His secretary was there before him, the list of appointments ready waiting on his desk, along with the necessary files, the coffee being made, exactly as he liked it. She was the best. He only employed the best, just as he only bought the best.

The first patient on his list was seventeen, the age that Ellie had been. There the likeness ended. His patient was weary with illness. Ellie had been an earth nymph, vibrant with life, laughing her way through the world with the confidence of someone who knew she was blessed by the gods, and laughter would last for ever.

‘Mr Blake?’ Miss Hasting was eyeing him with concern.

He shook himself out of his reverie. ‘I’m sorry, did you speak?’

‘I asked if you’d seen the test results. They’re just here…’

He grunted, annoyed with himself for the moment of inattention. That was a weakness, and he always concealed weakness. Miss Hasting was too well disciplined to notice. She was a perfectly functioning machine. Like himself.

Ellie’s beauty had been wild and overflowing, making him think of wine and sun, freedom and splendour: all the good things of life that had been his for such a brief time.

He switched the thought off as easily as he would have switched off the light behind an X-ray. He had a heavy day ahead.

Besides, it hadn’t been her.

‘Time for me to start on my ward rounds,’ he told Miss Hasting briefly. ‘Make a call to…’ For five minutes he gave brisk instructions.

When he went out into the corridor again the woman was gone.

He was glad of that.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE would have known him anywhere, any time. Down the length of the corridor. Down the length of the years.

Years that had changed her from a flighty, blinkered young girl who’d thought the world danced to her merry tune, to a bitter, grieving woman who knew that the world was something you had to fight. And you could never, ever really win.