OK. She gave a mental snort and stalked down the path toward them. Dratted stilettos …
Davy Price.
She recognised the child before she’d reached the riverbank. Immediately her personal discomfort was forgotten. What the hell was Alistair doing, holding Davy’s hand? Davy was six years old. He was the eldest of four children, the last of whom she’d delivered four days earlier. They lived in the worst of this motley collection of shacks.
While Lizzie, Davy’s mum, had been in hospital, she’d tried to persuade her to move to council housing. But …
‘My old man wants to live by the river. He won’t move.’
Georgie fretted about the family. Lizzie’s ‘old man’ was Smiley, an indolent layabout, drunk more often than not. Lizzie tried desperately to keep the kids healthy but she was almost beaten. To let her go home to this mosquito-ridden slum had gone against every piece of logic Georgie possessed. But you can’t make people do what they don’t want—who knew that better than Georgie?
But now … She slipped on her way down the grassy verge and she kicked her stilettos off. By the time she reached them she was almost running.
‘What’s wrong, Davy?’ she asked as she reached them. She ignored Alistair for the moment. It’d take something really dire to prise this shy six-year-old from his mum. There had to be something badly amiss. How had Alistair become involved? She had him twigged as the sort of guy who didn’t get involved.
He was still holding Davy’s hand. He was obviously very involved.
‘Mum said to go and get Dad,’ Davy whispered. ‘But Dad’s gone fishing.’
‘He went out this morning?’
‘He was going to win some prize,’ Davy said, and swiped a grimy fist over an even more grimy face. ‘But Mum can’t get out of bed and the baby keeps crying and crying and there’s nothing for Dottie and Megan to eat. I don’t know what to do.’
‘So Alistair’s taking you home,’ she said, casting Alistair an almost approving glance before stooping and tugging the little boy close.
‘He said he was your friend,’ Davy whispered.
‘Of course he’s my friend.’ She hugged the little boy hard and then put him away from her, holding him at arm’s length. She glanced up at Alistair and surprised a look of concern on his face. Well, well. The guy had a human side.
‘OK, let’s go find your mum and see if we can help until your dad comes back,’ she said.
‘That’s just what we were doing,’ Alistair said. ‘But you’re very welcome to join us.’
The hut was one of the most poverty-stricken dwellings Alistair had ever seen. The smell hit him first—an almost unbelievable stench. Then they rounded a stand of palms and reached the hut itself. Consisting of sheets of rusty corrugated iron propped up by stakes with a roof of the same iron weighted down by rocks, it looked more a kid’s cubby hut than a real house.
‘My God,’ he whispered, and Georgie cast him a warning look.
‘Most of these houses are better,’ she said. ‘But they’re mostly used by itinerant fishermen, not by full-time residents. Even so … This hut is a long way from any other for a reason. Davy’s dad is … not very friendly.’
He was starting to get a clear idea of Davy’s dad and it wasn’t a flattering picture. What sort of man left a wife who’d just given birth while he joined a fishing competition?
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Georgie said grimly, watching his face and guessing his thoughts. ‘Stay out here for a moment and I’ll see what’s happening.’
She ducked inside the lean-to shed, leaving him outside, trying to ignore the smell.
Her inspection lasted only seconds. ‘Come in,’ she called, and something in her voice prepared him for what was inside.
The hut consisted of a rough chimney at one end with a dead fire at the base, a table and an assortment of camping chairs in various stages of disrepair. There were two double-bed mattresses on the floor and that was the extent of the furnishings. There was a baby lying in the middle of one mattress, wrapped neatly enough in a faded blue blanket. On the other bed were two little girls, four and two maybe. They were huddled as closely as they could get to a woman lying in the middle of the bed. The woman looked like she was sleeping. But …
‘She’s almost unconscious,’ Georgie said, stopping his deepest dread before it took hold. ‘The pulse is really thready and she’s hot as hell. Damn. I need an ambulance. There’s no cellphone reception down here but I’m driving the hospital car. It’s parked up on the bridge and there’s a radio in that. Right. The mum’s Lizzie. The little girls are Dottie and Megan—Megan’s the littlest—and this is baby Thomas. Take care of them. I’m fetching help.’
She left before he could answer.
Help.
This wasn’t exactly familiar territory. He was a neurosurgeon. He was accustomed to a hospital with every facility he could possibly want. He’d reached the stage in his career where he was starting to train younger doctors. He’d almost forgotten this sort of hands-on medicine.
‘Is she dead?’ Davy whispered, appalled.
‘No.’ He hauled himself together. He was the doctor in charge.
‘She’s not.’
Move. Back to basics. Triage. He did a fast check on the baby—asleep but seemingly OK. He loosened the blanket and left him sleeping. Then he crossed to the mattress, stooped and felt the woman’s pulse. It was faint and thready. The two little girls were huddled hard against her, big-eyed with terror.
‘Davy, I need you to take your sisters onto the other bed while I look after your mother,’ he told the little boy. He made to lift the first girl but she sobbed and pulled away from him.
‘He’s going to make our mum better,’ Davy said fiercely. He grabbed her and pulled. ‘Dottie, get off. Now.’
‘I promise I’m here to help,’ Alistair told them, and smiled. One of the little girls—the littlest—had an ugly bruise on her arm. And a burn on her knuckles. He winced. He remembered this pattern of burn mark from his training. Once seen, never forgotten.
‘I’m here to help you,’ he said softly. ‘I promise. Dottie, Megan, will you let me see what’s wrong with your mum?’
‘He’s Georgie’s friend,’ Davy said stoutly, and it was like he’d given a password. They shifted immediately so he could work. But they watched his every move.
Alistair smiled at them, then turned his attention to their mother. He didn’t know how long it would be before help came. With a pulse like this …
The woman’s eyelids flickered, just a little.
‘Lizzie,’ he said softly, and then more urgently, ‘Lizzie.’
Her lids lifted, just a fraction.
On a makeshift bench there was a jug of water, none too clean, but he wasn’t bothering about hygiene now. The woman had puckered skin, and she was dry and hot to the touch. A severe infection, he thought. The bedclothes around her were clammy, as if she’d been sweating for days.
He poured water into a dirty cup—there were no clean ones—swished it and tossed it out, then refilled the cup. In seconds he was lifting her a little so he was supporting her shoulders and holding the mug to her lips.
She shook her head, so fractionally he might have imagined it.
‘Yes,’ he said fiercely. ‘Lizzie, I’m Dr Georgie’s friend. Georgie’s