Penny Jordan Read Free Page B

between conflicting loyalties, tor-tured by what he should do, in the end the younger man had simply felt obliged to speak up.
    The result of his action had been catastrophic.
    Father John had taken his own life and he, Francis O'Leary, known by the church as Father Ignatius, had been to blame. Totally and absolutely. Even the bishop had seemed to think so.
    He had been sent away out of the area, hope-fully to get a fresh start, but the news of his role in the tragedy had followed him and he had become untouchable, defiled, someone to be avoided, a priest whose faith not just in others but in himself had been destroyed. He had volunteered for missionary work and had been granted it.
    'Even if I wanted to go home, I couldn't,' David said, bringing the priest back to the present.
    'There's no way I could raise the cost of the air-fare.'
    It was true they lived very simply and mea-grely, growing as much of their own food as they could and relying on the generosity and gratitude of the patients and their families for the rest of it.
    'There are other means of travel,' Father Ignatius pointed out and then added, 'There's a yacht in the harbour now waiting to be sailed back to Europe. The captain was in the Coconut Bar yesterday saying that he was looking for a crew willing to work their passage.'
    'A yacht bound for Europe? What's her cargo?
    Drugs?' David asked him drily.

    'No, but her owner is dying and he wants to go home.' The two men exchanged looks.
    'AIDS?' David asked him forthrightly.
    'I imagine so,' the older man agreed.
    A very large proportion of the priest's patients were in the final stages of that ravaging disease, abandoned by their frightened families and friends. Working alongside him, David had learned to respect the disease and those who suffered from it. To respect it and not to fear it.
    'I can't go...not now....' David resisted, but there was no denying the longing in his voice.
    'Do you often dream of your brother?' Father Ignatius asked him obliquely.
    'Not like I did last night,' David admitted. 'I dreamed about when we were children. It was so vivid. It was when we got our first bikes, but the odd thing was...' He paused and frowned. 'In my dream, though I could see myself riding my bike, my feelings were Jon's.'
    The older man said nothing. He knew David had seen Jon Crighton from a safe distance when he had come to the island to visit Max in hospital and eventually take his son home. Life was so precious, and because he was becoming increasingly aware of just how frail his own physical strength was getting, the priest prayed that Jon Crighton would find it in his heart to welcome home his twin.
    'I can't go,' David was saying, but the older man knew not just that he could but that he would.

CHAPTER TWO
    'YES, MRS CRIGHTON ...very well, Maddy,'
    Honor corrected herself into the telephone receiver with a warm smile as she responded to her caller's request that she use her Christian name.
    'I'd be very happy to come and see your fatherin-law, although I can't promise...'
    She paused. Over the years she had grown used to the fact that her patients and their families, having failed to find a cure for their illnesses through conventional medicine, tended to expect that she could somehow produce something magical to re-store them to full health.
    'Herbal medicine is not some kind of black art It's an exact science,' she sometimes had to tell them severely.
    Many modern drugs were, after all, originally derived from plants even if more latterly scientists had discovered ways to manufacture them syn-thetically in their laboratories. In her view, synthetic drugs, like synthetic foods, were not always sympathetic to the human system, and to judge from the increasing number of patients consulting her, other people were beginning to share her views.
    Honor had not always been a herbalist. Far from it. She had been at medical school studying to become a doctor way back in the seventies, a sloe-eyed brunette