‘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