“With us for a while, eh? Good. I can stop guarding you for a little bit. D’ye know who you are?”

I made a miserable croaking noise, and he looked sympathetic.

“Try again.”

“Ah — ah — Li’el Sa’ki’.”

“Terrific.” He threw the apple core somewhere out of sight, wiped his hands on the pants of his crumpled blue suit, and stood up. “That’s the first question answered. I think you’d do well now to have another little nap. Don’t go away now, and I’ll bring the nurse.”

His voice was deep and self-confident, with a West Yorkshire cut to the vowels. He moved out of my line of vision — I was getting nothing from my left eye — and I heard the squeak of heavy leather boots as he went out of the room. A minute later a nurse in a blue uniform slipped a needle into my right arm, and I went under again. As I did so I wondered why I needed the services of a policeman to guard me. My name is well-known enough, but I’m certainly no celebrity.

As I became unconscious I wanted to ask about Leo, but I had left it too late.

Third time lucky. I was improving a little when I woke, and I knew it. My overall ache had progressed to sharp points of individual agony, but the feeling of being disembodied and unfocused was much less. My head still buzzed and reeled, but it felt like my head and not some anonymous cauliflower. I came out of a strange dream of my childhood, back before Leo and I were reunited. The familiar views of Middlesbrough and Stockton where I had grown up were overlaid with alien images of surf, flat palm trees, and fast-moving freeways. The harder I tried to concentrate, the more the images mixed and moved.

I finally worked my eyes open, to see the same fat man sitting there staring at me. He had taken a big clasp knife out of his pocket and was opening it when he saw my eyes blinking at him. He put the knife away again and moved quietly out of the room, still betrayed in his movements by the squeaking boots. When the nurse came in to crank my bed to a higher position for my head I turned to look at her.

“What’s happening?” My voice was still rusty, but in better control. “Why do they need a policeman here to watch me?”

She looked worried, shook her head, and slipped out of the room again without answering me. I heard her voice nearby.

“I’m afraid we have a problem — a new one. He’s awake, but he’s rambling, something about being watched by a policeman.”

“I’ll be in in a moment,” said a deep voice. “I don’t like the sound of it, but all his other signs look good.”

It was my fat friend again. There was another mumble from the nurse that this time I could not catch, then he appeared, grinning at me as he entered my limited field of vision. The nurse was behind him, a dark-haired woman with a great figure and with worry lines in her forehead. She was frowning at me accusingly.

“He did say it,” she said. “I’m sure he did.” Then, to me, “What was it you were telling me about a policeman?”

My left arm seemed unwilling to move when I tried to lift it. So even though my right forearm was a mass of IV tubes and monitor contacts, I managed to raise it far enough to point.

“Him,” I said. “The policeman. Why is he here guarding me?”

She put one hand up to her mouth and her eyes widened. The worry lines vanished. “Ooh,” she said. “Sir Westcott.” And without another word to either of us she hurried out of the room.

The fat man pulled a chair towards the bedside and sat down on it with a grunt.

“She’ll be back.” He was scowling. “Gone to have a good laugh, if I know her. I think mebbe it’s time I introduced meself. I’m Westcott Shaw. I’m the one who operated on you when you were brought in.”

I looked at the hand resting on the back of the chair — the fingers were like a fat bunch of sausages — and shuddered at the thought. If he’d been pawing around in my delicate insides…

“Where am I? Is my brother Leo all right? And how long have I been lying here?”

“One thing at a time, and let’s not rush it. You’re in the Queen’s Hospital Annex, just outside Reading . Tomorrow it’ll be four weeks since you were admitted.”

That was a bad shock. Four weeks, and in that whole time I must have been conscious for a total of five confused minutes.

“What about Leo? Is he here too? Is he all right?” The questions came buzzing up without any conscious control.

“No, he’s not all right.” He saw my expression. “But it’s a lot more complicated than you think. I don’t want to start on that now, but I promise you I’ll tell you all about it next time.” He looked down at the catheters, intravenous feed tubes, monitors, and sensors that ran from my body to a variety of drip-feeds, waste bags, and electronic recorders. “I even think we can start to get rid of some of this plumbing, You’re coming on faster than I hoped. We’ll get Tess to take care of some of that this afternoon. How much do you hurt?”

“A lot.”

“I’ll believe it. You’ve had a fair hack about. I’ll put you under again if you want me to, but if you can stand to stay awake for another half hour I’d like you to do something for me.”

“I’ll try. But it will have to be something easy. My brain’s like cottonwool.”

“It should be easy. I want you to think about your childhood, and about your life before you came in here. Just let your thoughts run where they want to, but do it in as much detail as you can. Don’t worry about forgetting, or making any sort of note. Just let yourself go.” He stood up. “I know it sounds daft, but it’s important for your treatment and recovery.”

He came closer to me and peered into my face. “You’re coming along fine. Anything coming in yet from that left eye? Blink each one, and try and look at my finger here.”

Sausage — no sausage — sausage — no sausage.

“No. My right eye seems fine, but what’s wrong with my left one?”

“Nothing. You’ll see all right in a while. Give it time.” He was off around the end of the bed before I could ask more, and I heard again that familiar squeak of boots — somebody should tell him he needed oiling. I closed both my eyes and felt dizzy again. Why couldn’t I see out of my left eye? That hadn’t been injured, I was sure of it — I had seen things with it right after the accident. What had happened when they brought me in here? And what had happened to Leo? It was difficult to see why the surgeon didn’t want to talk to me about him.

In a minute or two I heard the nurse beside me, muttering and grumbling to herself. “I knew it, I knew he’d get you all excited. Your pulse is up again and so’s your blood pressure. I told him to wait a couple of days more.”

She saw that I had opened my eyes and was staring up at her miserably. She shook her head.

“Honestly, a policeman.” She smiled, the worry lines disappeared, and she was suddenly very attractive. “I had to leave when you said that.”

“Are you Tess?”

“Nurse Thomson to you.” (But her smile took the edge off it.) “I know how you felt, when I first saw Sir Westcott I thought he must have stopped in at the hospital to deliver meat to the kitchen. A policeman’s a new one, though — what made you think that?”

“It was his fault. He said he was guarding me.”

“He meant he was keeping his eye on you — you’re his prize patient.” She had finished checking the monitors, and seemed happy with the result.

“Tess, what’s happened to me?”

“Nurse Thomson.” She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t talk about it, really I shouldn’t. But you’re going to be all right — you’ve got the best doctor you could ever get. You were in a very bad accident.” She moved to look into my face, studying it. “I’ll be taking the catheters out later, and I don’t think you want to be awake for that. I can tell you’re hurting, but Sir Westcott told me to leave you as you are if you can stand it. Will you be all right to stay awake for a few minutes more?”