‘Do you feel good about yourself for the first time in ages?’ he asked. I thought about it. It might be clichéd, but it was also true. When I’d parked the bike, I’d intended to ask Marshall a few questions, then maybe return his cheques–tell him categorically that Brodie McLennan could not be bought. Seeing him here, in the Mission, I’d changed my mind again.

Didn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

Chapter Fifteen

Dr Gerry Cornwell screwed his eyes against the daylight as he climbed up the five steps of 17 Belgrave Square, London. The address, one of London’s grandest, borders Knightsbridge and lies at the heart of Belgravia. The headquarters of the Royal College of Psychiatrists never failed to thrill Gerry Cornwell every time he walked through its hallowed portals.

‘Morning,’ said Doreen, secretary to Dr Cornwell, Head of College. ‘You look rough. Been on a bender?’ Cornwell took two paracetamol out of his secretary’s bottom drawer and swallowed them without water. He ran his hands through faded ginger hair. The small round spectacles that he’d been forced to wear in recent years were perched on the end of his nose. His bespoke navy pinstriped suit had been made for him when he was two stones heavier and his shirt had been worn for three days in a row. ‘Is it that obvious?’ he asked. There was a worried note in his voice. One quick glance over her boss’s appointments diary and Doreen decided to lie–using her discretion was a habit she utilized as well as her ability to anticipate Cornwell’s moods. ‘No, no–I’m the only one who could tell. You look fine. Was the celebration for anything special?’ she asked.

Doreen’s curiosity about his personal life was a source of some irritation to Dr Cornwell, but he really did feel rough this morning, and he might need Doreen in a good mood to help him out later in the day. His eye lingered on her coffee cup; she sprang to her feet and poured him a hot, freshly percolated brew. He perched on the edge of her desk. ‘You know Lord Edward Hunter?’ he asked.

‘The judge? You meet him for lunch sometimes?’ Doreen nodded. How could she remember some details like that and then forget to enclose reports with his letters? The woman’s jumbled sense of priorities never ceased to amaze him.

‘Yes…well,’ he struggled to keep the irritation out of his voice, ‘he’s about to be announced as the new Lord Chancellor of England, and I cracked open a bottle of malt to toast his good fortune.’

‘Any excuse,’ Doreen mumbled under her breath. Dr Cornwell’s drinking was getting worse. His problem had begun years before she started working for him, but she thought Cornwell was a good man, for all his faults.