LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      All right. All right! gasped Pascoe in his agony. It’s June the sixth and it’s Normandy. The British Second Army under Montgomery will make its beachheads between Arromanches and Ouistreham while the Yanks hit the Cotentin peninsula. Then …

      ‘That’ll do. Rinse. Just the filling to go in now. Thank you, Alison.’

      He took the grey paste his assistant had prepared and began to fill the cavity. There wasn’t much, Pascoe observed gloomily. The drilling couldn’t have taken more than half a minute.

      ‘What did I get this time?’ asked Shorter, when he’d finished.

      ‘The lot. You could have had the key to Monty’s thunderbox if I’d got it.’

      ‘I obviously missed my calling,’ said Shorter. ‘Still, it’s nice to share at least one of my patients’ fantasies. I often wonder what’s going on behind the blank stares. Alison, you can push off to lunch now, love. Back sharp at two, though. It’s crazy afternoon.’

      ‘What’s that?’ asked Pascoe, standing up and fastening his shirt collar which he had always undone surreptitiously till he got on more familiar terms with Shorter.

      ‘Kids,’ said Shorter. ‘All ages. With mum and without. I don’t know which is worse. Peter, can you spare a moment?’

      Pascoe glanced at his watch.

      ‘As long as you’re not going to tell me I’ve got pyorrhoea.’

      ‘It’s all those dirty words you use,’ said Shorter. ‘Come into the office and have a mouthwash.’

      Pascoe followed him across the vestibule of the old terraced house which had been converted into a surgery. The spring sunshine still had to pass through a stained-glass panel on the front door and it threw warm gules like bloodstains on to the cracked tiled floor.

      There were three of them in the practice: MacCrystal, the senior partner, so senior he was almost invisible; Ms Lacewing, early twenties, newly qualified, an advanced thinker; and Shorter himself. He was in his late thirties but it didn’t show except at the neck. His hair was thick and black and he was as lean and muscular as a fit twenty-year-old. Pascoe who was a handful of years younger indulged his resentment at the other man’s youthfulness by never mentioning it. Over the long period during which he had been a patient, a pleasant first name relationship had developed between the men. They had shared their fantasy fears about each other’s professions and Pascoe’s revelation of his Gestapo-torture confessions under the drill had given them a running joke, though it had not yet run them closer together than sharing a table if they met in a pub or restaurant.

      Perhaps, thought Pascoe as he watched Shorter pouring a stiff gin and tonic, perhaps he’s going to invite me and Ellie to his twenty-first party. Or sell us a ticket to the dentists’ ball. Or ask me to fix a parking ticket.

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