‘Intermittent?’

‘It doesn’t happen all the time.’

‘I know what intermittent means.’ He sighs and tucks the flashlight into his waistband. He makes his way over to the boiler. ‘You notice any drop in water pressure?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean, I haven’t checked.’

‘It’s a closed system, so that’d be a good indicator,’ he says. He pauses for a moment. ‘An indicator is like a clue.’

‘Yeah, thanks.’

The plumber rubs his chin. His forehead creases. ‘Usually we get calls from folks when the water’s up here,’ he says, pointing to his neck. ‘You mind if I take a look round downstairs?’

I leave him to his work and stand in the study. I’ve always found it difficult to relax with workmen in the house. I turn the television on, but leave it muted. I watch members of the National Guard rolling out barbed wire strips along a stretch of highway. Men with dogs patrolling a floodlit perimeter.

‘You have any work done recently?’ the plumber asks from the doorway, startling me.

‘Not recently,’ I say. ‘Why?’

‘There’s signs of pretty extensive water damage on the staircase,’ he says.

We walk together and he runs his finger along the skirting board. ‘See how it fans out at the bottom there? Looks like the wallpaper’s been replaced too. How long you had the place?’

‘Six years or so,’ I say.

‘Well, you had a leak here at one point,’ he says. His phone rings and he apologises while he silences it.

‘What do you suggest?’ I ask.

‘Always the same thing: treat the cause, not the symptom.’

‘And in lieu of a cause?’

The plumber whistles, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. ‘The problem is these things tend to be pretty localised, so it becomes a bit of a fishing expedition. I could put some sealant through the system, if it’d help put your mind at rest.’

‘Failing that?’

‘If there is a leak, and it’s still an if at this point—’

‘There’s definitely a leak,’ I say.

His phone rings again. He scrunches his face at the screen. ‘It’s my wife,’ he says. ‘Mind if I take this?’

He takes the call outside and I turn my attention back to the television. I see a convoy of busses pulling to the side of a country road. Their hydraulic doors open in unison, a grand choreographed spectacle that sees men in decontamination suits begin funnelling out the sick passengers. They walk like a chain gang into a makeshift compound, a shanty town of relief tents that look like white pustules against the landscape.

There is an efficiency to the process that feels obscene. There are too many bodies to count, let alone catalogue. They leave the busses as individuals only to become nameless beyond the walls of the compound. The scale of loss is unimaginable. I think for a moment about that poor, nameless doctor. I wonder if she is lost somewhere among the crowd.

The plumber returns and apologises for the interruption. ‘We’re expecting,’ he says. You never know if the next call is going to be the call, you know?’