‘No. No bug. I just felt a bit—I’m not sure—’
‘You’re not sure how you felt?’
Oh, for crying out loud, Evanna! ‘I was just a bit tired.’ She glanced out over the bay. ‘It’s going to be hot today.’ Oh, help, she was reduced to talking about the weather.
‘Yes.’
He was still looking at her. She could feel him looking at her and she turned to look up the coast path, afraid that he’d see something in her eyes that she didn’t want him to see. ‘I’m going to spend the afternoon cleaning out my bathroom, ready for Craig. He’s starting tomorrow and—’ She broke off and frowned slightly, squinting into the distance. ‘What’s the matter with them?’
Logan turned and looked. ‘That couple? I walked past them about ten minutes ago. They’re just tourists, out for an early stroll. They had a stack of newspapers in their rucksack. Probably looking for a peaceful spot on the headland to sit and catch up on the news. I can never understand that really, can you? People come to this island to escape from the big wide world and the first thing they do is buy a newspaper.’
‘They’re waving at us.’
‘Why would they wave at us?’ Logan lifted Kirsty off his shoulders and winced. ‘She always holds onto my hair.’
‘Logan.’ Evanna caught his arm. ‘They are waving at us. He’s shouting something.’
Kirsty wriggled in Logan’s arms and he shifted her back onto his shoulders in a smooth, confident movement. ‘All right. Let’s stroll back up there and see if there’s something wrong.’
‘There is something wrong. Definitely.’ Evanna suddenly had a bad feeling. ‘The woman’s on the ground now. Has she collapsed or is she sitting down? I can’t see properly from here.’ She started to run along the path, aware that Logan was right behind her.
When she reached the couple the woman was on her knees and her hands were at her throat.
The man was right beside her. ‘It’s my wife, Alison. She’s been bitten!’ There was panic in his voice as he fumbled with his phone. ‘I need to get help. I can’t believe this has happened.’
‘Bitten?’ Evanna was already on her knees beside the woman. ‘Bitten by what? Where?’ She put a hand on the woman’s shoulder in a gesture of reassurance and then closed her fingers around her wrist and felt her pulse. It was extremely rapid.
‘It’s a hundred and twenty, Logan.’
‘Her foot. It’s her foot. She trod on the damn thing. Oh, I can’t do this.’ The man’s hands were shaking so much that he couldn’t dial the number and the woman’s breathing was becoming laboured.
She looked at her husband in blind panic and let out a sobbing breath. ‘Pete—do something. My mouth’s really dry and I feel dizzy. I didn’t see it until I put my foot on it. Do something.’
Logan had transferred Kirsty from his shoulders to his arms but he didn’t put her down because they were too close to the edge of the cliff. Instead, he held her easily and squatted down beside the woman, his voice calm and steady. ‘Alison, try not to panic. I’m a doctor and I can help you but I need to know what happened. You said that something bit you? What was it? Insect?’
Alison turned her head to look at him and there was fear and revulsion in her eyes. ‘Snake.’ She croaked the word and Evanna frowned, thinking that she must have misheard.
‘Snake? Are you sure?’ Baffled, Evanna glanced around her but Logan didn’t waste time questioning further. Instead, his fingers were on the woman’s leg, examining an area that was reddening by the minute.
‘Adder. It must have been an adder. Evanna, I want to bandage and splint the leg to stop her moving it around. What can we use?’
Still one step behind him, she stared at him blankly for a moment, tempted to answer, Fresh air. And then she saw something in his eyes—something serious—and his voice held an urgency that she didn’t often hear. Logan was always calm and relaxed. It was unlike him to show that he was worried. ‘I—You need a splint?’ She thought quickly, her eyes flitting around her. ‘Kirsty’s cardigan? That’s cotton so it would be fine as a pad. Your socks because they’re longer and we can tie them, a folded newspaper as a splint?’ Her improvisation clearly met with his approval because his blue eyes gleamed with approval.
‘Let’s do it.’ Handing Kirsty to the woman’s husband to hold, he dragged off his socks and thrust them into Evanna’s hands. ‘You’ll be relieved to know that they’ve only been on my feet for about two minutes. You were reading the Sunday papers.’ He turned to the woman’s husband. ‘Fold a section for me so that I have something rigid to use as support.’
The man dropped the phone, fumbled with the newspaper, cursing as he tried to fold it with hands made useless by nerves. Evanna reached over and took it from him, folded it neatly, placed it on the wound and they strapped the ankle.
Logan had the phone in his hand and was dialling. He made two calls—one to the air ambulance and one to Jim—and Evanna gave a swift nod of understanding. Jim owned the land they were walking on. The sheep in the field were his sheep and he owned a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Travelling cross-country, they could be in the surgery in less than five minutes.
Still holding Kirsty on one arm, Logan made the calls while Evanna glanced nervously around her. She’d lived on the island virtually all her life and she’d never seen a snake.
‘What if it bites someone else? Should we look for it?’
‘It will have gone. Adders are shy. They’ve been spotted on the island occasionally but they don’t normally bother people. They feel the vibration of approaching walkers and slide away.’
‘I think it must have been lying in the sun, warming itself,’ the man muttered, dropping to his knees beside his wife. ‘She trod on it and she was wearing sandals. It’s summer. We didn’t even bother with walking boots. We heard this terrific hiss and then she felt a really sharp stinging in her leg.’
‘Can’t breathe properly,’ the woman gasped, lifting her hands to her throat, and Logan glanced across the fields.
‘We’re going to have you in the surgery in a couple of minutes,’ he said easily, standing up and shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘There’s Jim now. I’m going to help you up, Alison, and we’re going to get you into the car.’
Evanna looked at the woman’s face, saw her increasing struggle for breath and wondered if they’d make it. Panic, with its sharp, deadly claws, stabbed through her and she looked at Logan, taking reassurance from the fact that he was so calm.
He was watching Alison and clearly working out a plan in his head. As Jim pulled up in his four-wheel-drive vehicle, Logan handed Kirsty to Evanna and lifted Alison inside. The rest of them clambered into the vehicle and Logan slammed the door shut.
‘Drive,’ he said to Jim, without wasting time on conversation or niceties and, to his credit, Jim rose to the challenge, covering the distance to the surgery in record time.
‘I’ll keep Kirsty with me,’ Jim volunteered, and Logan gave a brief nod of thanks as he and Pete helped Alison out of the car.
Evanna unlocked the door and sprinted through to the consulting room. Without hesitating, she unlocked the drug cupboard and removed the adrenaline.
‘Can you do a pulse and blood pressure, please? And let’s give her some oxygen.’
Without hesitation, Logan helped Alison onto the couch, jabbed the injection straight into the muscle and depressed the plunger. ‘Her pulse is a hundred and forty. I’m going to need more adrenaline, Evanna, and I want to do an ECG.’
‘Her blood pressure is ninety over fifty.’