Of course I’m happy to see him, but I wish he’d let me know he was coming, or at least give me some notice so we could arrange the best time. He still hasn’t got his head round the timings of my meds so, depending on where I am in the cycle, he could turn up and find me bouncing off the walls and yapping like an excited dog, or I might be Mogadon Mary. Today, he’s drawn the short straw and gets a daughter who’s not exactly at her sharpest and talks like she’s coming round after an operation. Several times he has to ask me to repeat myself or I just ignore what he’s saying completely.

It’s not sparkling, all I’m saying.

We’re sitting at one end of the music room and Clare’s reading a book in the opposite corner. I know she’s earwigging and I wonder if she’s expecting me to bring her over, maybe introduce her to my dad as my new bestie. After a few minutes she gets up and wanders out, which is a relief, because she’s starting to give me the willies.

Once we’ve got the chit-chat out of the way – Mum’s fine and Jeff and Diane send their best and hope the operation went well – I catch him up with my news. The latest murder. It takes a while for me to pass on all the grisly details, droning like a recording on half-speed.

It’s a few seconds before Dad says anything. He just opens his mouth and closes it again. Then he says, ‘This isn’t bloody acceptable.’

He’s got a point. I mean, catching MRSA would be bad enough, but nobody expects to be taken into a hospital where patients are getting bumped off every couple of weeks. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Do you feel safe?’

‘Well, not . . . particularly.’ It’s quite an effort to get such a difficult word out. ‘But what can I do?’

‘It’s ridiculous,’ he says. ‘Somebody should go to the papers.’

‘It’s already in the papers, Dad.’ They’d run a story in the Evening Standard the day before about the murder, though they hadn’t named the victim or linked it to Kevin’s death. The paper was being passed around the ward like a cheap prostitute.

‘To complain, I mean.’

‘What’s the point of complaining?’

‘I can’t hear you, love.’

I ask him again. ‘You going to go on Tripadvisor? Give it a one-star review?’

He swallows hard and looks upset. ‘No need to be nasty,’ he says. ‘I’m only concerned about you. Alice . . .’

I focus a bit and smile at him. ‘Yeah, I know. Thanks.’

‘So, apart from . . . all that. You feeling any better?’