‘Mummy, it’s OK,’ said the daughter. She had a confi-dent accent of pure Home Counties privilege. ‘They think Daddy’s going to be fine.’ She shook Dermot’s hand. ‘You’ve been very kind, but we mustn’t keep you.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. You’ve got my number if you need me to make a statement about the stolen wallet,’ Dermot said. The young girl was refreshingly capable and there was something about her he couldn’t place, something familiar. As he left the hospital by the side exit, he narrowly missed Shona racing in from the hospital car park.

Shona Khan Makes a Damning Discovery

wHEN SHONA HAD returned home to Tooting, there had been two messages blinking on the answering machine. One was from Parvez, saying that he was extending his golf afternoon with dinner in Wimbledon -he was being taken out by a supplier. Shona cursed herself for not checking her messages at Dermot’s - she hadn’t needed to rush home at all. The second message was almost indecipherable with background noise and bleeping, but it sounded like Mr Crackle-Beep-Buzz Karim was at St George’s Hospital following a heart attack, and was she a relative? Numbed with shock, Shona sat down on the chair, with Pat-Bob delightedly jumping on her, and played the message again. She called Parvez on his mobile, and heard the handset merrily ring in the kitchen. Parvez was always forgetting his phone. She called Sharif, who was meant to be at work. He answered his mobile. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes, Ma. I’m just up the road in Collier’s Wood.’ He drove them to the hospital in Parvez’s car, which he was no longer insured on.

Ricky-Rashid had been moved to a private room by the time Shona arrived. She almost didn’t find him, as they had managed to get his name completely muddled up with someone else and he had been registered under Trueman-Karim. She was advised that his condition was stable and, too relieved to argue over administrative failings in the NHS, Shona left Sharif to park the car and went up to the waiting room. There were just a few other people there. A thin, blonde woman in an oyster-coloured twinset that didn’t suit her pale colouring was dabbing at her red, puffy eyes. Sitting opposite her was a young, dark-haired woman, talking to her in a muted, soothing voice and holding her hand. In the corner, a tearful young couple were embracing fulsomely. Shona looked at them grimly - they looked as though they were enjoying their grief a bit too much. Go get a bloody room and leave the rest of us in peace, she thought uncharitably.