“True. And it’s not the end of the world. I’ll still have one. Talking to the doctors, they don’t see any reason why we won’t be able to have kids. Assuming, you know, that it all goes OK.” He tapped his fork on the edge of his plate. “It’s just… what if it doesn’t? What if they find out it’s spread? What if they open me up, take one look, then tell me I’m a dead man?”

“That’d be a hell of a bedside manner,” Logan remarked. “And it’s ‘orchiectomy.’”

Tyler looked up. “What? Oh, aye, the operation. Aye, that’s it. How do you…?”

“My, eh, my brother had it done,” Logan replied.

“Your brother, boss? I didn’t know you even had a…” Tyler’s voice trailed off when he saw the answer written between the lines of Logan’s expression. “Oh.”

“He was older than me. It was a long time ago. Treatments weren’t as good then as they are now,” Logan told him. “But the big problem was that he’d left it far too long. He’d put off going in. For months. Because we do that, don’t we? Men. We’re silly bastards with this stuff.”

He hovered his fork above his plate, searching for its next victim among the gristle and slime. Suddenly, though, he didn’t have the stomach for it, and so he set the cutlery down and pushed the plate off to the side of the table, out of his immediate line of sight.

“With Andy, it had spread. Because he’d delayed going in for so long. It had taken root in the lymph nodes, then started on a kidney. Got a good hold,” Logan explained. “They can do a lot about that now, I think, but back then… no’ so much.”

“Shite. I’m, eh, I’m sorry to hear that, boss,” Tyler said. “I don’t… I’m just… I’m really sorry to hear that.”

Logan nodded. “Thanks. It is what it is, I suppose.”

“They’ve, eh, they reckon they’ve caught mine early. It was the scan I got after the crash that showed something up. They ran a couple more tests, and… bingo. But they say they’ve caught it early on. So, you know, that’s good.”

“Aye. It is,” Logan confirmed. “It’s very good.” He checked his watch. “We’ll get you off on the next train up the road. You’re getting that operation.”

“Come on, boss, you need me down here,” Tyler protested, but he was given short shrift.

“I’m sure I’ll find some way to cope without you, painful as that will no doubt be. You’ll get up that road to the Fort tonight, then Sinead can take you up to Inverness. No arguments. I want you back on your feet and fighting fit. I need you on the ball.”