A Doctor Beyond Compare Read online

  ‘I’ve got a visitor for you, Dr Cooper,’ Meg said cheerily. ‘This is Dr Holly Saxby; she’s the new doctor in town who’s come to help Cameron.’ She turned to Holly and said in an undertone, ‘I’ll leave you to get acquainted.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Holly waited until the nurse had left before she approached the elderly man. ‘Hello, Dr Cooper. I’ve heard so much about you I thought it high time I came to see you. How are you?’

  It was a stupid question, she thought almost as soon as she’d asked it. That Dr Cooper thought so too was more than obvious. He mumbled something inaudible but she didn’t really need to hear it to understand the general gist of it.

  ‘I’m sorry; that was a bit insensitive of me,’ she apologised.

  He waved his good hand in a gesture of dismissal and mumbled something that sounded like, ‘Forget about it.’

  ‘Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?’ she asked.

  He looked at her through rheumy eyes for a moment before pointing to the chair just behind her, which she took as a yes.

  She straightened her skirt over her knees once she was seated and smiled at him. ‘So…this is a nice place you have here.’

  He grunted in agreement and, using his undamaged hand, wiped a trail of saliva from the corner of his mouth. Holly’s heart positively ached for him. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be in his position in forty-odd years’ time. She knew about the tendency amongst doctors to take their health for granted. They spent so much time dealing with other people’s illnesses that at times it was all too easy to feel somewhat immune oneself. It must have come as a dreadful shock to be so disabled in such a way when for so many years Dr Cooper had treated others just like him in his care.

  ‘Would you like me to take you out into the garden for a bit of fresh air?’ she offered. ‘I don’t have any patients for at least an hour.’

  If he was surprised by her offer he didn’t show it. He simply pointed to a thin dressing gown lying on the end of the bed and she picked it up and gently helped him into it.

  ‘It’s quite warm outside but the sea breeze can be fresh,’ she said as she turned the chair for the door.

  Holly spoke with the nurse on the way past who smiled in gratitude, directing her to the ramp exit.

  As soon as they made their way outside Holly saw Dr Cooper lift his face to the warmth of the sun, his eyes closing as he let its healing rays seep into his frail figure. She turned at the sound of slightly out of time marching footsteps and came face to face with Major Dixon.

  ‘I see you’ve got one of the casualties there,’ he said imperiously. ‘Take him to the surgical tent immediately for assessment.’

  Holly was nothing if not a fast learner. She schooled her features into respectful obeisance and gave him a quick salute. ‘Yes, Major. Right away, sir.’

  ‘See that you do,’ he growled and marched on, mumbling something about soldiers in skirts and what in God’s name was the army coming to.

  She looked down at Dr Cooper, who was smiling somewhat lopsidedly. ‘It’s cute how everyone goes along with Major Dixon’s time warp,’ she said.

  ‘Mmm,’ he murmured his agreement.

  She wheeled the chair a bit further until they came to a seat near the rose garden, the heady fragrance brought out by the heat of the sun.

  ‘Is this OK here?’

  He gave a single nod and she saw his nostrils flare slightly as he drew in the scent of the roses. She let the breeze and the distant sound of seagulls and terns fill the peaceful silence for a while, working up the courage to ask him about his diagnosis on Noel Maynard. She wasn’t confident he’d be able to tell her much, even if by some miracle he remembered, but she thought it was as good as any place to start.

  ‘Dr Cooper—’ she turned to face him ‘—I was wondering if I could talk to you about a patient of mine.’

  He wiped another trail of saliva from his mouth and nodded his compliance.

  ‘This particular person was your patient a long time ago. You diagnosed him with Wilson’s disease. Do you remember?’

  Out of the corner of her eye Holly saw his frail hand, grasping the arm of the chair, tense until the knuckles went nearly white.

  ‘It’s a very rare condition and since the patient was of Aboriginal descent I was wondering if you could remember the details of how you came to that initial diagnosis?’

