‘Maybe…maybe if you’d been in closer contact with your uncle-if I could have found you quickly-but as it was we didn’t know Louis Mountmarche had a living relative…’

‘Are you saying it’s my fault the dog had to die?’

‘I’m saying, given that there was no owner, I had no choice,’ Jessie snapped. ‘As I have no choice now.’

‘But this dog has an owner and he’s younger.’ Niall’s attention had changed focus again-from anger back to concentration. He bent over the wounded pad and examined it with care, seemingly not repulsed by the stinking flesh. ‘How old, Dr Harvey?’

‘He’s only three,’ Jessie said sadly. She shook her head. ‘I know…Given different circumstances…’

‘What different circumstances?’

‘An assistant who can given an anaesthetic.’ Jessie sighed. ‘You’re right. Maybe-maybe if I could put him under an anaesthetic and clean up the mess then he’d have a chance. But he’s in dreadful condition. It’s going to take me ages to set the bones and clean up the mess.

‘He won’t tolerate the intravenous anaesthetic I can give myself-and there’s no way I can operate on a dog as sick as this and intubate at the same time. Intubating and operating by yourself is like drunk driving-OK if conditions are perfect and nothing goes wrong. But there are already major things going wrong here. So…I think it’s kinder to acknowledge defeat now.’

Niall Mountmarche’s dark brow snapped down. ‘Don’t you have a trained vet nurse?’

‘This is a tiny island,’ Jessie told him. ‘What I really need is another vet-but, no, I don’t even have a trained nurse.’

‘But…’ Niall’s fingers had moved to fondle the dog’s soft ears. The big collie seemed almost unconscious. He’d gone past fear. He lay, passive and trusting, and Jessie’s heart went out to the magnificent animal. ‘What about the island human medical services? Surely there’s a doctor and nurses on the island who could help out?’