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 beach-heads 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.