  Dr Cooper mumbled but this time she understood exactly what he had communicated. Her interview with him was well and truly over.

  He tried to turn the chair around with his one good hand, which almost toppled him out of it. Holly only just steadied it in time.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Dr Cooper,’ she said, trying to make amends. ‘But Noel Maynard is my patient now. I had some unusual test results come back and I thought it would be best to ask your advice on how to interpret them.’

  The elderly doctor grew increasingly agitated and in spite of his stroke-damaged speech Holly could make out the words ‘murderer’ and ‘animal’ as a track of tears joined the constant trail of saliva down his face.

  ‘I’m sorry…’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Meg Talbot met her at the door as Holly started to wheel him up the ramp.

  She gave the nurse a helpless look.

  Meg turned to a passing nurse and instructed her to take Dr Cooper back to his room for a rest before turning back to Holly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I asked him about a patient of mine he’d treated in the past.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Noel Maynard.’

  Meg sucked in a breath through her teeth. ‘That was very unwise of you. Someone should have warned you. He has never really got over that poor girl’s murder. He assisted at the autopsy. Can you imagine how that affected him, even after all these years? Now we have to deal with that murderer coming back to live here. Ever since Dr Cooper heard about Maynard’s release he’s been upset, as indeed we all are.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘I saw Maynard the other day and my flesh absolutely crawled. Slinking about town like a mangy dog looking for scraps. God knows he’s probably looking for a new victim.’

  ‘I’d better get back to the clinic,’ Holly said, glad of a valid excuse to get away.

  ‘I know you meant well, Dr Saxby, but hasn’t Dr Cooper suffered enough?’

  ‘Yes…yes, of course…I’m sorry.’ Holly made good her escape but it took the rest of the morning before her stomach stopped churning with anguish at the raw pain on Dr Cooper’s face when Noel Maynard’s name had been mentioned.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHEN the last patient of the morning had left, Holly informed the receptionist she was going out for a breath of fresh air.

  ‘Are you going anywhere near the General Store?’ Sally asked. ‘I have some things on order. I might not make it in time this afternoon to pick them up.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll do that for you. Is the General Store anywhere near the library?’

  ‘It’s on the next block. You can’t miss it.’

  The librarian didn’t bother disguising her surprise at Holly’s request to see the newspaper articles that had covered the murder of Tina Shoreham twenty-five years ago. Norma Holden frowned disapprovingly as she handed them to her out of the archive collection. ‘They should have given him the death sentence. Jail was too good for him.’

  Holly took the folder without commenting. She found a quiet corner and, keeping one eye on the clock, began to read. It was a gruesome story. Tina Shoreham’s body had been found in a paddock close to the Maynards’ house in the hills, strangled and stabbed. Dr Neville Cooper had assisted with the autopsy. The trial had made national headlines when Noel had been charged with her murder. His blood had been found under Tina’s fingernails and, since it was Type A with high levels of copper, indicating Wilson’s disease, the case had been wrapped up within a few days upon Noel’s confession.

  Various accounts documented the locals’ hatred of the Ma
ynard boy, who’d had a reputation for being a truant and troublemaker. One witness was quoted as saying that Noel had stalked the victim for months, following her home from school. There was also a photo of the devastated parents, Grant and Lisa, their faces ravaged by grief and shock.

  Holly closed the folder and let out a sigh. What a terrible waste. Karen was right. Poor Tina had missed out on living her life, having the experiences most people took for granted. What had been going through Noel’s mind to do such a thing? Murderers were made, not born. Had his violent background brought him to it or had there been some other motive?

  The same tiny question that had kept her awake the night before kept niggling at the back of her mind. Her Medline search had come up with only one other known case of an indigenous person with Wilson’s disease. Dr Cooper’s testing had not been exhaustive by any means. Noel’s urine test had turned up some very unusual results for someone with his condition who had not been receiving the correct treatment for nearly two months.

