'We should just call the police.'

'The police have already said they're not in the slightest '

'Look, I can't take it!' It was almost a shout and Spencer was shocked by her vehemence.

He held out his hands pacifically. 'OK. I'll phone social services again tomorrow and '

Callum started retching, and Ayesha grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut in Spencer's face. Staring rigidly ahead, she reversed with a screech and then revved into the night.

'Bye. Bye,' said Callum, raising his head as though it were lead-plated. His eyes drifted until they met Spencer's. 'Hey tsocta. Tsocta Carra. I bin bad. My shest bin bad.' He started pawing at the zip of his jacket. 'Lissen to my shest.'

'Callum, you must stop turning up here.' He spoke slowly and clearly. 'There's no point. I'll only examine you at the hostel clinic and nowhere else.'

'Shucked out. Shucked me out.'

'Of St Clare's?'

'f.u.c.kers.' His head dropped forward with a brutal suddenness that made Spencer flinch. 'f.u.c.kers,' he said again, the word m.u.f.fled against his chest.

In the staffroom, Iris was addressing a pile of envelopes, flipping back and forth through a broken-backed notebook with her free hand.

'Hi,' she said over her shoulder as Spencer entered, 'I've got a message for you.'

'Oh yeah?' He slumped into a chair and clasped his hands behind his head. 'I think I should warn you first that Callum's outside again and Ayesha's threatening to send her husband round.'

'To do what?'

'She didn't specify, but apparently he's a wild man when roused.'

Iris smothered a smile. 'I met Terence once. He's a bit roly-poly and he told me all about his upholstery evening cla.s.ses. Was Callum sick, incidentally?'

'Yup, all over the pavement as per usual. Why?'

'Well...' She straightened her shoulders as if about to make a presentation. 'I think Ayesha's phobic about vomiting. She almost fainted once when a child threw up in surgery and it might explain why she gets so panicky about Callum after all, he's not violent and she's never been afraid of anyone or anything else.'

Spencer paused, turning the diagnosis over in his mind, and she waited with the air of someone having their homework marked.

'I bet you're right,' he said, and she looked pleased. 'I'll have a chat with her. Good call.' He tipped an imaginary hat. 'You realize that you're wasted addressing envelopes?' Or repairing the coffee-machine, he thought, or sorting the post, or typing memos, or pointing Dov Steiner in the general direction of his next appointment, or the ninety other jobs she carried out without effort or fuss or much apparent satisfaction during the average day. 'You do realize that, don't you?' he added.

She looked at him for a moment. 'I'm beginning to,' she said. 'Do you want your message now? It's fairly complicated and I had to use a sort of shorthand.'

'Go on then.'

She took a closely written piece of paper from the desk and scrutinized it for a few moments, her lips moving soundlessly. 'Right, I think I've got it. Vincent Jayaram called.'

'Vincent? I haven't spoken to him for ages.'

'He said that a very flamboyant American man named Reuben had rung Casualty and asked if anyone knew a doctor named Spencer. Vincent didn't have your work number so he took the message and then tracked you down through the GP Training Scheme office. Anyway, this man told Vincent he's back in London on nun-related business, that's definitely N-U-N I checked ' she glanced up, bemused, as Spencer laughed ' for one night only, and did you want to meet up with him and Miles and another name that Vincent didn't catch for a good old knees-up '

'A what?'

' and he said they'd be at The c.o.c.kney pub from eight onwards, and that you'd definitely know where that was because it was on your list and that the only excuse he'd accept for your absence was a motorbike accident.' She paused and looked at him. 'That all makes sense, does it?'

'Perfectly,' said Spencer. He realized that he was grinning.

'And he Vincent said that even though it sounds like the worst night out he's ever heard of, as your unofficial psychiatrist he thinks it's about time you got off your backside and re-embraced life in all its forms, and that having a good time does not in any way const.i.tute a betrayal.'

'I see.'

'And he also wanted me to tell you that Mrs ' She checked the note again.

'Spelko,' he supplied.

'Thank you. That Mrs Spelko recently removed a spleen in twenty-six minutes from first cut to closure and that her sole raison d'tre now is to beat her own record.'

