Mags?’
‘I’m sorry about this, but the duty doctor hasn’t come yet, and I have a man in the cells who was looking a little under the weather when he came in and is getting worse by the minute. He’s just shown the custody sergeant a bite on his leg.’
‘Bite?’ Kate turned to her suddenly.
‘Yes. It’s not a human bite. We don’t know what it is; it looks a few days old. Ethan, I wouldn’t ask, but...’
He didn’t have any choice. Ethan opened his mouth to ask whether Kate might wait somewhere for him but she spoke first.
‘I’m a vet. I’ve seen practically every kind of bite there is. Had quite a few of them.’
‘I’m sure that Ethan can deal with it.’ Mags hadn’t seemed to notice that some of the colour had suddenly returned to Kate’s cheeks and she stood a little straighter.
‘I’d appreciate Kate’s opinion.’ He was rewarded by a smile that didn’t seem quite as strained as the last one.
‘Fair enough.’ Mags shot Ethan a questioning look but didn’t argue. ‘I’ll get the medical kit brought down.’
* * *
This morning had been horrible. Before the taxi had arrived to take her to the police station, Kate had walked around her cottage checking everything. Locks. Dripping taps. She’d pulled all the plugs out of their sockets and then walked around the cottage a second time. She hated herself for doing it, but she couldn’t help it.
The identification hadn’t been much better. All she’d really wanted to do was to put this behind her, but the gentle voice of the woman police officer who’d showed her a set of short videos on a computer screen had screamed victim. She’d assured Kate that she wouldn’t come face to face with her assailant, and Kate had wanted to scream back that she wasn’t afraid.
She wasn’t afraid, at least not of the man last night. She was afraid of herself. That she’d allow the bad dreams, the routines repeated over and over again, to take over her life the way they had last time. She’d been able to hide that from everyone but herself, but being unable to step out of her own flat had almost ruined her career and shown her that Mark’s promises about sticking with her had been just empty words.
But, somehow, seeing Ethan had calmed her. Maybe because his final words to her last night were that he had to go in order to see his son before he went to sleep. A son meant a partner. And a partner meant that Ethan was unavailable. She could count him as a friend without any fear that she’d be tempted to step over the line.
‘You’ve done this before?’ Ethan seemed to know his way around the police station, walking ahead of the two police officers who were accompanying them.
‘Yes, I used to be on the police surgeon’s call roster. I gave it up a couple of years ago, to spend more time with my son.’
‘And you worked here?’
‘Mostly.’ He looked behind him, smiling at the woman police officer who’d popped her head around the door after Kate had finished her identification. ‘Inspector Graham was so impressed by my abilities that she had me assigned here most of the time.’
‘In your dreams. As a police officer, I have a duty to protect the public, and keeping you from bothering anyone else seemed like the way to go.’
Ethan chuckled. The easy respect between the two was clear. He must be good at his job, and perhaps Kate would get the opportunity to watch and learn a little.
* * *
The man was lying on the platform bed in his cell, a couple of blankets covering him, the custody sergeant standing at his side. Ethan glanced at the name on the custody record and leaned over him.
‘Gary, I’m Dr Conway. I hear you’re not feeling well.’
Gary opened his eyes, shading them from the light with his hand. ‘My head’s splitting.’
Probably a hangover—he stank of alcohol—but it was as well to make sure.
‘You were drinking last night?’
‘Yeah. It’s what got me in here.’
He glanced up at Mags and she nodded. It probably wasn’t entirely the drink that had got Gary locked up for the night, but whatever else he’d done wasn’t Ethan’s business. He preferred to be the cog in the system that didn’t have to make judgements about others.
‘All right. Have you hit your head at all, or fallen?’
‘Dunno. Don’t remember. My leg hurts.’
‘I’ll take a look then. Is that okay?’
‘Knock yourself out, mate.’ Gary closed his eyes again, and warning bells began to ring at the back of Ethan’s head. He would have preferred it if Gary had been screaming for attention, because this lacklustre disinterest in what was happening around him didn’t bode well.
A glance over his shoulder told him that the custody sergeant was ready to step in if Gary started to kick. Kate was out of range, standing quietly in the corner of the cell. Taking the blankets from Gary’s legs, Ethan carefully rolled up the leg of his sweat pants.
Underneath was a haphazardly applied dressing of plaster and a bandage. Ethan cut off the dressings and saw the deep gash on the man’s leg.
‘This is a bite?’
He felt, rather than saw, Kate move closer, looking at the wound carefully. ‘I think that’s from a lizard. Lizard bites sometimes bleed very freely.’
‘This is deep.’ Ethan gently felt the skin around the wound. It was swollen and hot to the touch.
Kate turned her attention to Gary, poking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and kept them open, clearly liking Kate’s smile a little better than he did Ethan’s. Who could blame him?
‘Was it a lizard that bit you?’
‘Great, big ugly thing with sharp teeth.’
‘About this long?’ She held out her hands to indicate something of about three and a half feet in length. ‘Brownish colour with a light belly? Scales?’
‘Yeah, scales. Quick on its feet as well. My mate bought it from somewhere.’ The man closed his eyes again.
‘It could be a monitor lizard. Their bites often don’t hurt much at first, but give it twenty-four hours and they can become infected very quickly. If he’s been drinking he probably didn’t register the pain.’ She turned to Ethan. It was a relief, but no particular surprise, to see that she was calm and collected. Almost welcoming the opportunity to do something which didn’t revolve around last night.
‘It’s certainly infected.’ Ethan took a surgical marker pen from the first-aid kit, drawing around the edge of the hard red lump that surrounded the bite, and noting the time so that any increase in the swelling could be monitored.
‘You think we should call an ambulance?’
