“Away you go,” Moira retorted. “Have they no’ got enough to do without heaving me about? They’ll get to me when they get to me.”

“Right, well, how’s about you let me?” Ben began, moving in closer to adjust her. A warning look stopped him in his tracks.

“Don’t you bloody dare lay a finger on me, Detective Inspector,” she told him. “I’m quite capable of sorting myself, thank you very much!”

Ben held his hands up in surrender. “Right, aye. Sorry. Just thought I’d try and help.”

“I don’t need or want your help,” Moira told him. She wriggled in the bed, her weakened arm not yet capable of heaving her back into position on its own.

“You sure you don’t want a hand?” Ben asked, after several seconds of grunting and shuffling from the woman in the bed. “I could just…”

“You can do nothing of the bloody kind. Just… Hold that pillow so it doesn’t move.”

Ben obliged. He caught the corner of the top pillow and kept it from being dragged up the bed by Moira’s shoulder. She was a thrawn bugger, right enough.

“That you?” he asked, once she’d managed to get herself into a marginally more comfortable-looking position.

Her reply was brief, and short of breath. “Aye.” Her chest heaved, and her eyes closed over as the effort caught up with her and made her head spin.

Ben picked up the magazine and took a seat. “You had lunch yet?” he asked.

Moira shook her head, still recovering from her ordeal.

“What are you having today? Something nice?”

“I highly doubt it,” she managed, her breathing coming back under control.

Ben chuckled. “You mean they’ve no’ got Gordon Ramsay down in the kitchen whipping up something special for you?”

“God, I hope not,” Moira muttered, finally opening her eyes. They swam for a moment, finding focus. “Can’t stand that man.”

“Better than yon other one, though. Oliver something.”

“Jamie Oliver?” Moira suggested, her lips drawing back in disgust at the very thought of him.

“That’s him!” Ben said. “He did a telly thing in Inverness a good few years back. Some big thing with the Highland Council. There was a big event for it. Provost was there, and a few of us had to go along. We all got lined up and he came down the line shaking hands like he was the bloody Queen. What was it Hoon called him again? ‘Smarmy do-gooding mockney wanker,’ I think it was.” The DI gave another chuckle. “You should’ve seen the poor lad’s bloody face. None of us knew where to look.”

Moira closed her eyes again, and this time there was a suggestion of a smile. “Aye, I’d like to have seen that,” she said, revelling in the thought of the TV chef’s misery.