He fumbled through the phone directory to Easterbrook, found a Merken number and dialled. After a long time, while his mouth went biscuit-dry with nervousness, for he’d made scarcely more than half-a-dozen phone calls in his life, someone answered, but it wasn’t Angie’s mother. It was Lynne, sounding breathless and slightly annoyed, as though she’d just been on her way out and had been obliged to run back to answer the phone.

‘It’s me, Seymour, I live near Angie. You know, we all had lunch together that day…’

‘Yes?’ Lynne said, after a pause.

‘Well, I’ve just been over to see her and she looks real crook,’ he babbled. Crook, he thought. I should have said ill, sick. Lynne doesn’t use words like crook, she talks posh… ‘Angie’s sick,’ he went on miserably. ‘She should see a doctor.’

‘Well, she’s been sick other times and she’s managed,’ Lynne said. ‘She’s got plenty of friends who help her out. Did she tell you to ring me?’

‘No, but I didn’t know who else. She took some tablets but they didn’t seem to help. She was all sort of peculiar, her voice sounded funny. One minute there she was talking to me and the next minute she just…well, sort of flaked out.’

There was another silence from Lynne’s end of the line.

‘Is your mum home?’ Seymour asked.

‘No, she isn’t,’ Lynne said brusquely. ‘She’s gone out for the day and I can’t get in touch with her. I was just about to go out, too. Look, couldn’t you…There’s some doctor Angie goes to on and off, only I can’t remember his name or where he is. Couldn’t you wake Angie up and find out his number? If you rang him up, maybe he’d make a home visit.’

‘I can’t wake Angie up, I already tried,’ Seymour said, resentment rising at her slowness to help and at her apparent lack of sympathy. ‘And before she fell asleep like that, she was rolling around clutching her stomach as though she’s got appendicitis. Rubbing her arms and legs, too. And she’d been…well, sort of sick. Before I went there, I guess. It was on the floor next to the bed, only she didn’t seem to notice. I didn’t like to say anything, embarrass her…’

‘All right, then,’ Lynne said angrily. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to come over and see what’s going on. Wait a minute, I don’t even have her new address. She moves so often Mum doesn’t write it down in the Teledex any more. You’ll have to tell me how to get there, just a moment while I get a pen.’