‘Oh, I am sure you have had other happy times, Archibald,’ said Ann, fondling the nape of his neck and smiling up at him. She lifted her other arm and drew her hair onto the top of her head then let it tumble loose once more.

‘Never, Ann, not like this,’ he said, gazing at the curls cascading round her shoulders. ‘I feel guilt at what I have done and yet I cannot possibly regret any of it, indeed I feel no shame, for ours was love waiting to happen. Do you not feel that, Ann?’

She threw back the blanket and stood, naked, in front of him. He had never seen a woman without clothes on. Certainly not Margaret, who undressed and dressed in her own room. He could hardly bear to imagine what her body looked like. His female patients never undressed fully in front of him. He was in a state of delirium. Ann was Venus, Aphrodite.

She began to reach for her clothes. ‘It has been wonderful, I agree, Archibald.’ She pulled on her stockings, then her skirt and sat, her blouse in her hand. ‘I wonder if I might ask you something.’

‘Anything,’ he said, reaching out to her breast. She turned away and slipped her silk blouse over her shoulders and began to button it up, slowly.

‘When you are working with Dr Anderson and a body comes in to the mortuary, how do you decide which one of you will do the examination?’

Archibald frowned. ‘What do you mean, my darling?’

‘Say, for example, that Robert’s body was brought in, would you be able to be the one to examine him?’

‘Well…’ He coughed. ‘Professionally, I should perhaps leave that to Dr Anderson since Robert is – was – a friend.’

She reached out and began to massage the back of his neck. ‘But could you do a favour just for me, Archibald?’

‘Anything, anything at all.’

‘If you can attend to his body yourself, please, should it arrive at the morgue. For what if, for example, it was obvious that he had not been in the water for two weeks but was, in fact, more recently deceased. Would you be able to…’ She paused and drew her face nearer, ‘arrange things?’

‘But I don’t understand, Ann. Robert’s body must be in the water and we are simply awaiting the time when it surfaces, if it ever does at all.’