The door flew open, and O'Reilly found himself staring at a rotund figure in the doorway. Mother of G.o.d, it was the Great Panjandrum, Grand Master of the Ballybucklebo Orange Lodge, Councillor Bertie Bishop himself. He was wearing his overcoat and bowler hat and looking rather pleased with himself. "How the h.e.l.l did you get in here, Bertie?"

"I came in the back door and sweet-talked Kinky. I'd been pricing a job in the village, and that new doctor fellah came in. He was spitting blood because Kinky had chucked him out." Bishop smiled. "And we all know what Kinky's like when she gets her dander up."

O'Reilly heard Barry make a strangled, spluttering noise.

"You sweet-talked her?" O'Reilly wondered if his tracheitis had affected his hearing too. Councillor Bishop was known for his bull-in-a-china-shop approach, not for sweet-talking anyone, and certainly not Kinky in full Cerberus mode.

"I told Kinky I'd a couple of wee things for you. She said she couldn't leave something she had in the oven, and I was to bring them up at once and then skedaddle." He held out two brown paper bags and started to cross the room. "Good afternoon, my lord . . . Doctor Laverty."

O'Reilly heard the two men return the greeting.

"My missus, Flo, ran into Cissie Sloan," the councillor began. "So Flo says, 'Bertie, run you round to the shops and get some grapes and a bottle of Lucozade and take them round to the doctor.' I did, so I did. Here." He thrust the bags at O'Reilly, who grabbed them and thought, good old Bertie's starting his "Peace on earth, goodwill to all men" a bit early this year. He decided to be grateful for small mercies. "Thank you, Bertie," he said.

"Right. I'm off, and I hope you get better soon, so I do." The councillor headed for the door.

"Thank you, Bertie," O'Reilly said, "and thank Flo for me."

Bishop grunted and scowled. "Flo? You know what she's like. Thick as two short planks. She's already probably forgotten she sent me." The door was closed.

O'Reilly heard footsteps going downstairs. "That last crack's more like the old Bertie . . . but Good Lord, grapes and Lucozade? Will Christmas wonders never cease?"

Barry and the marquis were both shaking their heads.

"I hope," said the marquis, "he'll be in such generous form tonight when it comes to setting next year's dues." He rose. "Don't trouble yourselves, Doctors. I've stayed long enough. I'd not want to have Mrs. Kincaid after me."

O'Reilly stood, pleased to find the act had cost him a lot less effort than he had antic.i.p.ated. He must be on the mend. "Thanks for coming, John."

"My pleasure, Fingal." The marquis crossed the floor and opened the door, turned, and said, "Do hurry up and get better. The club's playing Glengormley on Sat.u.r.day."

"I'd not miss it," O'Reilly said. "It's the biggest needle match of the season." He settled back into his chair, and by the time he was comfortable, Kinky had reappeared, set a tray on the sideboard, and was fussing around him, twitching the edges of his blanket straight. When she was finished, she stood up and pulled a sheet of paper from her ap.r.o.n pocket. "Here you are, Doctor Laverty. Two calls for this afternoon."

O'Reilly was happy enough that Barry could manage, so he didn't ask who the patients were. Instead he snuggled down under the blanket, and on the grounds that this morning's nap seemed to have done him a power of good, he announced, "Off you trot, Barry. I'm going to have a nap."

"Indeed you are, sir," said Mrs. Kinkaid, "but not until after you've had another go at the friar's balsam."

O'Reilly rolled his eyes. "Och . . . Jesus, Kinky."

"There will," she said, "be no 'ochs' about it. I've the makings there on the tray."

O'Reilly muttered as Kinky turned to Barry. "You'll want to be running along to see your patients, Doctor Laverty, while I see to himself here . . .," she said.

Barry nodded and started to leave.

"And by the way," she said, "that nice young Miss Spence phoned from Cambridge and said she'd be in her residence at six o'clock and could you please phone her?"

O'Reilly saw Barry's face light up the way a lough will sparkle when the sun comes out from behind the clouds. He envied the young man and thought, well, d.a.m.n it, if he's going to phone Patricia, I might just get on the blower myself and have a bit of a craic with Kitty. I will, he resolved, as soon as Kinky's finished making me inhale those b.l.o.o.d.y awful balsam vapours.

