The tinkers, those older travellers, held that the river’s crossing was here auspicious because on the bank by the hump-back bridge was a may tree hundreds of years old and Doctor Sot, who would take all the luck from the world that he could get, whistled again his three notes as he crossed back into the town. His home and practice was on a neat terrace of greystone. It had been bought cheaply in the long-gone heyday of his practice. Having come from less – his persevering mother had put him in the university out of a council house – Doctor Sot enjoyed still the mild grandeur of his address. The three stone steps that led up to his door, the nine-panel fanlight above it, the fine parquet blocking of his hallway’s floor, the blocks faded by the length of the years they had lived here; these were details that he greatly enjoyed. There was a bright, clean patch on the wall where a large gilt-edged mirror had lately been removed.

‘Oh adieu! Yes adieu! Oh adieu all my false-hearted looooves!’ sang Doctor Sot as he tap-danced through to the back kitchen, one hand flapping a minstrel’s wave, the other clasping the satchel. Sal, in her gown, flushed and chortled at the sight of him – the only illusion of permanence is that which is finagled by love. She threw down her serial killer novel and bounced up from the small pink sofa by the stove.

‘You’ll never guess!’ she cried. ‘He’s only taken the head and buried it in the desert!’

‘This is the prostitute he met at the truckstop?’

‘One and the same,’ she whispered. ‘Had the head in his fridge but it started to stink.’

‘Neighbours might be alerted, Sal.’

‘He’s making a move to be on the safe side,’ she said. ‘He’s headed for Tulsa. Ham sandwich, lovie?’

‘It would fill a hole, Sal.’

‘Your glass of beer with it?’

‘Might take the fear of God off me.’

They embraced. Sot was stick and bone, Sally was hot and pink and fleshy.

‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I’ve a bit of a rush on. I need to make a call before surgery.’

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘A call?’

She was already slicing the batch loaf. There weren’t many calls these days.

‘Health Board,’ he said.

She opened the fridge for the ham, the butter, the can of Smithwick’s. Happy as a duck she was, unshakable from her good humour, and of the opinion that her husband, if anything, grew more marvellous with every passing year.

‘They’re giving you gip again, dear-heart?’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It’s just I’ve had a think about this Outreach programme.’

He sipped from the glass of beer she handed to him. He rubbed nervously a frayed tweed elbow.

‘But they can’t force you, Carl?’

‘Of course not, my light. It’s just I’ve thought maybe I was a little quick to rule it out … Maybe I should, you know, give something back?’