Chapter 1 - Mid-November
The first that Doctor Ian Cameron, MD, knew of the assault on his person was when the twelve-year-old girl, who had been comfortably sleeping on his shoulder, was wrenched from under his protective arm. As he blinked his eyes open from his exhausted sleep, they were suddenly filled with a stinging irritant, in the form of pepper spray. Cameron cried out and brought his hands up to his face. Almost immediately he was struck on the side of the head by a blow powerful enough to knock him off the sofa onto the sitting room floor. He later learned that he was cruelly struck by his own heavy medical bag, which had been left next to the sofa.
As he lost consciousness, Cameron was aware of a woman's voice cursing him in what seemed to him to be a fiery Mediterranean tongue. He was simultaneously conscious that his torso was at the complete mercy of and being subjected to a number of sharp kicks calculatedly aimed at his manhood.
For some incongruous reason, once his body had reached that numb, painless stage, for just a moment before his consciousness turned inky black, the incongruous thought occurred to Cameron that the woman's voice was ... well, actually, quite sexy.
Chapter 2 - Earlier that night
Doctor Cameron was a locum medical practitioner. He covered doctors' periods of sick leave, vacations, or was available for out-of-surgery-hours cover, including weekends. He was prepared to relocate on a temporary basis anywhere he was required. In the majority of appointments, the demand for his services were in inner cities, with the occasional rural secondment thrown in for good measure by way of a rare treat. The location mattered little to Cameron, as he no longer had any permanent residence that he was able to call home.
In his late-thirties, he had been practising medicine for fourteen years, mostly in hospitals as he found the purchase of a private practice share beyond his resources. Five years earlier, however, his happy marriage had suddenly evaporated when his beautiful Personal Assistant wife Brenda divorced him to marry her older but rather more financially successful entrepreneur boss. She told Cameron that she believed he would never amount to anything other than a hospital doctor, so she was, in her words, "trading-up".
Brenda's employer-cum-lover could afford the best lawyers money could buy and Cameron was screwed out of everything, including visitation rights to his then twelve-year-old daughter, Isla, and separation meant immediate exclusion by court order from the marital home and within hailing distance of his former nearest and dearest.
Mrs Brenda Cameron's grounds to divorce him, cited mental and physical cruelty, and came completely out of the blue to Cameron on the day of the divorce court hearing. Although evidence of his violent behaviour was completely circumstantial, with no proof of medical treatments or police interventions, his wife's courtroom lies under oath on the subject were damningly convincing enough for the judge to penalise Cameron heavily.
Following the separation, Cameron's position in the local hospital became untenable after the legally enshrined reasons for the divorce were made public. Cameron was quietly asked to leave. Eventually, he signed up with a locum agency providing support for doctors' practices.
This was his third enjoyable stint in this particular tiny rural practice, which covered a huge underpopulated area of countryside, consisting mostly of agricultural farms and hamlets. He had spent a week here the previous spring, followed by a month in the summer, and was now in the middle weekend of a fortnight in November. There was a tentative promise of a further week's work coming up in February. Weekend cover meant being on call from Friday afternoon through to Monday morning, as well as the weekday out-of-hours sessions. The hours were long, and the cases ranging from the mundane to the most challenging. This weekend had been a particularly busy one for Cameron; his last call, prior to his assault, was to one of a tiny pair of isolated cottages. Here he had to certify the sudden unexpected death of an old woman.
The paramedics and police had arrived on scene a couple of hours before the good doctor was able to attend. Cameron had to complete a house call some distance away, treating a sick child.
The deceased, a woman in her eighties, had enjoyed recent good health and, after examining her, Cameron agreed with the paramedic, who was first on scene, that it looked like she had suffered from a cardiac arrest. There appeared nothing suspicious about the occurrence but by law the Coroner's opinion needed to be sought. The old lady had died long before the ambulance was summoned, although the crew had spent some time fruitlessly trying to revive the poor soul.
The police had already departed on another call prior to Cameron's arrival and the ambulance was also informed that they were required elsewhere. Both emergency crews knew Cameron from his previous experience in the tight-knit community and was highly regarded by them.
The Coroner had been notified by the police by voice-mail but word was that the Coroner was attending the County Ball, the biggest shin-dig on the local social calendar, so there was no telling when he'd arrive to deal with the deceased. Cameron would have to wait for him before the duty undertaker could be summonsed to remove the body.
The initial 999 call came from 12-year-old Sofia, who, as the only other person present in the pair of cottages, was extremely upset. She had woken from a nightmare about eleven o'clock, apparently, and crept into her Nanny's bed, only to find her cold and wouldn't wake up.
Cameron was informed that the child had been left with her Nanny for the night because her mother was also at the Ball and not due to collect her until around noon on Sunday. The next door neighbours were also guests at the same social event.
The paramedic quietly informed Cameron that Sofia's father had died in a motor vehicle accident earlier in the year and the girl was in shock at this further family bereavement. The police had tried to call the mother, her number supplied by the girl, but they could only leave messages. The local Children's Services had also been contacted but, guess what?, the duty officer was at the Ball, too!
The police left a verbal message with the paramedics to pass onto Cameron when he arrived, saying that when they had a chance they would drop by the Ball, which, by tradition, tended to go on until three or four in the morning at least. They warned Cameron that the girl's mother was known to be involved in the clean-up afterwards, so it might be some time before he could be relieved of his responsibility for the young girl.
The girl Sofia was a dark-haired beauty, tall and slender for her age, with soft brown eyes, currently deeply reddened with sorrow. She was not prepared to sleep upstairs alone and eagerly clung on to Doctor Cameron, who was left alone with her as the paramedics departed on another call for their services.
Cameron sat on the sofa with the girl, having wrapped a blanket around both of them and he relaxed, having not slept properly since Friday lunchtime, some 37 hours earlier. It was soon warm in the house, as the nearly dead fire had been refuelled with logs and the embers poked back into life. When on hospital duty, Cameron was comfortable in the usual thin green tunics and shapeless trousers. While on locum calls, though, Cameron felt a suit, shirt and sombre tie was more appropriate. Over this he wore a heavy hi-visibility coat, identifying his medical examiner status, useful for traffic accidents and external emergencies. Now thoroughly warmed through, though, he removed the heavy coat and left it draped over the hall banister rail. He loosened his tie before rejoining the distressed girl on the comfortable sofa.
"I'll wait here with you, Sofia. However," he warned her. "I'm still on emergency call-out all through the weekend, so I may have to wrap you in this blanket and take you with me in the car, if I get the call before your mother or the Coroner gets here. Are you all right with that arrangement?"
"It's better than being left here on my own, Doc. I'm happy to wait with you until Mummy comes for me."
Cameron nodded, "If I do take you to an emergency call, you'll have to stay in the locked car, but I can always leave the car heater on for you."
"OK, so, if I keep my bedroom slippers on, Doc, will you carry me to the car?"
Did the doctor detect a hint of coyness in her statement and the quizzical look the girl gave him? Whether he did or not, Cameron pressed on, saying, "Fine, in the meantime, I can be reached on the radio or mobile just as well here as back in the hotel ... only I was hoping to speak to my daughter at school in Yorkshire on Skype this evening. She was going to wait up for me to call after going out with her friends tonight. I don't suppose your Nanny has broadband, has she?"
"No, Doc, but the Thompsons next door have wifi and ... I know the password," Sofia smiled for the first time tonight, "Do you want to use my laptop?"
