“For heaven’s sakes,” Dan exclaimed, standing up and banging his foot into the other shoe.

“He had a urinary infection about two years ago, and it really weakened him. The disease is so much more advanced now that this one could be a real problem.”

“Have you managed to move him?”

Katie shook her head. “No. Max is sitting with him.” Her voice quivered. “He can hardly speak, Dan.”

Pulling on a shirt and a pair of jeans over his T-shirt and sports shorts, Dan realized that it was time for him to take control. He walked through the main room, giving Katie a quick, reassuring hug as he passed her, and banged on Josh’s door. “Josh, get up! We’ve got a problem.”

Josh had appeared in the doorway of his bedroom by the time Dan had pulled on his jacket. True to the habit of a teenage male who had just woken from his slumbers, he scratched slowly at the crotch of his boxer shorts, but desisted the moment he realized that Katie was in the room.

“What’s up?” he asked, a puzzled expression on his face.

“We’ve got to get Patrick up to Inverness. He’s had another collapse.”

Josh was immediately galvanized into action by the news. He disappeared into his bedroom and started pulling on any article of clothing that came his way. “What do you want me to do?”

“Look after Max and Sooty until we get back,” Dan replied as he did up the zip of his jacket. “If they want to go to school, take them. If not, just stay with them at Auchnacerie. And call Pete at the factory and tell him what’s happened and that we’re all out of action for the day.”

They saw the ambulance turning into the drive as Katie hit the final straight to Auchnacerie at speed. By the time that she pulled the Golf into the courtyard behind the house, the paramedics already had the stretcher out of the vehicle and were standing at the back door of the house. Katie abandoned the car, leaving Dan to turn off the engine and shut her door.

He stood watching as Patrick was unceremoniously tilted from one side to the other as the paramedics negotiated the narrow doorway. Despite the oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose, his chest heaved at the effort of breathing, yet he turned his head fractionally and looked directly at Dan as he was being hoisted into the back of the ambulance. There was little movement in his facial muscles, but Dan noticed a slight wrinkling of the eyes as the stretcher was slid onto its tracks. It was the only way that Patrick could convey a smile.

“Could you follow on in my car, Dan?” Katie asked as she hurried out of the house, stuffing essentials into her canvas bag. “I’m going to travel with Patrick.”