'Right.'

'And that's it,' she said, folding the note. 'I'm glad it made sense; I felt a bit like a Bletchley Park stenographer.' She handed it to him and he felt the odd liberation of being under orders.

'Thanks, Iris. Mr Turing's very grateful.'

'I don't know where this pub is, but you know it's already a quarter past seven?'

'Is it? I'll have to go straight there.' He checked what he was wearing. 'Is this all right? No stains I haven't spotted? No dangling threads?'

She shook her head. 'You look very smart.'

'Iris, this is a date.'

'Oh.' She blushed. 'Then you look very nice.'

'Thank you. And so do you, incidentally,' he added, remembering that he'd meant to say something. That morning, for the first time since he'd met her, Iris had been wearing an item of clothing that wasn't completely unnoticeable. 'That colour really suits you. Is it new?'

'Um. Yes.' She looked down at herself and warily fingered the royal-blue shirt. 'I bought it last weekend.'

'It really brings out your eyes.'

She gave him an odd look. 'Thanks.'

'You're welcome.' He stood up and stretched and was surprised by a sudden burst of energy; he felt as if the top of his head had been uncorked and a youthful fizz was rushing through it. 'So how come you're working so late?'

'I'm doing some invites of my own. Actually,' she looked up at him hopefully, 'I don't know whether you'd like to come.'

'What is it?'

'It's my father's seventieth birthday. We're having a surprise party.'

'Really?' He had met her father a couple of times at surgery, and he hadn't struck him as the soul of spontaneous enjoyment.

'I think he'll hate it,' she added, as if reading his mind.

'So why...?'

'It wasn't my idea,' she said, a little grimly, 'but I couldn't veto it without seeming a complete killjoy. Ayesha's coming. And Dov you'd be someone for him to talk to,' she added hopefully.

'Oh goody. There's a tempting prospect.'

'Please. It'll be just after work and it's only five minutes away, and I know Dad would really love to have two doctors there.'

'Is Tammy going to be there?'

Her mouth twitched. 'Yes.'

'I'm coming,' he said. 'Just you try and stop me.'

'Outside he was relieved to see that Callum had gone, leaving only a scattering of splashy mementos. He picked his way between them to the car and then sat for a while with the A to Z open at the narrow streets of the City, trying to remember the route which only a year ago he could have walked blindfold.

It was The c.o.c.kney Pub that had triggered the entire list. From his fifth-floor hospital bed, and with the aid of binoculars to enhance his failing vision, Mark had been able to make out the pub facade with its ineptly painted frieze of dancing pearly kings, and after a few days of ribald speculation had demanded that Spencer make a special trip to find out what went on there and what, specifically, was written on the blackboard outside.

'Eight p.m. Singalong with Mrs Harris,' he had reported back. 'Nine p.m. Roll out the Barrel, all draught beers a third off. Ten p.m. Knees Up with Andy.'

Mark had been drinking a build-up milkshake at the time and had sprayed it clear across the room on receipt of this information. From then on it had become a daily detour for Spencer, a chance to present Mark with a nugget of diversion on every visit.

'Seven thirty tonight, c.o.c.kney Bingo,' he'd announced one evening. 'And it's followed at eight thirty by Get Out Your Pearlies.'

'What the f.u.c.k's that?'

'It's a smile compet.i.tion.'

'Who goes there? You've got to tell me who goes there.'

Spencer had found out the next evening when, sidling into the bar, he had witnessed a group of j.a.panese businessmen being taught the words to 'Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road' by a man dressed as a chimney sweep.

'G.o.d knows what they must think of London,' he'd said to Mark afterwards. 'One of them had a brochure from Madame Tussaud's so they're really plumbing the depths.'

'Madame Tussaud's is brilliant,' Mark had said.

'Is it? I've never been.'

'You've never been?' He had started the list that evening; he had died five weeks later.

