The elderly farmer was literally wringing his hands. He stared down at his wife and his face was as bloodless as Maud’s. ‘And she was so upset, Fern,’ he whispered. ‘Your aunt was sobbing and sobbing, thinking all her plans for a lovely wedding were ruined. And then she came out of the bathroom and said her chest felt tight and there was pain going down her arm and she just…she just fell over…I couldn’t even catch her before she fell…’

It had to be a heart attack. Nothing else would fit.

Unless the oysters Lizzy had given them were so poisonous that they had affected the heart. There were poisons that caused paralysis…

Surely not, Fern thought frantically, the nightmare image of the whole island collapsing with heart pain flitting through her head and being thrust away as unthinkable.

‘Phone Dr Gallagher,’ she snapped back to her uncle. ‘Tell him Maud’s had a cardiac arrest and I need him here now. Go!’

This was a dreadful way to treat the uncle she loved-to treat any frightened relative for that matter-but there was no time now for reassurance or niceties. Fern’s medical equipment was all still in Sydney. She needed Quinn’s doctor’s bag and she needed it now!

There were some things she could do without equipment. She had to get oxygen to Maud’s brain. Fern took her aunt’s face between her hands and blew in her first breath.

Then she let Maud’s face go, dropped her hands onto her aunt’s chest and linked them.

And shoved down hard.

One, two, three…

Cardio-pulmonary massage was almost instinctive in Fern by now. She could do it in her sleep. How many times had she done this in an emergency situation?

But how many times had it worked? What were the statistics? Something horrible…Less than twenty-five per cent of those…

Don’t think of that. Don’t. It had to work now. It must…