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind.

"Doctor O'Reilly, sir. Have you no wit at all, at all?" Kinky stood in the hall, fists on hips, a lock of her silver hair hanging down over her forehead and dancing in the force of her words. "Go you back up to the comfortable, warm sitting room this instant before you take your death standing there in that draught."

O'Reilly suspected that the sight of her employer, standing in the hall with the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, was a shock to poor Kinky, who seemed convinced he was as sick as a poisoned pup. Yet the idea of talking to Kitty had so lifted his spirits that he felt quite transformed. And nothing was going to stop him. "Hang on a minute," he said to Kitty; then he covered the phone with one hand and addressed his housekeeper, a slight edge to his voice. "I'm on the phone, Mrs. Kincaid."

"And if you catch the pneumonia you'll soon be on a cold slab, so. Is it not my job to take calls from the patients?"

"It is," O'Reilly said, "but this is not a patient. It's-"

"I don't care if it's the Archangel Gabriel himself. You've no business being down here-"

"Kinky." He continued to let that steel edge of control creep into his voice. He was unaccustomed to anyone interrupting him. "I'll thank you to wait until I've finished, and I'll only be a minute. Are you still there, Kitty?"

He heard her say she was, and again he asked her to wait.

Mrs. Kincaid was now standing, both hands clasped before her thighs, her head tucked down between her inwardly rolled shoulders. She pursed her lips, frowned, and snorted down her nostrils, much, as O'Reilly imagined, a small dragon might warm up before giving an impression of a flamethrower.

"Are you there, Fingal?" he heard. "I'm tying up the ward telephone. I should ring off."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Doctors who treat themselves are amadans."

"Kinky, I'm nearly done." Poor Kinky, O'Reilly thought. I shouldn't have snapped at her. It's been a confusing morning for the woman, with her not altogether successful campaign to protect me.

"Look, Kinky, I'm having a chat with Miss O'Hallorhan, and I'll only be a minute, I promise." Kinky did not look mollified, O'Reilly thought. She won the battle with Fitzpatrick, capitulated to the marquis, and was outflanked by Councillor Bishop, and now I'm being an unyielding bastion-or perhaps that should be "b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He softened his voice and smiled at her.

"Fingal, I'm warning you," he heard Kitty say. "I'm going in a minute."

"Kinky, Kitty's on duty at the hospital and can't talk for long." He saw Kinky's stance soften. "I'd like to ask her down for supper tonight after her work. Would you be able to manage for one more?" He c.o.c.ked an interrogative head at Kinky. She harrumphed, then said, "I don't think yourself is well enough for guests, sir."

"Well, I say I am. Would you like a second opinion?" O'Reilly roared. He thrust the receiver into Kinky's hand so forcibly she almost dropped the phone. She tutted, then spoke into the mouthpiece. "Did you hear all that, Miss O'Hallorhan?"

O'Reilly couldn't hear what Kitty was saying, but he saw Kinky's grin widen as she made affirmative noises. Then he was gratified to see her smile and nod.

"She says, Doctor O'Reilly, sir, she could have heard the roars of you all the way to Belfast . . . without the telephone, but she'll come if you promise to behave. And if you don't, she'll pack you off to bed and leave."

"Tell her I'm sorry and I'll be good . . . but I'd really like to see her."

Kinky relayed the message, then said, "Grand, so. I'll just throw an extra spud in the pot."

Some women would be disconcerted at having to feed an extra mouth at short notice, O'Reilly thought, but he knew it was Kinky Kincaid's delight to meet the challenge.

"And here now," she continued, "I'll give you back to himself."

O'Reilly took the receiver. "I hear the giggles and laughs of you, Kitty. Heaven help a poor man when the likes of you two gang up on him, but I'll forgive you if you come for about six." He looked at Kinky and raised a questioning set of eyebrows. He was pleased to see her smile and nod. "Wonderful. That means we'll eat at about six thirty." He saw Kinky shake her head. "Sorry, Kitty. Exactly six thirty." Kinky nodded briskly.

"Good," he said. "So we can expect you at six? Splendid," he said. "Ah, duty calls. I quite understand. Off you go. Bye." He replaced the receiver.

