Kitabı oku: «The Police Surgeon's Rescue»

CHAPTER ONE

SO THIS is it, Helena thought as the taxi pulled away and she was left standing at the bottom of the drive surrounded by her luggage. ‘Home sweet home’.

It looked decent enough, the small detached house in a suburban cul-de-sac, but it wasn’t the place where she’d been brought up. That had been in a town much farther north than this, in a pleasant house on a road not far from the noise and bustle of the city.

Looking around her, she wondered what she was going to do in a place like this. She’d like to bet the folks around here were all in bed each night before ten. Maybe her dad was beginning to feel his age and that was why he’d moved, but he could at least have consulted her first. He’d known she wasn’t going to be away for ever.

The door opened and he was there, smiling at her. Putting to one side her feeling of grievance, she ran up the drive and into his arms.

He looked older and thinner, Helena thought as they carried her bags inside. He’d lost the robust jollity that had kept them going after they’d lost her mother, and even though she’d only just set foot in the place she had to ask, ‘Why did you move house, Dad? This is miles away from all the places I know. Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning? I couldn’t believe it when I got your letter. I know the old house was a bit big for the two of us after Mum died but…’

There was no smile on his face now. It was more sombre than she’d ever seen it.

‘I’m going to put the kettle on, Helena,’ he said, ‘and when we’ve had a cup of tea I’ve got a story to tell you that will explain why I’ve done what I have. I’m afraid that you’re going to think this is a very poor homecoming.’

‘Fine,’ she told him, feeling better now that she’d got it off her chest and having no inkling that ‘fine’ was the last word she would think of to describe the situation once she’d heard what he had to say.

Later, much later, as she lay in a strange bedroom, exhausted but sleepless after the long flight, she was trying to take in what she’d been told and amongst a jumble of emotions the one uppermost was fear.

* * *

As Blake Pemberton looked down on the body of the man lying on the smooth green turf of the golf course his eyes widened beneath raised brows. He’d seen plenty of dead bodies since he’d started working with the police in a medical capacity and the causes of death had varied. Natural causes, accidental and in some instances the victim had died in suspicious circumstances.

But it wasn’t any of those factors that were causing surprise. For the first time ever he’d been called out to examine the body of someone he knew. It was the elderly man who’d moved into the house next door who was gazing upwards with sightless eyes.

‘Somebody walking their dog found him, not long ago,’ one of the policemen who’d been summoned to the scene told him, ‘and when we radioed back to the station they said to ask you to come out to examine him before we moved him. What do you think, Doctor? There’s no obvious signs of injury.’

Blake had got over his surprise and was examining the body of his neighbour with swift expertise. Noting the froth on blue lips, the grimace of pain on the waxen features. The body was still faintly warm but there was no pulse or heartbeat. Getting to his feet, he told the constable, ‘I would think he suffered a massive heart attack. Even if help had been at hand I don’t think it would have made any difference.’

As the policeman nodded his agreement Blake told him, ‘You don’t have to worry about his identity. He’s my next-door neighbour. Only moved in recently and was living on his own until yesterday when he was expecting his daughter home from Australia. So there’s sorrow for someone.

‘I don’t know if she’s actually arrived but if you like I’ll go and break the news to her, and if she’s not there I’ll put a note through the door asking her to contact me.’

‘Sure,’ the other man agreed. ‘I’ll leave it in your capable hands and we’ll get the poor fellow to the mortuary.’

As he drove back home Blake wasn’t looking forward to passing on such sad tidings to the man’s unsuspecting daughter, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to break that kind of news to a member of the public, far from it. The good, the bad and the unthinkable were all part of the day-to-day routine of the GP.

It was a quarter to eight in the morning and thankfully it was Sunday, otherwise he would be having to dash off to the surgery once the deed was done. The man must have gone for an early morning stroll and it had turned out to be his last.

* * *

Helena awoke to the ringing of the doorbell and for a moment she lay there, bewildered, wondering where she was, then it all came back. As the bell rang once more she still didn’t move waiting for her father to answer it, but it rang again and this time she swung herself out of bed and padded to the window.

The caller had given up. He was walking down the drive with a purposeful step, a tall, dark-haired man, broad-shouldered, trim-hipped, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

She opened the window to call to him and then thought better of it. After what her father had told her the previous night the less they had to do with strangers the better, and she shrank back into the shadows.

But he’d heard the window catch being lifted. He stopped and turned and even though he couldn’t see her he called up, ‘Could you come down to the front door, please? I need to speak to you urgently.’

There didn’t seem any point in cowering out of sight if he knew she was there, so showing herself she leaned forward and said, ‘I’m listening.’