  She left the library and went to the General Store and collected Sally’s items, but just as she was putting them in her car she noticed the small pharmacy across the road next to the only café. She locked her car and crossed the street. The pharmacist came out of his booth to greet her. ‘You must be Dr Saxby.’ He stretched out his hand. ‘I’m Craig Fulton.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Craig, and please call me Holly.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked. ‘If we haven’t got what you want in stock I can order it in for you but it takes a few days, of course.’

  ‘I don’t actually need anything at the moment, thank you, but I was wondering if you could do me a small favour?’

  ‘But of course.’

  ‘I was wondering if you could search your database for information on anyone who has had penicillamine dispensed from here in the last twenty-five years.’

  He gave her an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry, but our computer files only go back ten years. Before that would be in our record books. It would take months to search through those. I’ve only been here for the last eight years so I’m not sure I could be much help.’

  ‘Could you find anyone on file who is currently using penicillamine?’

  The pharmacist’s expression became grim. ‘Yes. But you already know who that is because you wrote the prescription for him—Noel Maynard.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. But I was wondering if anyone else had been treated in the past for the same condition.’

  ‘Not with penicillamine, that I can recall. Wouldn’t you be better to search through the files at the clinic?’ he suggested. ‘Dr Cooper was always pretty thorough with keeping notes on his patients. But like here, the computer database won’t go back far. You’d have to search through the notes—you’d have a lot of reading to do.’

  ‘Thanks for your help, Craig,’ Holly said. ‘I’d better get back to the clinic.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Holly walked back to her car with a frown. The thought of going through hundreds of patient files by hand was overwhelming. However, the pharmacist had given her something else to ponder. Craig Fulton had said that Dr Cooper had been thorough with keeping patient notes but the file on Noel Maynard was hardly what she would have described as thorough. It wouldn’t hurt to have a look through some of his other patient notes to see if what the pharmacist had said was true.

  Sally looked up from the desk when she came in with the items from the store. ‘Thanks so much for doing that for me. But you shouldn’t have hurried back. Your first patient of the afternoon cancelled—her car broke down. You haven’t got another one for about twenty minutes.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Holly said. ‘Could you find some of Dr Cooper’s previous patient files for me? I want to familiarise myself with his consultation technique.’

  ‘He was a damn fine doctor,’ Sally said as she opened the largest filing cabinet. ‘Not much missed his attention. My husband had only gone to him the once and he diagnosed adult-onset asthma. Tim had been breathless for ages but it wasn’t until he saw Dr Cooper that the mystery was solved.’ She handed a bundle of files over. ‘That should keep you busy until the next patient arrives.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Holly took the files to her consulting room and started to flick through each one. Again the handwriting was hard to read but while some of the files were briefer than others, there was no doubt that Dr Cooper had been meticulous in documenting each consultation.

  She sat back in her chair and tapped her index finger against her lips. Was his reluctance to document Noel and his family’s medical history in similar detail an example of the racism that had been rife at the time? She could imagine that, if so, he would have wanted them out of his consulting room as quickly as possible. Taking copious notes would have only prolonged the consultation.

  The intercom buzzed on her desk and Sally told her that the first patient of the afternoon had arrived. Holly gathered the files and took them back out to reception and turned to greet the patient, who was a young man in his twenties with a rather nasty viral infection.

  She saw three more patients after him and then another gap appeared in the appointment book. It was too good an opportunity to miss. She turned to Sally, who had just finished taking a message for Cameron.

  ‘I think, rather than sit around waiting, I’ll do a house call. Could you give me some directions to the Maynards’ place?’

  Sally jerked back in her chair. ‘What do you want to go there for? The old lady’s just as likely to take a pot-shot at you. And the son…Well, enough said about him. Karen told me she warned you all about him.’