Funny, he was fifty-six, had only ever loved one woman, and yet he was sure his pulse was going a bit faster than it should at the thought of seeing Kitty O'Hallorhan in only a few hours.

"Now, Kinky," he said, turning for the stairs. "I'll do as I'm bid and go back up." He hesitated with one hand on the newel post; he ran the other hand over his chin. "But I'm going up to the bathroom first. I could really use a shave. You won't mind that, will you?"

"I'll not," she said, "but I still will mind you, sir, standing in this draughty hall. Will you please, for the love of the wee man, get yourself along?"

O'Reilly started to climb. By the time he reached the landing he was only a bit wheezy. He was definitely improving. As his breathing rapidly eased, he was aware that Kinky was hovering around in the hall like a mother duck around her ducklings.

"Now," she said, "go you on up the next flight to the bathroom, and I'll go back to my kitchen to see to my mince pies."

"I will, Kinky. I'll be all right on my own."

"Aye, so," she said, "but you'd not be if you didn't have that nice young Doctor Laverty to share the load."

"True on you, Kinky," he said. As he climbed the next flight, he wondered how the young man was getting on with the home visits.

Barry had parked Brunhilde by the kerb of Comber Gardens in the housing estate. He'd found an empty s.p.a.ce between other parked, older-model cars. One he reckoned had to be twenty years old if it was a day.

He grabbed his medical bag, got out, closed the car door, and turned his coat collar to the bitter blast. The wind behind him whipped the tails of his raincoat past his legs, and the material was chilly against the backs of his calves. He was outside Number 19, and with the system of odd-numbered houses on one side of the narrow street, even numbers on the other, there were only five narrow terrace houses between Numbers 19 and 31, his next port of call.

He strode rapidly but not rapidly enough. He was overtaken by dead leaves and fish-and-chip wrappers being bustled across the footpath's badly laid paving stones. He almost tripped where one concrete slab had ridden up like some urban tectonic plate over its neighbour. Typical, he thought, of the shoddy workmanship of Councillor Bertie Bishop, whose work crews had built the estate.

Barry stopped in front of Number 19, where Kieran and Ethel O'Hagan lived. He lifted the cast iron knocker and let it fall. One sharp knock was all it took to get Ethel to the door. The couple would have been waiting for his arrival, and although she was more than eighty, Ethel had the quick, bustling movements of a much younger woman. "Come on in, Doctor, out of that. It would founder you, so it would."

"Thanks, Ethel." Barry stepped into a narrow hall, and as the front door was closed behind him he shivered. It wasn't much warmer in here than it was on the street. That would account for why Ethel O'Hagan was wearing a heavy sweater, a knitted bonnet, and woolen gloves with the fingers cut off. Not only did Bishop's workmen lay b.l.o.o.d.y awful footpaths, they hadn't a clue about proper insulation of brick walls or such niceties as double glazing. Finding central heating in a Bishop-built house would be as likely as finding an orangutan perched on top of the Ballybucklebo maypole.

"Kieran's in the kitchen."

Barry followed Ethel. The last time he'd been in this house, poor old Kieran, who was suffering from benign prostatic hypertrophy, had been experiencing an episode of acute urinary retention. He'd had his surgery in September and had made a complete recovery. Kinky had said today's call was something to do with the man's finger, and Ethel didn't want to take her elderly husband out in the gale.

The kitchen was small and snugly heated by a wall-mounted gas fire that popped and spluttered and threw out a cheering warmth. Kieran sat on a simple wooden chair beside a cleanly scrubbed pine table. A saucepan simmered on the stove. The window in the back wall was covered with chintz curtains.

Ethel loosened the strings of her bonnet, took off her gloves, and filled a kettle from a single tap over the porcelain sink. "Would you like a wee cup of tea in your hand, Doctor?"

Barry smiled. The cup of tea. It had to be offered, but no offence would be taken if it were to be declined. G.o.d, if he accepted a cuppa in every house where he called, his tonsils would be as well afloat as Noah's ark. "No thanks, Ethel, but you go right ahead." Barry took off his raincoat and folded it over a chair back. Then he asked, "So Kieran, how're the waterworks?"