He frowned.

‘I don’t want to tell all the neighbourhood. It’s about your father.’

‘Yes. I’ll bet it is!’ she cried. ‘If you don’t clear off immediately I’m going to call the police.’

‘I am from the police,’ he said patiently, with the feeling that this was going to be even worse than he’d imagined, ‘and I’m also your next-door neighbour. My name is Blake Pemberton. Will you, please, come downstairs? I have some grave news concerning your father.’

‘Hold on!’ Helena cried.

If it was a hoax her father would be in the dining room, having his breakfast, but if that was the case, why hadn’t he answered the door?

He wasn’t there. But a scribbled note was. It said, ‘Gone for a stroll along the golf links. Will cook you breakfast when I get back.’

As she stood with the note in her hand Helena could see the man’s shadow through the glass of the front door, and with dread in her heart she went to open it. Not knowing if it was the right thing to do, but with the certainty that if something had happened to her dad she had to know.

Her first thought as the door swung back was that he didn’t look like a thug. There was nothing shifty about the level gaze meeting hers and he was making no move to come any nearer.

‘I realise from your manner that you are wary of me for some reason,’ he was saying, ‘but I do assure you I mean you no harm. It was true what I said. I am with the police. I’m a doctor, working with them. They were called to the golf links a short time ago as the body of a man had been found by a passer-by and they got in touch with me in my position as police surgeon.

‘Sadly it was too late for me to help him. There was nothing I could do. But I did recognise the man as your father and offered to come to tell you what had happened. I am so very sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.’

If her face hadn’t been so transfixed with horror she would have been beautiful, he thought. High cheekbones, a sweetly curving mouth and green eyes beneath a tangled russet mop.

Her pyjamas weren’t the last word in glamour, soft cotton with no frills or flounces, but those were details scarcely registering as she croaked, ‘Oh, no! So they got to him after all. How could they?’

As Blake eyed her questioningly she began to crumple and he caught her as she fell. As she wept in his arms he asked above the crown of her head, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Helena,’ she sobbed. ‘Helena Harris.’

‘So tell me, Helena,’ he coaxed gently, ‘what did you mean by what you just said?’

He felt a shudder go through her and silently thanked the providence that had sent him to her in such a moment of distress.

‘My dad was the only witness to a shooting on a garage forecourt some months ago in the town where we lived. He testified in court and after that received threats. So the police took him into the witness protection programme and moved him out here.

‘He wrote and told me he’d moved but didn’t explain why until I came home yesterday. I’ve been in Australia, nursing, for the last twelve months. But it was all a waste of time, wasn’t it?’ she sobbed. ‘They found him in spite of everything.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘It wasn’t like that, Helena. Your father died from natural causes. He had a massive heart attack out there on the golf course and there was no one about to help him, Though I doubt it would have made any difference if there had been. So, you see, there is nothing to fear. If you’d like to get dressed I’ll drive you to where they’ve taken him.’

‘He wasn’t murdered, then,’ she whispered.

‘No. There were no signs of injury on his body. It’s my job as police surgeon to look out for that sort of thing, and there was nothing. But there was evidence of a massive cardiac arrest.’

‘I’m so sorry that I was so dubious of you when you came, but you can understand why, can’t you?’ she asked, moving out of his arms as if she’d suddenly realised where she was.

She looked sad and very vulnerable and yet there was a sort of quiet dignity about her as she stood before him in the sensible pyjamas.

‘So go and get dressed,’ he suggested again, ‘and while you’re gone I’m going to make you a cup of hot sweet tea.’

Helena nodded mutely and padded back up the stairs. When she’d gone he put the kettle on and then stood deep in thought. His expression was grim. The girl and her father had been traumatised because the man had done his duty as an honest citizen, and who was to say that the heart attack hadn’t been a direct result of the position he’d found himself in?

There’d been no mention of her having a mother. He hoped that she did have someone to turn to, and as she sipped the tea that he’d made Blake asked carefully, ‘Do you have anyone to help you through this sad time? Brothers, sisters or any other relative you can rely on?’

Helena shook her head. ‘No. I’m afraid not. I’m an only child and both my parents were the same, so I’ve no aunts, uncles or cousins.’

She was calm now but pinched-looking and drained of all colour. When she’d drunk the tea she got to her feet.

‘Will you, please, take me to where my dad is?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course. My car is the black Volvo outside the house next door. Here’s the key. Go and settle yourself inside and if you’ll give me a door key I’ll lock up behind us.’

Helena looked around her and shuddered again.

‘Yes, please. This place feels spooky to me after what Dad told me last night.’

