‘There they are!’ she exclaimed with a faint smile when George and Judith arrived an hour later. ‘My husband, my lovely daughter, thank God!’ and she choked back the tears. ‘Oh George, I’ve had such a fright!’ she cried out as they approached. ‘This little one has been an angel,’ she said of Nolly, who smiled at them politely and began to explain the diagnosis. But before she could get her words out, Patricia interrupted. ‘Darling, don’t let me waste any more of your precious time! Come here!’ And in a flamboyant show of gratitude, she kissed the nurse firmly on both cheeks before thrusting a pound note into her hand.

‘Oh, we don’t accept tips,’ said Nolly.

‘Take it!’ Patricia urged, with the tiniest hint of a threat.

The nurse did as she was told and said goodbye.

Judith and George stood there staring, not really sure what to do next.

‘You took your time,’ Patricia said in a low voice, a far cry from the weak, emotional, tip-thrusting patient she’d been just seconds before.

‘The police came,’ George said. ‘We didn’t know you were—’

‘I was lying on that pavement for a good ten minutes – another five and I’d have been dead! That’s what the ambulance man told me!’

‘How come they’re not keeping you in?’ asked Judith.

‘You’re a doctor now, are you, Missy? A medical expert!’

Judith opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by Patricia hissing, ‘Just get me home, will you, for God’s sake. I’m to have twenty-four-hour bed rest for at least a week.’ She didn’t look at either of them when she said it.

‘I’ll go and call a taxi,’ Judith offered, and exchanged a sad smile with George.

As she approached reception she saw the student nurse putting Patricia’s pound note into a charity box on the desk. ‘To make sad children happy …’ it said along its base. Judith picked up the handset of the dedicated taxi phone-line and waited for a reply. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the student nurse, ‘can I just ask … my mother – did she have a heart attack?’

Nolly smiled back. ‘Er … no. Didn’t she tell you? We think it was something hormonal … We only checked the heart because of her previous history.’

‘What previous history?’

Nolly glanced around – she was still very new to this. Was she breaking patient confidentiality? Surely not – this was the woman’s daughter, after all. ‘Well, she told the ambulance man she’s had three previous heart attacks,’ she said quietly. The look of confusion on Judith’s face undermined the nurse’s confidence. ‘So … that’s why we checked?’ she said slowly, and it came out as more of a question than a statement.

‘My mother’s never had a heart attack in her life,’ Judith said.

Celyn Cabs. Where to you goin’, please? The voice of the taxi operator came crackling down the line.

‘Er, yes, Victoria Road, please,’ said Judith, shaking with what felt like rage. ‘Three passengers. Name of Harris.’