As Ewan and Shannon climbed the stairs, they began to hear gasps and high-pitched voices from inside the house. Ewan had predicted his friends’ reactions well; the news about Oakenfold must have been painful for them too. But their shouts were even more panicked than he had imagined. It was not worried conversation coming from the Underdogs: it was mass hysteria. He and Shannon scrambled to the top of the stairs, and burst through the door to the living room.

The collapsed body of Dr Joseph McCormick lay on the carpet, unmoving.

Chapter 3

Throughout Ewan’s life, his first reaction to emotional hurt had always been anger. Whether it had been students setting him off, or idiot teachers asserting their authority with pointing and loud voices, anger had always been his go-to state of mind.

But with McCormick out of sight in the clinic, his anger was nowhere to be found. All he felt was fear, and lots of it.

It was barely midday, but the boys’ bedroom was packed. A crowd of people had found various excuses to be there; nobody mentioned the little fact that McCormick and Lorraine could be heard arguing through the walls of the clinic, but each person had sat themselves as close to that side of the room as possible. Presumably, on the other side of the clinic, Kate, Shannon and Gracie were doing the same in the girls’ bedroom.

‘No, Joseph,’ came a muffled yell, ‘I will not do that to you!’

Well, he’s still awake at least.

The relief when McCormick had woken up on the living room floor had nearly reduced Ewan to tears. The man had tried to get to his feet too early, and a flurry of hands had struggled to keep him upright as he stood. Ewan’s memories of what had happened next were a blur, but Lorraine had sat McCormick on the sofa and asked a bunch of questions. Most of his answers had been along the lines of ‘don’t worry, I’m fine’. At some point he had been helped up the stairs to the clinic, with a full pint of water in his hand.

McCormick did not appear to be in immediate danger, but people didn’t collapse without reason. And as Kate so often said, the worst part of any worry was not knowing the truth.

‘I don’t care about the chain of command,’ Lorraine continued, ‘and you bloody well know it. I’m the woman with the scalpel, I decide where it goes!’

Ewan was used to Lorraine being blunt and uncompromising. But this wasn’t defiance. It was fear, just like his own.

‘What’s she talking about?’ asked Thomas at his side, his little nose pushed against the wall and his voice unusually wavy by his regular chirpy standards.