‘I’m fine,’ she insisted, sounding annoyed by his solicitude. ‘Stop asking me things and start telling me things. What is that?’

‘Certain types of morbid growth may contain within them highly organised structures,’ Raven responded, enjoying a solicited opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge. He must not become verbose, he warned himself, though in the event, Sarah’s subsequent question would have prevented it anyway.

‘Why are teeth and bone present in some types of tumour?’

‘Pathological investigation has yet to provide an answer,’ he replied meekly.

‘You mean you don’t know,’ she said, staring closer.

‘No one does,’ he admitted. Raven felt a certain disappointment, as he always did whenever he was forced to confront how much of medicine remained shrouded in mystery. Each feat of progress or discovery was another candle in the dark, but sometimes all they let one see was the vastness of the void.

FORTY-ONE

he unmistakable odour of putrefaction still hung in the air, even though the corpse had been removed. Sarah observed Raven raising a hand to his nose, indicating that he suspected the smell might be coming from him. His subsequent expression confirmed that this was indeed the case. He moved to the sink and began running his hands together beneath the tap.

‘I’ve washed my hands three times already,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to get rid of the smell.’

‘“Common ablutions are not enough”, remember?’ Sarah said, adding chloride of lime to the water in the bowl.

The resultant chemical scent was a relief. Sarah had begun to feel queasy again. Curiosity and her keenness to be involved had made her determined to suppress any squeamishness she might feel, and for the most part the knowledge that it was Mrs Glassford’s remains had not been a problem. She was able to look at the body in abstract, particularly once Raven opened it up and revealed the organs within. However, the lingering smell was prompting an instinctive revulsion, and she did not wish to appear weak by being sick.

It was not her only reason, either. Raven had seen her vomiting a few days ago. He had been sharp enough to deduce Archie’s condition, so perhaps it was folly to think that, as an obstetrician, he was not already suspecting hers too.

She did not like to think about it, and yet it was always there, waiting, inexorable, like Archie’s illness. She knew this was one of the reasons she was so motivated to pursue her investigations. She needed some kind of distraction, a purpose to consume her in the here and now, because in the future there lay only the daunting certainty of Archie’s death and the daunting uncertainty of the new life growing inside her.