He couldn’t leave her in that house tonight, Blake was thinking as they drove to the hospital mortuary. She was having a horrendous homecoming. Yet what was the alternative? Would she be willing to sleep in his spare room?

They hardly knew each other. She might think spending the night in the house of a stranger even more nerve-stretching than the thought of who might be lurking. When he got back he would impress upon the police to make public the fact that the witness in the recent trial was dead, so that if the friends of the convicted man had been trying to find James Harris, they would now give up.

* * *

Helena clung to Blake’s hand when they were shown her father’s body, but she managed to hold back the tears when a doctor came to inform her that there would have to be a post-mortem.

* * *

On the way back Blake made up his mind what he was going to do, and when they stopped at the front of their two houses he said, ‘Would you like to use my spare room tonight? You’ve had a dreadful shock and I would like to keep an eye on you.’

Surprised green eyes met his as he posed the question.

‘That’s very kind of you, Dr Pemberton. Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way? Do you have family?’

He shook his head. ‘No. There’s just me. I did have a family once, but they aren’t around any more.’

‘Oh. I see.’

She didn’t, of course. Didn’t see at all, but what else was there to say if he wasn’t going to explain further? And it looked as if he wasn’t.

‘In that case, I would very much like to stay. I should have got a better grip on things by tomorrow and thank you for your kindness. I couldn’t have got through the ordeal at the mortuary without you.’

‘I’m only too happy to have been of help,’ he told her, ‘and if I make us a belated breakfast, do you think you could manage to eat something?’

‘I don’t think so. Please, see to yourself and while you’re doing that I’ll go next door and do some unpacking. My things are still in the cases from when I arrived last night.’ She halted in the doorway and with the unease back in her eyes said, ‘Will you be around for the rest of the day?’

‘Yes, I will,’ he told her firmly, thinking that this young woman’s needs were of more importance than the couple of rounds of golf he’d promised himself later in the day. Also, did he want to see the links again so soon after what he’d been faced with on his earlier visit?

When Helena came back that evening she was very pale but composed. ‘I’ve made the funeral arrangements,’ she told him. ‘There will be just myself.’ After a moment’s hesitation she added, ‘Unless you would care to come as moral support.’

Blake didn’t answer immediately and she said quickly, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I’ve already put on your good nature enough as it is.’

‘Of course I’ll support you,’ he told her. ‘I was just wondering when you’d arranged it for as I’m senior partner in a group practice not far from here and if it is in surgery hours I’ll have to find a replacement.’

‘It’s at half past one next Monday,’ she informed him, ‘which gives them time to conduct a postmortem.’

‘Good. That will be between surgeries. One of the other partners can do my house calls.’

‘Thanks, Dr Pemberton. I’ll be really grateful for your company and when it’s over I suppose the best thing would be for me to book a return ticket to Australia.’

‘Were you intending going back?’

‘No. My contract was up. But there’s nothing to keep me here now. I have no job and when the witness protection people come to want the house back I’ll have no home, and in any case I wouldn’t want to be in there on my own.’

‘What kind of nursing were you doing?’ he asked with a degree of interest that surprised him.

‘I did six months in obstetrics and six months in paediatrics. I fancied a change and off I went. I knew nothing about the court case until I got back last night and I was horrified when Dad told me that he’d been in such danger…and maybe still was.

‘He hadn’t been a bit keen for me to come home, but I’d thought it was because I’d let him see how upset I was over him selling our old house. I didn’t know that it was my safety he was concerned about.’

And that makes two of us, Blake thought grimly. The police had better get their act together and get any possible revenge attacks sidetracked now that her father was dead.

This beautiful sorrowing woman was getting to him as no one had for a long time. She was arousing all the protective instincts that had lain dormant ever since he’d lost his wife and son.

At ten o’clock Helena said, ‘Would you mind if I go to bed, Dr Pemberton? It’s been a terrible day and I’m exhausted.’

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he told her. ‘The bed is made up. Shall I give you something to help you sleep? A mild sedative maybe?’

Helena shook her head. ‘No. I’ll try to manage without.’

She was moving towards the staircase and he said, ‘Just one thing before you go, Helena.’

‘Yes?’

‘The name is Blake. Forget the Dr Pemberton.’

There was weariness in her smile as she told him, ‘I’ll remember that. Goodnight…Blake.’

When she’d gone he sat unmoving, but if his body was still his mind wasn’t. All sorts of thoughts were going round in it. The kind of thoughts that less than twenty-four hours ago would never have had cause to surface.

His reverie was interrupted by the doorbell and as he got to his feet he could see a car belonging to one of the partners in the practice parked at the bottom of the drive.

