‘And you’re not?’ teased Tiger.

Sam frowned in mock admonishment. ‘Please!’ Then she grinned. ‘No. Far too interested in…well…let’s not go there. Just…ordinary…that’s all.’

Given a dictionary and asked to choose a word that would describe Sam Ross, ‘ordinary’ was not the one that Tiger would have picked.

Whatever else Erica had expected to find when she rounded the corner into the alley it was not Isobel and a pile of glass. She had been there. Done that. But this morning the scene was repeated. Isobel was standing in the middle of the alley with her broom. The only difference was that this morning it was not Isobel’s shop window that had been smashed. It was Erica’s.

Christopher Devon took the phone call in his temporary surgery in Romsey. It was from one of the partners in his old practice in Winchester.

‘I only called to see how you were doing,’ said Reggie Silverwood. ‘Find out if you were surviving.’

‘Oh, I’m surviving, Reggie. What about you?’

Christopher had got on well with Dr Silverwood since he had first arrived at the practice. By then, Randall Cummings had taken the role of senior partner, but Reggie was part of the old guard and determined to remain on a part-time basis for as long as he could. He was a GP of the old school, greatly respected by his patients and with a bedside manner that inspired confidence even in the most nervous and insecure. He might not be the most go-ahead and dynamic of physicians, but his value as a father figure who would be admired and revered by the more senior members of his panel was not lost on Dr Cummings. He was the practice’s grand old man, and as long as he just about pulled his weight, Randall Cummings was prepared to let him stay.

Christopher was fond of Reggie. He used to see him regularly at the surgery, and very occasionally for a drink after ‘office hours’. He was a small, bird-like man, with wire-framed glasses and a slight stoop, often seemingly preoccupied by some conundrum of life upon which his brain was deeply engaged.

He sounded, today, a little more weary than usual. ‘Oh, just about surviving, too, but I don’t know for how much longer.’

‘That sounds a bit defeatist Reggie. Not like you.’

‘Mmm. Well, maybe the time’s come for me to pack it in.’

Christopher made his surprise clearly audible. ‘Pack it in?’

‘I think so.’

‘Oh, it’ll just be a temporary blip, Reggie. You’ll have had a few cases that have got you down. You know how it is. Never two without three and all that.’

‘Mmm. I’d like to think so. But it’s a bit more than that.’

Christopher paused before replying. ‘Is it Cummings?’

There was a silence at the other end of the phone. ‘Reggie?’