She sat in her chair and nodded to another one for guests. Adrian shook his head and took a deep breath. He paced the room a little, trying to work off the anxiety enough to speak.

‘I need to see a doctor, but I need it to stay off my medical records.’

‘You should see your own GP. But it would be up to their discretion. I will say, however, keeping information from your medical files will only harm you. Future doctors will need a full and correct history in order to be able to treat you properly,’ Dr Hadley recounted with a sigh.

This was clearly a speech she had delivered before.

‘Either I see a doctor off the record, or I don’t see a doctor at all.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, Adrian. It’s extremely unethical. If you’ve been abusing drugs, self-harming or anything illegal, then it really needs to be on the record. For my sake as well as yours.’

‘It’s not that,’ he said.

‘I would strongly advise against urging a doctor to do this for you. Why did you pick me and not your own doctor, out of interest? Because we went for dinner once?’

‘Because you’re nice, and fair. You seem trustworthy. I’ve seen the way you deal with your patients. I need to speak to someone I can trust to be discreet. Knowing how hard it is to get any pertinent information about patients from you, I know you can be trusted. I don’t want to go to someone I don’t know with this. It’s too important,’ he said.

He could feel his eyes brimming again.

Dr Hadley stood and folded her arms, taking Adrian’s statement as flattery and rolling her eyes.

‘Let’s have a hypothetical conversation, then.’

Adrian took a deep breath before speaking.

‘Hypothetically, I have some injuries that I need a doctor to look at. I may also, hypothetically, need a prescription for pain relief. I need to take some time off work because of the pain, but I want to get back to work as soon as possible and I need to know that I physically can. I don’t want my DCI or my colleagues to know about this. I promise I haven’t broken the law in any way, but I am in a somewhat impossible situation.’

After some deliberation, the doctor finally spoke again.

‘All right. I will look at your injuries. I can see you’ve been in the wars.’

Adrian took his jacket off and slowly pulled his sweatshirt over his head, exposing his bruises. Dr Hadley put her latex gloves on and started to press against the Seville orange-sized bruise on his ribs. He flinched at her touch.

‘Is it broken?’ he asked.