‘So long as it does the trick,’ Pillai said, draping it over the child’s torso.

By now she was reviving. A cough. Dazed eyes opening, unfocused, then full of fear under the gaze of all those looming strangers. She whimpered, reached her arms to her mother. ‘Mumma.’

The woman named Denise knelt, stroked her daughter, saying wretchedly, ‘Sorry, bubba. So, so sorry.’

She turned to Hirsch. ‘Really sorry.’

Hirsch was silent.

She said, ‘Please, I was only gone five minutes. I needed a repeat prescription.’

With Hirsch still unforthcoming, she added, ‘I’ve never left her like that before. I had no idea. I wasn’t away that long.’

‘It doesn’t take much,’ the doctor said.

Hirsch nodded his agreement. He didn’t know what he was going to do about the incident. He needed to know the child would recover fully before he went into punitive-cop mode.

Gemma was hovering. ‘Does she need a drink?’

Pillai looked up. ‘Thank you, Gemma. Water, nothing else. Unrefrigerated if you have it. And a cup.’

Gemma returned with bottled spring water and a paper cup. ‘Easy does it,’ Pillai said, dribbling water into the child’s mouth. ‘A bit at a time.’

Hirsch asked, ‘She going to be okay?’

The doctor shrugged minutely, her slim brown fingers testing the child’s forehead and cheeks. She smiled down, murmuring words of comfort. The flushed face looked back, still dazed, but then broke into a shy smile. Hirsch thought: shame certain people aren’t present to see this.

Most of the locals welcomed a weekly clinic in the town and they seemed happy to be treated by a Sri Lankan doctor. But he’d heard pub talk disparaging Pillai’s credentials and one day, seated in the clinic’s waiting room, worried that his pollen allergies had tipped into asthma, he’d overheard an old woman hiss at Pillai, ‘Don’t you touch me.’

The doctor seemed to come to a decision. ‘I’d be a lot happier if we could monitor her in hospital for a few hours, possibly overnight.’

She took the mother’s hands in hers. ‘Okay, Denise? It’s for the best. We don’t want her to relapse. Her temperature’s coming down and her vital signs are good, but we need to monitor her fluid intake and just keep a general eye on her.’

The woman looked stunned, afraid. ‘Hospital?’

‘The one in Redruth,’ Pillai said.

‘Ambulance?’ asked Hirsch.

The doctor shook her head. ‘Could take ages to get here. We’ll take her ourselves. You drive, Paul, I’ll sit in the back with Anna and Denise.’