The man's old, lined face split into a huge grin. "You know the waterfall at the head of the Bucklebo River, sir?"

Barry nodded. "I hear there's big trout in the pool under it," he said with a grin.

Kieran chuckled. "Ever since my operation, Doctor, I'll give that pool a run for its money. I'm p.i.s.sing like a stallion. I could fill a lake for a whale."

"I'm delighted," Barry said, now openly laughing. "Now, what's the bother today? Kinky said it was your finger."

"My thumb." Kieran held out the offending digit. "Herself wanted a hook driven for to hang some Christmas decorations. Would you look at that?" He stuck his left thumb under Barry's nose.

Barry could see purple discolouration of at least half of the nail bed.

"I hit it a right dunder with the hammer, so I did."

"I can see that." Barry held the thumb gently and inspected it. The joints were k.n.o.bby with the arthritis of age, but they did not seem to be displaced. "Can you bend it, Kieran?" He did without great difficulty. "I don't think any bones are broken," Barry said.

"That's a mercy . . . but it's throbbing away like a Lambeg drum, so it is."

"It's the blood under the nail. It's a huge bruise, Kieran. I'll let it out for you, and it'll feel much better." He turned to Ethel. "Have you a soup plate?"

"Aye." She left the kettle on the stove and went to a cupboard.

While Ethel was fetching the plate, Barry opened his bag and took out a bottle of Dettol disinfectant, some cotton swabs, a prepacked sterile scalpel, and a roll of Sellotape.

"Can I wash my hands in the sink?"

"Aye, certainly," Kieran said, eyeing the scalpel blade, which was clearly visible through the transparent packaging.

Barry washed his hands and shook most of the water off. He didn't bother drying them. He didn't need dry hands, and he didn't want to waste the prewrapped sterile towel in the bag.

"Can you give me a wee hand, Ethel?"

"Yes, sir, and here's your nice clean soup plate," she said, crossing the linoleum-covered floor.

"Just set it on the table beside Kieran." Barry noticed how the plate's glaze glistened in the rays from the single overhead sixty-watt bulb. When Ethel said "clean," she meant thoroughly scrubbed. Her housing might be verging on being a slum, but it would not stop Ethel O'Hagan being a tidy housekeeper. "Kieran, hold your hand over the bowl, and Ethel, unscrew the top of that bottle . . ." He nodded to indicate the Dettol. "Now pour some over Kieran's thumb."

She did, and Barry's eyes were stung by the strong fumes of the disinfectant. "Right, Ethel, one last job. Can you open the package the scalpel's in?"

She looked puzzled.

"Take each side between your one finger and thumb, and pull."

She followed his instructions, and Barry had no difficulty removing the surgical knife. "Now, Kieran," he said, "I'm going to cut a wee window in the nail." Before Kieran could object, Barry seized the thumb in the ring of his own left thumb and index finger and used the pointed scalpel blade to cut a small rectangle in the nail over the bruise. In a second the piece of now free nail was lifted and dropped in the bowl, and the dark old blood beneath welled up and dripped over the side of Kieran's thumb.

Kieran whistled, then said, "Boys-a-boys, that's powerful. The throbbing's stopped already."

"It's because the pressure's been relieved."

"Just like a safety valve on an engine," Kieran said wide-eyed, and whistled on the intake of breath. "Modern science is a wonderful . . . a wonderful . . . thing."

"Hold your thumb there." Barry wrapped it in a cotton swab and used the adhesive Sellotape to bind the swab in place. "A week or so and it'll be good as gold . . . but you'll probably eventually lose the nail, and it'll be a while before a new one grows back."

"Och, well," said Kieran, "sure I'll just ask Santa for a new one for Christmas." And he laughed.

"I'll wash the soup plate," Ethel said, as the kettle started to whistle on the stove. "Are you sure, Doctor, you'll not have a wee cup?"

Barry shook his head. "I'll just wash my hands again and be running along. I've another call to make."

"No rest for the wicked, eh, Doc?" Kieran asked.

"None," Barry said, drying his hands on the towel Ethel offered. Then he shrugged into his coat. "Can you bring him in tomorrow, Ethel, if the weather's warmer, and I'll change the dressing?"