I woke up briefly to find Dr Walid and a pair of nurses bustling around Nightingale’s bed. I stared at them stupidly until Dr Walid saw me and told me to go back to sleep – at least, I think that’s what he said.

I woke again to the smell of coffee. Dr Walid had brought me a cardboard jug of latte and enough tubular sachets of sugar to make a significant dent in my grocery budget.

‘How is he?’ I asked.

‘He was shot in the chest,’ said Dr Walid. ‘That sort of thing’s bound to slow you down.’

‘Is he going to be all right?’

‘He’s going to live,’ said Dr Walid. ‘But I can’t say whether he’ll make a full recovery or not. It’s a good sign that he’s breathing unaided, though.’

I sipped the latte; it burned my tongue.

‘They locked me out of the Folly,’ I said.

‘I know,’ said Dr Walid.

‘Can you get me back in?’

Dr Walid laughed. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I’m just a civilian advisor with a bit of esoteric expertise. With Nightingale incapacitated, unlocking the Folly is a decision that has to be made by the Commissioner, if not higher up.’

‘Home Secretary?’ I asked.

Dr Walid shrugged. ‘At the very least,’ he said. ‘Do you know what you’re going to do?’

‘Do you have access to the internet?’ I asked.

In a teaching hospital like UCH, if you walk through the right doors it stops being a hospital and becomes a medical research and administrative centre. Dr Walid had an office there and, I was shocked to learn, students. ‘I don’t teach them the esoteric stuff,’ he explained, but was – and not wanting to blow his own trumpet – a world-renowned gastroenterologist. ‘Everyone needs a hobby,’ he said.

‘Mine is going to be job-hunting,’ I said.

‘I’d have a shower first,’ said Dr Walid, ‘if you’re planning any interviews.’

Dr Walid’s office was an awkwardly narrow room with a window at the thin end and shelves covering the entire length of both long walls. Every surface was piled with folders, professional journals and reference books. At one end of the narrow shelf that served as a desk, a PC bobbed uncertainly in a sea of hard copy. I dumped my bags and plugged the laptop into the mains to recharge the batteries. The modem was hidden behind a stack of Gut: an International Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. A jaunty subtitle revealed that Gut had indeed been voted Best Journal of Gastroenterology by gastroenterologists worldwide. I didn’t know whether to be worried or reassured by the implication that there were many more magazines devoted to the smooth functioning of my intestines. The socket for the modem looked suspiciously jury-rigged and definitely not standard NHS issue. When I asked Dr Walid about it, he merely said that he liked to keep certain of his files secure.