It was as he locked the car that Spencer began to feel a creeping sense of unease: a slight lurch in the stomach, a tattoo of little pinp.r.i.c.ks across the back of the neck. He had found a parking s.p.a.ce in a deserted street behind St Paul's and as he walked past the darkened shops shops that sold hunting prints and furled umbrellas and pipes of pointless curliness the sensation gradually increased. He checked behind him but the street was empty and unthreatening, the only noise his own footsteps and the blurred roar of traffic.

He walked on, aware that with every few yards the feeling was intensifying. Cold hands, dry mouth, increased pulse rate, shallow respirations one adrenaline-related symptom succeeded another, as his body prepared for... for what? This wasn't pre-date nervousness but a growing sense of dread, formless but intense, and as he turned the familiar corner and saw the hospital entrance across the square, he realized with a shock what was happening: it was a visceral time-slip. His body thought that he was visiting Mark, and had cranked up the usual awful antic.i.p.ation.

His heart was pounding so hard that he could feel his sternum jump with every beat, and he took some deep, rather shaky breaths and then crossed to the centre of the square and sat for a while on a bench beside the dried-up fountain. The feeling ebbed slowly. He could hear a noisy group of men approaching along a side street, but for the moment the only other person visible was one of the meat porters from the nearby market, taking a quiet f.a.g break beneath a street lamp. During the final days of Mark's life, when he could no longer see, or speak, but seemed to like to hear people talking, Spencer had sometimes filled the silence by giving a running commentary on the view from the window. From the fifth floor it was impossible to see people's faces, but during the day the square was busy and there were hats and bald spots and paunches to describe, and during the night there was always a white-overalled porter to be seen, for whom he could invent a name and a history and whose shoulder breadth could be awarded marks out of ten.

He gave the fattish guy under the street lamp a valedictory five.

The shouters city boys, effortlessly loud had reached the square and Spencer watched idly as they cl.u.s.tered at the entrance to a bar. The wide steel door was designed to look like that of a walk-in fridge and he realized with a jolt of grim amus.e.m.e.nt that the bar was called The Meat Locker. He also realized, a split second later, that what he was looking at was The c.o.c.kney Pub, renamed, refurbished and defunct. There was nothing remaining of the old facade, but he recognized the shops on either side, and the bricked-up window on the second floor, and when he turned his head and craned upwards he could see the window of Mark's room on Lilac Ward, the curtains still a zingy orange.

Vincent answered the phone with his usual thoroughness, giving his full name and t.i.tle and beginning on the area code before Spencer could interrupt.

'h.e.l.lo, Vincent.'

'Spencer, you got my message?'

'Yes thanks.'

'That was a very calm woman I spoke to at your surgery. I was impressed by how quickly she grasped the situation.'

'Yes, she's very good.'

'Fast writer, pleasant disposition, unfussy speaks with clarity but without excessive volume. They're all underrated qualities.'

'I'll tell her.'

'So where are you? Did you take my advice?'

'I'm in a phone box, outside what used to be The c.o.c.kney Pub. It changed hands last year. It doesn't exist any more.'

'And your friends aren't there?'

'No, maybe they went away when they couldn't find it. It's full of city types.' Spencer paused, breathing heavily. 'I just thought I'd phone you. As my unofficial psychiatrist.'

'Is it a bad evening?'

'Yup.' He had set up a little stack of ten-pence coins on the coinbox and he started moving them, one at a time, to a different spot. 'You don't mind me phoning, do you?'

'Of course not. Have you enough money for this? Do you want me to ring you back?'

'No, I've got plenty.'

'So why's it a bad evening? Apart from missing your friends.'

'I... had a sort of flashback and it threw me a bit. I thought it was a year ago, I thought I was visiting Mark and I was scared s.h.i.tless.'

'Why were you scared?'

'Because every time I visited I thought things couldn't get worse without him actually dying, but they went on getting worse and he was still alive.' He wiped his face with a sleeve and resumed stacking the coins. 'I'd forgotten I'd felt like that.'

'And that was last March?'

'Yes. I was working in obstetrics during the day and coming here every evening.' He remembered being aware of the dismal irony of the situation; the nightly tube journey that took him from a ward full of noisy beginnings to a room where the end never seemed to come.

'Here?' said Vincent. 'What do you mean by "here"?'