He sighed. Maxine Fielding was a good doctor. She was also husband-hunting and Blake had a feeling that she saw him as prey. The seas would run dry before he succumbed to her, he kept telling himself, but he was loth to create an embarrassing situation at the practice unless he was forced to.

When he opened the door to her it was clear that in spite of the hour it was a social call, and before he could nip it in the bud she’d seated herself and was telling him that she was gasping for a gin and tonic.

He obliged, with eyes upward raised and ears pinned back for any sounds from above, but all was still until Helena’s voice called from the top of the stairs, ‘I think I will have the sleeping tablet if you don’t mind…Blake.’

Maxine was on her feet faster than the speed of light and, peering up the staircase at the person responsible for the unexpected interruption, she said tightly, ‘And who might that be?’

‘A guest,’ he told her calmly, and to Helena. ‘I’ll be up with it right away, Helena.’

‘So?’ Maxine said when he came back down.

‘Helena is the daughter of my next-door neighbour who died suddenly today. The police called me out when his body was found and I had the unenviable task of breaking the news to her that her father was dead. She is very distraught, needless to say, and I felt that she shouldn’t be alone tonight. Does that satisfy you, Maxine?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said tartly, ‘but I’m not going to stay and chat with someone listening upstairs.’

‘You flatter yourself if you think Helena will be interested in anything we might have to say after the sort of day she’s had.’

‘Nevertheless I’m going,’ she said, ‘and don’t forget we have a practice meeting arranged for after morning surgery tomorrow.’

‘I’m not likely to forget,’ he told her drily. ‘I was the one who arranged it.’

There were three partners at the practice—himself, Maxine, who had come highly recommended from a practice that he’d since discovered had been glad to see her go, and Darren Scott, a young, recently qualified GP.

Darren and Maxine didn’t get on too well as she was always criticising him instead of offering encouragement, and Blake was left to keep the peace. The rest of the staff were a hard-working, contented lot and for most of the time there was harmony.

He’d started working for the police twelve months previously and from the beginning had pledged himself to help those of the public, whether innocent or guilty, who found themselves in a cell because they were suspected of breaking the law.

His duty was to protect them from harming themselves or anyone else, and if a prisoner was taken ill to be there to see that they received proper treatment. There would be no deaths in the cells if he could help it.

His relations with the police were good. They knew they could rely on him to turn up when sent for and that his findings would be meticulously passed on to them.

* * *

When Blake had brought her the sedative Helena said apologetically, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you had a visitor.’

He smiled.

‘Think nothing of it. Maxine Fielding is one of my partners from the practice. She won’t be staying long and as soon as she’s gone I shall be turning in myself. Remember, Helena, if you need anything in the night you have only to call.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said gratefully and turned her face into the pillow, wishing that she didn’t look so ghastly and that she wasn’t wearing the shapeless pyjamas.

* * *

Helena cried out in the night and Blake went to her. As he soothed her back to sleep he saw the sedative was on the bedside table. She was a nurse, he thought, and would know that no matter what she took to help her sleep she would awake to desolation in the morning. Clawing her way out of the same kind of black hole that he’d crawled out of every morning for a long time after Anna and young Jason had been killed in a car crash on the school run on a bright spring morning three years ago.

He still had his dark days but time did heal. It wasn’t just a platitude that was trotted out to help the grieving. Gradually the pain eased and if one was lucky only the happy memories remained.

Hopefully that was how it would be for his unexpected visitor, only in her case there’d been fear to cope with, too.

* * *

When he awoke in the morning Helena had gone. She’d found an empty envelope and had written on the back of it, ‘Have gone home. There is much to sort out. Thank you for last night, Blake. I hope I didn’t disturb you too much as I know you have a busy day ahead. Best regards, Helena.’

As she’d been writing the note her face had been burning. She’d known that he’d held her some time during the night, but she’d been too exhausted and traumatised for it to register properly, and in the light of day she hadn’t been able to believe that she’d let her nightmares be soothed away by a man she’d only known a matter of hours. Yet it hadn’t felt like that. It had been as if she’d known him always.

For the rest of the day she tried to keep busy. A police sergeant and a young constable called in the middle of the morning and told her that they were making sure that the newspapers printed an account of her father’s death. That should finally wrap up his connection with the Kelsall case, they told her, and surprised her by saying that it was at Dr Pemberton’s suggestion.

As she tried to force a sandwich down at midday Helena began to wonder about his visitor of the night before. The aggressive-looking blonde with the cold grey eyes had glared up at her as if she’d been about to steal the silver, and she wondered if they were a couple. She hoped not. Blake Pemberton deserved better than that. Much better.

