LITMIR.BIZ

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      FOR GILL AND PHILIP AND CREATIVE WRITING

      CHAPTER ONE

      A TAXI had pulled up on the forecourt of the medical practice in the Lakeland village of Swallowbrook and as its driver unloaded baggage out of the boot, his passenger, a tall guy with russet hair bleached by a foreign sun and with a tan that spoke of long days beneath it, eased himself out of the vehicle and looked around him.

      He could see a lake not far away with a backdrop of the rugged fells that were so much a part of the area where he had grown up and then five years ago had left in turmoil, vowing that he never wanted to see or hear of the place ever again.

      That was how it had been until he’d phoned to have a chat with a colleague, Nathan Gallagher, who had worked at the same African hospital as himself and was now back in the UK.

      When Nathan had arrived on a three-year contract at the hospital where he himself had already been established, they’d discovered that they had been born in the same English county and had grown up only a few miles from each other.

      It had created a bond between them that hadn’t been broken when the other man, having completed his contract, had returned home, leaving himself with still a year to do. Now that year was up and, like his friend before him, he’d returned to the UK.

      ‘Aaron!’ a voice cried from somewhere behind him. ‘You’re here at last!’ As Aaron Somerton swung round to greet Nathan he saw that he had emerged as one of a group of people leaving a new building on the same plot of land as the Swallowbrook medical practice.

      As they shook hands Nathan turned to a couple standing nearby and said, ‘Allow me to introduce Laura Armitage, our practice manager, and her husband, Gabriel, who is an oncologist and about to take over the running of the new building that you see beside you, which has only today been opened as an extension for cancer care in the area.’

      ‘So are you the lady who has found me that delightful cottage to live in?’ Aaron asked with a smile for Laura.

      ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and if you would like to come to my office in the basement beneath the surgery I’ll give you the keys to The Falls Cottage, which, as the title suggests, is near a waterfall.’

      Leaving Nathan and Gabriel chatting, Laura took him through the practice building to the office where she worked amongst the computers, and on observing that there were no staff to be seen on the premises he commented on the fact.

      ‘The surgery is closed this afternoon,’ she told him, ‘so that our staff could attend the opening of the clinic. Most of them are over there now, enjoying the refreshments that have been provided.’

      When they rejoined her husband and Nathan, who was head of the practice, Aaron asked, ‘How soon do you want me on the job, Nathan?’

      ‘As soon as possible,’ he was told, ‘but take a couple of days to settle in first. Swallowbrook will no doubt seem strange to you after such a long absence from these parts, even though it is changeless in many ways.’

      The taxi had gone and he said, ‘I’ll take you to the cottage as I’m sure you must be keen to see it, and by the way, Aaron, my wife, Libby, says if you would like to dine with us tonight, you are very welcome.’

      Seated at a table by a window in the restaurant of the new clinic with the other two nurses from the surgery, Julianne Marshall had seen the taxi arrive outside the practice building and was watching its occupant emerge.

      Why had he come back? she wondered with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. The last words she’d heard Aaron Somerton speak before he’d disappeared five years ago had been to declare that he never wanted to set eyes on the Lakeland valley where he’d lived, or the people in it, ever again, and he’d meant it. No doubt about that!

      When Laura Armitage’s

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