‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s pay a call on old Elspeth Berridge. I want to know exactly what happened the night the Spillers took off.’

* * *

Laura told Sam what she’d seen at Freddie Shields’s house. ‘I’ve been itching to get back here and tell you, but it’s been hold-up after hold-up today.’ She flopped down on the sofa.

‘Well, the kettle’s just boiled, so I’ll make tea, shall I?’

‘Oh, please. I’ll come with you. We can talk in the kitchen.’

Laura sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I’ve never had a patient cause me so much agitation, and I have no idea why.’

‘He’s disturbed on a lot of different levels, Laura. He’s not a textbook case of one specific kind of psychological illness. What’s more . . .’ He stopped talking.

‘And?’ asked Laura.

‘And we both suspect him of playing us in some way. I’m beginning to think that the reason you’re so baffled by Shields is because something isn’t adding up. Maybe his malady doesn’t correspond with anything we’ve seen before because it’s not real.’

‘You think he’s a fraud?’

He poured the water on the teabags and stirred them. ‘I don’t know what I think. But I shall be very interested to know what the sleep clinic makes of him.’ He looked up. ‘By the way, what did the police tell you about his escapade at the all-night garage?’

Laura pulled a face. ‘They’re still on night shift, so I never got to speak to them. But I do have a mobile number that the sergeant gave me. He said to phone after three o’clock.’ She glanced at her watch, then pulled her phone from her pocket. ‘One of them should be up and around by now.’

Sam listened while she talked to one of the police constables. It seemed from what the man was saying that Shields’s account had been pretty accurate.

‘And when he’d calmed down, you or your crewmate dressed his wound for him?’ Laura asked.

‘Oh no, Dr Archer. He already had a dressing on it. I did wonder why, if he’d dressed the wound, he hadn’t changed his clothes — they were well bloody. Still, if this sleepwalking thing he told us about is right, then maybe he was still asleep when he put the dressing on. Dead weird, if you ask me.’

Laura threw Sam a puzzled look. ‘Did the blood on his clothes look fresh, Officer?’

‘Not particularly. As far as I remember, it was sort of brown.’ He sniffed. ‘Have we messed up with that guy, Dr Archer?’

‘I honestly have no idea,’ said Laura. ‘But if you ever see him out at night again, ring me immediately.’