  ‘He’s a patient and I’d like to run some more tests on him,’ Holly explained. ‘He knows he’s not welcome in town so I thought I’d make it easier by going to see him. According to the records, Betty Maynard hasn’t seen a doctor in years so I think it’s high time someone paid her a visit, as well.’

  ‘She’s an alcoholic,’ Sally said. ‘She doesn’t need a doctor, she needs a detox clinic.’

  ‘Do you have a map?’ Holly asked with a little more forcefulness.

  Sally rummaged in the drawer and handed her a crinkled map of the surrounding district. ‘You take the road to Baronga Bluff and turn right at the sign marked “Tolly’s Hill Lookout”. The Maynards’ place is the last property on the left. It’s not a pretty sight out there. It’s little more than a shanty. Not fit for an animal, if you ask me, but then maybe that’s just what Noel Maynard is.’

  Holly felt herself bristling and without another word took the map and left, only to cannon into Cameron on her way out the front door of the clinic.

  He steadied her with his hands but dropped them as soon as he saw her fiery look. ‘Look…about yesterday,’ he began.

  ‘Get away from the building!’ a now familiar elderly voice roared from just behind them. ‘There are land-mines here! Get away, I tell you!’

  Holly saw Cameron’s eyes roll almost into the back of his head but when he turned to face the old man a smile had taken over his face, his hand raised in a salute. ‘How are you, Major Dixon? Fighting fit as usual? Any trouble with the troops today?’

  ‘No, but I want this building cleared immediately,’ Major Dixon grumbled. ‘It’s not safe for civilians. We’ve already had one casualty.’

  Cameron gave the clinic a sweeping glance and turned back to the elderly man. ‘You’re right, of course. We need to speak to Mayor…er…General Jensen about it. I’ll draft an order and have it sent over by runner for you to sign. You’d better get back to base in case you miss it when it’s delivered.’

  The old man clicked his heels and would have fallen over if Cameron hadn’t quickly reached out a hand to steady him. Holly felt a warm sensation pass through her at his respectful gentleness with the senile old man. There was no sign of him making fun of Major Dixon; rather, he treated him as everyone else did—with compassion.

  A nurse came out of the nursing home entrance waggling
her finger at her charge, exchanging a quick glance with Cameron as she tucked her arm through the major’s.

  Cameron turned back to Holly once the old man had been escorted safely inside. ‘As I was saying, I owe you an apology for my behaviour yesterday. I acted like an out-of-control teenager with a testosterone implant. You should have slapped my face.’

  Holly found it hard to hold his gaze. ‘It’s all right…I shouldn’t have insulted you.’

  ‘I probably deserved it.’

  ‘You did.’

  He gave a soft chuckle of laughter that sent a ripple of awareness over her skin. To disguise her reaction, she asked him the first question that popped into her head. ‘How well do you know Mr Jensen?’

  ‘Clinton’s been the town mayor for about four and a half years. He’s done a lot for this place. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I had a visit from his stepdaughter yesterday.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She doesn’t sound all that happy at home.’

  ‘She’s not the easiest kid to handle,’ Cameron admitted. ‘She’s a moody little thing. Still misses her dad, no doubt. He was killed in a car accident when she was twelve.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any possibility she’s being abused in some way?’

  He frowned down at her. ‘That’s a very serious allegation, Holly. Did she say something outright or was it just a general impression you got?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything outright but she seemed on edge and deeply unhappy.’

  Cameron blew out his breath. ‘I guess anything’s a possibility. But Clinton’s the last person I’d suspect of abuse, physical or sexual.’

  ‘Sexual predators can be perfectly normal on the surface,’ Holly pointed out. ‘That’s part of their profile. Married heterosexual men are the worst offenders and no one ever suspects them, which makes it all the harder for victims to speak out about the abuse.’

  ‘I know the stats, but don’t you think I would have picked up on something by now? Clinton is a hardworking man who has done his best to raise his son after his first wife died.’