sounded like more than one person was armed and dangerous. More than one victim had already been targeted or caught in the crossfire and whoever the perpetrators were, they were not likely to simply give themselves up to the police.

The squad on board this helicopter was heading into unfamiliar and hostile territory and additional resources in the way of manpower or equipment were not going to be readily available. This could well prove to be the biggest challenge he and Tom had faced since joining SERT.

So why wasn’t Angus experiencing the same adrenaline rush that Tom’s grin had advertised?

Because Morriston was the destination, of course.

Angus leaned close to his partner again. ‘Want to know something weird? I was planning to visit Morriston in the next week or two.’

Tom’s eyebrows disappeared into the black balaclava covering his head. ‘What on earth for?’

Good question. Angus hadn’t even told his best mate that he’d finally got over himself and made enquiries at the emergency department of Christchurch’s biggest hospital in order to find out exactly where Fliss had taken herself off to when she’d walked out of his life.

Would he really have followed through on his intention to go and see her? To risk rejection again if she was still happy with the way things now were?

It didn’t matter now. It didn’t matter that the thrill of a big job unfolding had failed to capture Angus. The only thing uppermost in his mind was fear and the notion of shining a torch on that fear and making it shrink by exposure was too tempting to resist.

‘Fliss is there.’

It seemed incongruous to be shouting something that touched such a private part of his soul but there was no danger of anyone other than Tom hearing. And he was the only one who would recognise the significance of the statement. He deserved to know that Angus had a personal agenda on this job. And Tom would know exactly how significant that agenda might be. He’d seen how devastating it had been to have Fliss walk out like that. He’d had to work with Angus in the weeks when despair and anger had vied for a controlling position in mood determination.

‘No way!’ Tom looked shocked. ‘I thought you said she’d gone up north.’

‘I thought she had. I never bothered asking for a specific forwarding address until a few days ago.’

‘Why the hell would she go to a place like Morriston?’

‘Guess she wanted something a bit different.’

Tom shook his head. ‘That’s not different. It’s a total cop-out.’ He glanced at Angus. ‘You sure she’s there right now?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘You worried, mate?’

Angus could say nothing. He could only set his lips into a grim line and look away from the concern on Tom’s face.

Of course he was worried.

Worried sick.

Why hadn’t he tried earlier to find Fliss? To contact her? To see if he could find a way to persuade her to come home?

To arrive like this wasn’t going to help anything. His bullet-proof vest and dark camouflage clothing would only remind Fliss of why she had left in the first place.

But that didn’t actually matter right now. The need to find and protect the only woman he had ever truly loved was an issue quite separate from the possibility of them ever getting back together. It was simply something that Angus had to do.

He clenched his fists, urging the helicopter on into the black night. Not that willpower was going to make them get there any quicker but at least it felt like he was doing something.

Before it was too late.