CHAPTER NINE

      FINDING THE RATHER large kitchen altogether too small to share with Caro, Keanu delivered the breakfast orders and departed, excusing himself by explaining he wanted to change the dressings on the Buruli ulcer, which was causing both him and Sam a lot of concern.

      It wasn’t responding to the medication, the young lad was in severe pain and the flesh was continuing to deteriorate, as was the lad’s general condition.

      ‘Are you sure nothing got into it before you came in here?’ he asked as he deadened the area around the wound to clean it yet again.

      ‘Could have.’ A shrug strengthened the typical boy reply.

      ‘Like what?’ Keanu asked, but all he got that time was a shake of his head.

      He put the new dressing on the wound, wrote up stronger painkillers and was departing when the young aide, having just started on duty, brought in the breakfast tray.

      Time he was gone, yet his feet led him to the kitchen.

      ‘Hettie tells me she’ll be here just before ten so you can come down to the longhouse.’

      All he got for a reply was a frown, although eventually she must have summoned up enough courage to speak.

      ‘I—um—I’m not sure, Keanu. I really don’t like funerals—even the island celebratory ones. I hate that people say all the nice things about someone after they’re dead and can’t hear them. Why don’t people tell them that stuff before they die?’

      Keanu moved across the kitchen towards her and put his arms around her.

      ‘You did tell him, Caroline, when we sat with him before he died. He knew how much he meant to you and if you don’t want to come down, of course you shouldn’t. I guess Hettie just assumed you would want to.’

      He felt her body rest against his and tension drain from it. He longed to kiss her, but now he knew where kisses led …

      He shouldn’t have come close enough to touch her, let alone give her a hug, at least until they’d had time to talk about last night’s revelations. About how she felt, about whether it mattered at the moment that he was still married …

      So he let his lips brush the soft, golden hair on the top of her head and eased away from her.

      ‘I’ll bring you some food later,’ he said, and got out of the place before the regret that he hadn’t kissed her overcame his common sense.

      The longhouse was busier than he’d expected, and he could pick out people from every inhabited island in the group. The harbour down at the mine would be crowded with boats and the old truck would have been ferrying locals from there to the research station all morning.

      Someone had put a row of chairs at one end of the building, and he and the elders took their places there. The crowd grew quiet when he spoke, talking with love of the man he’d known—the young, strong man who’d been a master boatman, often called upon to rescue people who had foolishly put out to sea when the weather was bad.

      He reminded his people of some of the history of M’Langi that Alkiri had passed on to him, true tales and folklore, fascinating stories for two story-hungry youngsters.

      And finally he asked for others to speak, and speak they did. A flood of reminiscences followed, first the elders, then ordinary people whose lives Alkiri had touched.

      Swallowing a lump of emotion as he listened, he was almost glad Caro wasn’t here. Always a softie, she’d have been in floods of tears by now.

      Caro …

      A disturbance of some kind at the back of the longhouse brought him out of his reverie—useless reverie, in fact.

      There were raised voices, angry voices, then one of the men departed, maybe told to leave by someone senior to them.

      But the bits and pieces of talk he’d heard suggested the man was going to the hospital. He could see Hettie and Sam sitting with the works foreman, Hettie having obviously returned when Caroline had explained she wasn’t coming down.

      Caroline!

      The man was a miner …

      With a very hasty excuse to the nearest elder he departed, following the man up the hill, hurrying to catch up, to get in front of him.

      He recognised him.

      Definitely one of the miners he’d seen the other day.

      He called to him but in spite of the early hour the man had probably been drinking and nothing could make him deviate from his determined path.

      Keanu was close on the miner’s heels when he reached the gate near the airstrip and there Keanu diverted from the miner’s path, taking the back way, which he knew was shorter, running now, his heart thudding in his chest, reaching the hospital and racing in, calling for Caro.

      He must have looked and sounded like a madman because she reached out her hand and rested it on his arm.

      ‘Calm down, Keanu, tell me what’s up.’

      ‘Go back to the house—no, he’ll go there next. Go out the back. My villa is the lowest one. Go inside and lock the door.’

      He could hear the man by now, ranting about the closure, and knew how close he must be.

      ‘Go now,’ he said to her, but she stood her ground, wanting an explanation.

      The phone broke their stalemate and she answered it, turning back to him to say, ‘That was Hettie to tell you Sam and some of the young men are on their way. On their way where? What’s happening?’

      But it was too late for explanations. The angry man was already on the hospital steps, his voice crying out for a Lockhart and, woman or not, any Lockhart would do.

      ‘I can’t have them coming in here—there are patients, well, one patient. I’ll go out and see him.’

      Keanu grabbed her shoulders as she started to move past him, pulling her back, thrusting her towards the kitchen.

      ‘At least go in there and lock the door. I’ll talk to him!’

      He turned away, sure the man wouldn’t hurt a woman, yet only half sure. Who knew what a man made brave by cava might do?

      ‘She’s not here,’ he said, meeting the man on the veranda. ‘And she’s not up at the house so don’t bother looking there. Anyway, I’m the one who closed the mine, and it was for the safety of all the miners. It’s a temporary measure until we find some money to give everyone their back-pay and start things up again.’

      ‘That’s what you say, Keanu, but for all your closeness you’re not a Lockhart and we all know what they can do.’

      The man pushed forward, but Keanu blocked the doorway.

      ‘This is a hospital, not a boxing ring,’ he reminded them. ‘Let’s talk about this in the garden.’

      No one moved—well, the man threw a punch, which missed Keanu’s jaw by a whisker but still served to fire his anger.

      He hit back, knocking the culprit down the steps.

      It had been stupid. He knew that immediately, because now he’d made the man look foolish,