‘Off sick,’ the man replied with a frown as he snapped on a pair of medical gloves. ‘Right, what are we doing today? Thirty-five weeks and you wanted to do an extra scan, I see? Baby’s almost fully cooked, why are we doing the scan today?’

Even though Lucy was the world’s sweetest human, her parents were among the most anxious living beings I’d ever met and some of that had filtered into their only child. The downside of this meant Lucy couldn’t even climb a ladder at home alone without calling one of them before and after, but the upside was they’d offered to pay for her to go private with her pregnancy. They were not prepared to take any chances with their first grandchild, even though it was entirely unnecessary, according to Lucy. I’d scoffed at it when she first told me but now I was here, I couldn’t help but notice this place was more like a fancy hotel than a normal hospital. Much as I loved the NHS, I didn’t think I’d be able to turn something like this down either.

‘The nurse didn’t say Dr Abara wasn’t here,’ Lucy said in a slightly strangled voice. ‘Will she be back tomorrow? I could reschedule?’

‘No need,’ the doctor replied, leafing through some papers on the desk. ‘I’m here.’

It should have sounded reassuring but it really didn’t.

‘But I could come back tomorrow?’ Lucy said again, looking over at me. I slyly wiped my hands on my jeans and tucked the rest of my crisps into the tote bag resting by my feet. ‘I don’t want to be difficult, it’s just that we’ve seen Dr Abara at all the other appointments and her team is going to be delivering the baby so, um, I would quite like to stick with her. Last time I came in the baby was breech and she said I could come in again this week for another scan if I felt like nothing had changed.’

‘They usually move on their own, you mightn’t be able to tell if anything has changed,’ he said, completely ignoring her as he reached for an extraordinarily large bottle of lube, the likes of which you really didn’t expect to see outside of certain shops on Old Compton Street. ‘I can always turn you if need be.’

‘Oh no,’ Lucy gasped. ‘You don’t need to do that.’

I’d heard and seen enough.

‘I think we’d really prefer to come back tomorrow and see the other doctor,’ I said politely as he loomed over my cowering friend. ‘If that’s possible?’

The doctor stopped what he was doing and stared at me.