Eventually, the three doctors adjourned to Angela’s study-cum-sitting room, on the other side of the front hall from the laboratory. It had a matching bay window looking out over the valley, with the little-used front door between.

Priscilla came directly to the point. ‘Now that you’re back, I feel redundant,’ she said. ‘I’d better start making plans to move out.’

Richard Pryor shook his head. ‘Angela and I discussed this on the phone the other night. We were fortunate in getting you to stand in when she had to go away, and we thought it would be for much longer than this. Thankfully, it wasn’t, but we can’t chuck you out so soon. Business is building up quite well, so will you stay for a bit longer? In fact, until you get fixed up with something else.’

Priscilla looked from one to the other. ‘I’d love to — but I really think I should get back to London and keep looking for a job in archaeology. That’s where most opportunities are likely to arise.’

She had been lodging in a bed and breakfast in the village half a mile away and, though it was quite comfortable, she missed the bustle of the metropolis, unlike Richard and Angela, who had settled happily into these beautiful rural surroundings.

Since they first moved in the previous May, they had lived together in the big house, no doubt giving ammunition for the village tongue-waggers in Tintern Parva, just down the valley. However, the arrangement had remained professional and platonic, though there had been a couple of occasions when the conventions had been a little strained.

Angela and Richard were equal partners in the venture, as when they had set up their partnership earlier that year, Richard contributed both his golden handshake from Singapore University, where he had been Professor of Forensic Medicine, as well as the house he had been left by his aunt. On her part, Angela had put the proceeds of the sale of her London flat into the pot and with the added help of a modest mortgage, they had raised the capital needed to make some alterations to the rooms and equip the laboratory.