‘Good thinking, he’ll love that and he hasn’t got anything after four o’clock on Thursdays.’ Cat had a day off and spent most of it trying to write a letter to the Health Secretary about the serious shortcomings on Bevham General’s wards and the lack of response from the trust to her complaints. She needed to phrase it carefully, making sure that she praised other areas of the hospital and did not point too many fingers while at the same time going into detail about the failures she had observed in nursing care. When neither of her emails to the hospital management had been answered, Luke, her partner in Concierge Medical, had urged her to go to the top.

‘The government will have to look into it and BG will have to get their act together and investigate properly. No point in trying to get them to answer, they’ll have ignored you in the hope that you’ll go away.’

‘I’m going nowhere on this one.’

But she had spent too long writing and deleting, starting again, trying to get her tone right. It had been a relief to be interrupted by Michael the vet.

‘I’m starving,’ Sam said, swinging into the kitchen. ‘Can I make a bacon and egg sarnie?’

‘Not sure we’ve got bacon. I have to do a shop. In fact we –’

‘No. N.O. to the bloody supermarket – get a delivery. There are two sausages – they fit for human consumption?’

Sam started frying and slicing doorsteps of bread, while Cat put on coffee. It felt companionable, he seemed better.

‘Ketchup?’

‘On the shopping list. How much of that stuff do you get through, Sam?’

‘Tomato contains ly . . . something. Cures cancer.’

‘Lycopene, and it doesn’t cure but it may help prevent cancer.’

‘And what’s a fry-up butty without it?’

‘Put the fan on and open the window, you’ve got that pan on far too high.’

‘Dropped in on Uncle Si the other night.’ Fat spurted up and Cat opened the window herself.

‘Haven’t heard from him for a day or two – they’ve got some big drugs op going.’

‘Yeah, nasty stuff.’

‘We’ve got some real tomatoes, you could cremate those as well.’

‘Not the same and don’t start on about healthy eating. I do that already.’

‘So I see. How was he?’

Sam stood back from the stove as a sausage broke open. ‘You know . . . I never really get Si, not really, and I’ve been with him on his own all over the place enough times and we talk a lot, you know, but he’s an oyster. I love him to bits but I don’t think I know him.’

‘He’s not actually that complicated, Sammy. He likes to play the mystery man but he’s not all that difficult.’

‘Go on then, do your Freud thing.’

Cat shook her head. ‘You try.’