Not with those waiting teeth.
‘Round the side.’ The policeman took Jessie’s bag. ‘After you, Doc.’
‘Hurry, Jess,’ Niall said quietly. ‘Shoot if necessary. If Ethel’s had a solid shock then maybe her heart’s given out…’
Jess went.
Thirty seconds later Jess was shining a torch through the window into the darkened bedroom.
There was very little to see. There was a crumpled form on the bare floor, half hidden by the bed. The dog was still bristling and snarling through the hole in the wall but directing the odd nervous glance in the direction of the torch’s beam.
Nothing else…
‘If I went into the house through the door I’d have to kill the dog,’ the policeman said nervously. ‘And at that close range I’m not at all sure I’d kill it before it had a good go at me.’
‘No.’ Jess shook her head. ‘You’d be asking for trouble. But if we broke the top pane of the window the dog couldn’t reach.’
‘And?’
Jess bent down, fumbling in her bag. ‘Tranquilliser dart,’ she said briefly. ‘My favourite toy. I use them to tranquillise wild animals-for instance, if I need to transport a full grown kangaroo or give it antibiotics. If I can just aim it right…’ She loaded the dart and looked up at Sergeant Russell’s broad shoulders. ‘Can I stand on you?’
He grinned. ‘I knew there was a reason we had a nice slender girl vet.’ He looked behind Jess to where Niall had appeared. ‘Ready to give us a hand, Doc?’
‘I’m ready. Barry’s stable,’ Niall said briefly. ‘His breathing’s regular. I’d rather send him to the lock-up than the hospital-there’ll be a fair mess when he wakes, at a guess. I can dress his hand at the lock-up.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ the policeman grimaced. Then his frown deepened as a steady groan came from where Barry had been left. It seemed that he was emerging from his drunken stupor.
‘I’d go back and keep him under control if I were you, Sergeant,’ Niall said blandly. ‘There’s no guarantee he won’t pick up the chainsaw and keep slicing. If we hadn’t turned off the electricity he could kill the lot of us.’
Sergeant Russell swore. He looked from Niall to Jess.
‘You can cope here?’
‘We can cope,’ Niall assured him. ‘Just keep bully boy out of our way. Now, Jess, what do you want done?’
Two minutes later the problem was solved.
Niall smashed the pane from the top window, cleared the broken glass and lifted Jess high so that she could see.
It was a weird feeling-to perch on Niall Mountmarche’s shoulders. He held her effortlessly, moving not an inch as she carefully aimed her dart gun.
The dog was moving back and forth from hole to smashed window, frantic with anxiety. Jessie’s heart went out to the big animal. He might be vicious but he believed that someone was trying to hurt his mistress.
Niall could see through the lower pane. He held the torch unwaveringly on the animal’s body as it paced back and forth.
Jess could shoot the dark about eight feet. It was just a matter of waiting until the dog paused. If she could just place the dart where she wanted in the dim light…
‘Here, boy,’ she called as he paced away from them. ‘Come on…Over here…’
The dog launched himself against the window and than sank back, bewildered as he realised that he couldn’t reach Jessie’s high perch. For ten long seconds he stood, trying to figure out his next move.
Jess raised the dart to her lips, took careful aim at the dog’s broad flank and blew.
The dart sank home right on target.
It took moments to work.
The dog snarled, backed away, snarled some more-and then staggered.
It tried another half-hearted growl but its body wasn’t working to command. The dog took three uncertain steps backwards-and then crumpled to the floor.
‘Great shot.’ Niall swung her down and his hands lingered for a fraction more time than was strictly necessary. ‘Remind me to stay on your good side, Dr Harvey. Tranquilliser dart-a girl’s best friend!’ He flashed Jess a swift smile that made her heart miss a beat, then put his hand inside the broken pane, flicked the latch and lifted the bottom window pane.
Ten seconds later they were in the room.
Niall went straight to the woman beside the bed, leaving Jess to follow. She didn’t follow immediately. Jess took seconds to muzzle the dog and clip a short lead from his collar to the bedpost. She’d given him minimal dosage and she didn’t want him waking.
Finally, she joined Niall.
‘What…?’
‘Trouble,’ Niall said briefly. He’d rolled Ethel Simmons into the recovery position and his hands were moving swiftly over her. ‘We’re dealing with major blood loss, I think.’
‘But…’
Then Jess saw what Niall had found and she drew in her breath in horror.
Ethel’s right hand was a bloody, mangled mess. She’d lost a finger-two, maybe-and the rest of her hand was sliced and crushed.
‘It’s my guess she had her hand on the wall when the chainsaw came through,’ Niall said grimly. ‘If she was yelling at him not to be so stupid-and he shoved the thing through, anyway…’
Niall was searching Ethel’s arm for pressure points. ‘Jess, in the ambulance there’s saline and there’s morphine in my bag. There’s a burn here-look-she got shocked the same as her husband. There must be circuit breakers on the power supply or they’d both be dead.’
‘She’s not…?’
‘There’s still a pulse-faint. No, she’s not dead. Go, Jess…’
Jess went.
Outside, the yard had come alive. The electricity servicemen had arrived and set up huge floodlights to show them what they were dealing with. Jess grabbed what she needed, threw orders for stretcher bearers and returned at a run.
She worked beside Niall in silence, concentrating fiercely on anticipating his needs.
He had the pressure points.
‘Take over here, Jess,’ he ordered in the same clinical tone he’d use for a theatre nurse. ‘Press down here-hard. If the bleeding restarts then you’re not pressing hard enough.’
With Jessie controlling the bleeding, Niall was free for other things. In minutes he had the worst of the bleeding staunched by pressure bandage, a drip set up and morphine administered into Ethel’s limp body.
Still the woman didn’t stir.
How badly had she been electrocuted? It couldn’t have been lethal if she’d moved afterwards.
‘Blood pressure about ninety on fifty.’ Niall swore. ‘And dropping. We’re going to need some plasma fast. I’ll radio ahead to Geraldine to prepare for crossmatching.’
He looked up then, assessing his manpower.
‘OK, let’s move her,’ Niall said swiftly. There were men crowding into the room behind them and he snapped a warning.
‘Watch your feet,’ he told them. ‘Don’t move until you see what you’re standing on. There are two fingers missing-and if they’re intact they might be salvageable. Find some ice in the refrigerator and bring them down to the hospital after us. Jess, I need you to come. Now.’
They shifted Ethel’s slight weight to the stretcher and Jess followed the bearers back into the night As she went she cast a sympathetic glance at the dog.
‘There’s a kennel out the back,’ she told the men remaining. ‘Carry the dog out, tie him up and remove the muzzle before he wakes. Make sure he has plenty of water available. I’ll decide what needs to be done for him in the morning.’
There was nothing more she could do for the dog.
There was only Ethel.
The fingers were unsalvageable.
The men found remains of them spattered onto the chainsaw. They brought them down to the hospital and Niall inspected them in grim silence as Jess and Geraldine prepared Theatre.
‘Non-viable,’ he said bitterly. ‘Damn…’