for a moment…that was all.’
‘Yeah, well, it only takes a moment and it’s too late,’ he muttered in an undertone, well out of hearing of the distressed family.
Fran wanted to be angry at him but her nerves were still shredded. She felt as if her whole body was hanging in pieces, none of them connected to each other. She could barely get her legs to move. Her head was spinning so much she thought she might be sick, but somehow she pulled herself together for the family’s sake.
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Jane was still sobbing as she cradled her daughter. ‘I don’t know how she got out to the pool. The gate was closed, I’m sure it was. I’m always so careful.’
‘It’s hard to watch kids all the time,’ Fran said, glancing at the two boys who were still looking shocked, huddled together in the corner of the room.
Once the ambulance officers arrived Fran filled them in with what had happened. The officers were not trained paramedics, just volunteers, but the older man called Jack seemed very competent and experienced as he handled the little patient.
Within a few minutes, both mother and child were in the back of the ambulance, heading for Wollongong Hospital for proper assessment and observation of Ella.
Another police car pulled into the driveway almost as soon as the ambulance had pulled out, and Joe gave Fran a worried look. ‘What are more cops doing here?’ he asked, placing an arm around each of his boys.
‘It’s pretty standard procedure in cases like this,’ Fran said, although personally she questioned the timing of it. The traumatised father and his young sons were obviously desperate to get in the car and follow the ambulance to hospital, but she understood from other cases she had dealt with the importance of ruling out any suspicious circumstances.
Jacob went over to the police vehicle and spoke to the officer on duty. The car backed out of the driveway a few moments later and Jacob came back up the path to where Joe and his boys were waiting with Fran.
Jacob exchanged a brief unreadable glance with Fran before he reached for Joe’s hand. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I’m Sergeant Jacob Hawke.’ He smiled down at the boys. ‘Hi, guys.’ He bent down to their level. ‘What are your names?’
‘I—I’m Joey and he’s Romeo,’ the older of the boys said.
‘Those are great names—Italian, right?’ Jacob asked, glancing at the father for verification.
Joe nodded, his throat rising and falling over a tight swallow. ‘Sergeant, I think it would be best if we talk in private. I don’t want the boys to be upset any further.’
Fran stepped forward. ‘I’d be happy to fix the boys a juice or something,’ she said, and turned to them.
‘How about it, Romeo and Joey? Can you show me where Mummy keeps everything?’
The little boys led the way to the kitchen where Fran poured them both orange juice and gave them two chocolate-chip cookies apiece. After a while their dark brown eyes began to lose their haunted, hollow look and they even started to chat about their favourite toys and games.
After half an hour the boys’ father came in, followed by Jacob. ‘Thank you again, Dr Nin, and you too, Sergeant,’ Joe said. ‘I know Jane already thanked you both but you really did save our little girl today. If there’s anything, and I mean anything, we can ever do for you, just let me know. It goes without saying you won’t be charged a cent if you need your car serviced at my workshop, Dr Nin. Just book it in any time.’
‘Thank you, Joe,’ Fran said, feeling every type of fraud. She hadn’t saved Ella, that had been Jacob, and both of them knew it. The family had been too upset to notice and had just assumed as she was a doctor that she was responsible for the miracle of bringing their precious daughter back to them. ‘That’s very kind of you but I was only doing my…er…‘ she flushed and hated herself for it ‘…what I’ve been trained to do.’
‘We should let you get on your way to the hospital to be with your wife and daughter,’ Jacob said to Joe, and then, turning to face Fran, asked, ‘Would you like a lift back to your sister’s house?’
Fran considered refusing but her leg was still throbbing from her hundred-metre dash earlier, and she was also concerned about how long Rufus had been locked in the laundry back at the house. ‘Thank you,’ she said, brushing her hair back with her hand. ‘That would be great.’
After saying farewell to the Pelleri boys and their father, Jacob led the way out to the police vehicle, opening the passenger door for her and standing patiently as she eased into the seat.
He waited until they were on their way before he spoke. ‘When was the last time you performed resuscitation on a child?’
Fran stiffened in her seat. ‘Look, it was tough in there, OK? The family was hysterical and there was no resus gear at hand. I’m not used to working at the coalface like that. I’ve been in a high-tech city teaching hospital all my working life.’
Her words hung in the ensuing silence, each one of them making her feel even more disgusted with her incompetence under pressure. She of all people should have been able to handle an emergency, no matter what equipment was at hand. She could just imagine what Jacob was thinking: she was a stuck-up city slicker who couldn’t stop a nosebleed without a trauma team on hand for back-up. He was very probably right, Fran thought with another wave of disgust at herself.
‘It could so easily have gone the other way but it didn’t,’ Jacob said after a moment. ‘Small communities like this don’t cope well with tragedy. It affects everyone.’
Fran bit her lip as those terrified little boys’ faces drifted into her consciousness. ‘Yes…I know…’
Jacob glanced across at her. ‘It seems one of the boys left the gate unlocked. The mother turned her back for a minute, the father was occupied elsewhere and suddenly the family was a minute or two from tragedy.’
Fran looked at him, her forehead creasing. ‘That’s not going to be made public, is it? About one of the boys leaving the gate unlocked?’
He drew in a breath as he turned into the Atkinses’ driveway. ‘As you are probably aware, whenever there is a case of drowning or near-drowning the police are required to attend and submit a media report in the interests of public education to make the community safer for children. So many parents are unaware of the dangers of leaving children unsupervised or the laws regarding adequate fencing around pools.’
Fran felt her body tensing. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said. ‘Joey is only six years old, Romeo only four. It would be morally reprehensible to name and shame either one of them for something that was just an unfortunate accident.’
He killed the engine and turned to look at her. ‘I am confident the incident was not a result of parental neglect or insufficient supervision. When Joe and I inspected the catch on the gate we found it to be faulty. It sometimes locks, it sometimes doesn’t. If it is anyone’s fault, it is the manufacturer’s. The Pelleris have only been in Pelican Bay a few months. The pool and the fence surrounding it were only installed a couple of weeks ago.’
Fran felt her shoulders come down in relief. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to bite your head off but those little boys…well,