She was humbly grateful that he’d agreed to attend her father’s funeral with her. For the moment she couldn’t think any further than that. But once it was over it would be decision time, and of one thing she was certain—she wasn’t staying in this house.

Maybe she could find something in nursing over here with accommodation thrown in. The authorities in the UK were always saying there was a shortage of nurses. It might be the time to test the water.

* * *

The practice meeting in the late morning was going smoothly enough, with the manager announcing that they were meeting their budget and Blake’s two partners for once not bickering. But it took a downward turn when a letter from one of the two practice nurses was read out, asking that she be permitted to leave at the end of the following week. No reason was given but most of the staff were aware that she’d just found herself a new man, a Welshman, and wanted to move to Wales to be with him.

‘Shall I advertise?’ the practice manager asked, and Blake shook his head.

‘Let’s leave it for a few days,’ he suggested. ‘I might know of a replacement. If nothing comes of it we’ll advertise then.’

It would be one way of keeping an eye on Helena, he was thinking. Purely from a protective point of view…of course. Not for any other reason. She’d felt so fine-boned and vulnerable both times he’d held her close that he knew he would be on edge if she was out of his sight in the weeks to come.

He was worried because she had no one to turn to but himself. Yet wasn’t he in a similar position? But he had a lot more going for him. He had the practice, his job with the police and his own home. In other words, plenty to occupy him…

As they left the meeting to go out on their calls Blake was waylaid by Maxine.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Has she gone?’

‘If you mean Helena, yes,’ he told her coolly. ‘I’ve left it to her to decide if she wants to come back tonight.’

She was eyeing him dubiously.

‘You’ll have people talking.’

He laughed and her face tightened.

‘Maybe it’s time I gave them something to talk about.’

‘I could help with that,’ she said skittishly.

‘I was joking, Maxine,’ he told her. ‘Anna would be a hard act to follow and I don’t see suitable replacements on every street corner.’

He could tell that had gone down like a lead balloon but she didn’t get a chance to reply as a patient she’d seen earlier was hovering. Relieved to be away from her, Blake set off on his rounds with the intention of making Helena’s house his first stop.

‘Why didn’t you stay for breakfast?’ he asked when she opened the door to him.

She looked awful. There were dark smudges beneath eyes that were red-rimmed with weeping and her face was even paler than the day before.

‘How much sleep did you get?’ he asked, as the doctor in him took over.

‘Some,’ she replied, with her face warming again at the memory of how he’d held her in his arms and comforted her in the dark hours of the night. To cover her confusion she said, ‘I’d like to invite you for a meal to make up for all you’ve done for me, but I haven’t got around to doing any food shopping, and as Dad lived rather frugally there isn’t much in the fridge.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you cook for me,’ he said immediately. ‘You’re in no fit state. But there’s no reason why we can’t eat out. I’ll take you for a meal. It will be one way of making sure you’re managing to get some food down.’

His glance was taking in the uncluttered worktops and a sink bare of used pots. ‘Unless you’re a very tidy person I would guess that you’ve had nothing so far.’

Was he overdoing the caring neighbour bit? he wondered. She’d turned away and was staring through the window. Maybe she was finding him too overpowering.

Yet she was saying, ‘I’d like that. To dine out. It will help to take my mind off everything for a little while.’

He was smiling and Helena thought that this attractive stranger really was doing his best to be supportive, but there was still one thing that Blake Pemberton couldn’t make right for her, even though he’d done his best.

She pointed to the early edition of the evening paper lying on the kitchen table, and as his gaze transferred to it she said, ‘On the inside page.’

Blake picked it up and turned to where she’d said and his eyes narrowed as they focused on a short piece at the top of the page. The police had done as he’d suggested. It said that James Harris, the main witness in a recent gangland trial, had died of natural causes the previous day. That was all, but hopefully it would be sufficient.

It was the kind of scenario that he’d been on the edge of in some of the incidents where the police had asked for his assistance in recent months. Especially in some of the more run-down parts of the city. So it wasn’t all that new to him.

But to this innocent woman who’d come back from Australia, expecting life to be as it had been before, what she’d been met with must seem like a nightmare. Not only was she having to cope with losing her father, she’d been touched by the seamier side of life in the process.

‘I’m still wondering if I should go back to Australia to get away from all this,’ she said, breaking into his thoughts.

‘Yes, but do you want to?’

She’d thought she did, but now she wasn’t sure. If she went back she would never see Blake Pemberton again. Their meeting would end up as just ships that had passed in the night and she didn’t want that. She liked him. Liked everything about him. If that woman from last night was special, it didn’t matter. She would be happy to have him as just a friend.