Mr Hancock’s daughter had suggested ‘a quiet, secluded room’. It was the first on a long list of privileges that were set in stone when he arrived, as if we’d been applying to have Mr Hancock stay with us as an esteemed guest and not the other way round. The special requirements are granted as a result of his daughter’s generous disposition, which we enjoy in large quarterly instalments. Oh yes, she is a patron. She is a close friend of Call-Me-Melissa and just the kind of bitch Melissa would be friends with. She, tragically, is too busy to visit often: ‘My apologies for being rather elusive.’ I can’t say we mind particularly.

I remember the day he arrived. I feel queasy thinking about it. Miss Hancock, a media big shot with appropriately auburn hair and little pointed heels, strode into the care home at lunchtime. In her right hand, she carried a stapled bunch of paper, fashioned into a sceptre. She unrolled it on my desk and began to stab her way through a bullet-point list.

‘Miss Hancock,’ she said, her manicured fingernail already on to item one, no time to waste. ‘We spoke on the phone. Mind if we make this quick? I have a business lunch in Noho in forty and the traffic is just something else today.’

She flashed a little smile and I knew I didn’t like her. Her lips twitched at the corners. Extreme Type A personality. I ran a list of popular antidepressants through my head: sertraline, citalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine. Cocaine? A mix, probably. It’s hard to tell at a glance. She wrinkled her nose. Definitely cocaine. She looked down at her list.

‘Natural fibre pillows,’ she said. She found my eyes again and nodded. A tinkle of her chandelier earrings. ‘They’re essential to aid my father’s neck issues.’

‘It’s not unusual at that age,’ I said. Another perfunctory tinkle as she once again raised her eyes to mine. I knew I’d fucked it already. ‘Most of our oldies –’ I giggled, because I giggle when I’m nervous, not a little nervous, but intensely nervous ‘– our patients. Most of our patients, they suffer from cervicalgia or cervical hernia. Neuropathic flare-ups are a frequent occurrence.’

Very good, medical language. She stared at me. I could feel Mona’s eyes piercing my back. Sometimes she put me through little tests. This was one of them: I knew I was on my own. I had to act like a senior nurse. Mona’s vote of confidence; she was trusting me to handle this.

‘We provide top-quality ergonomic foam pillows to ensure maximum comfort. They are memory pillows. Do you know much about memory pillows?’