‘And I said to myself-a doctor? Yes. Just what we need. Dr Rochester needs help so much. But then I saw the pencilling saying massage and I said to myself we don’t need a massage parlour here-that’s the last thing we want in a respectable town like this-and I phoned Fred on the town council before I went to bed. But he said it’s not like I think-it’s a proper nice massage that you get when you hurt yourself and then he told me who it was who’d applied to run it and I was so excited. I thought I’d come down this very morning to see for myself and… Oh, my dear, it is so good to see you again.’

The Crimplene flooded toward her again and Ally managed to give Darcy a despairing glance before she was once again enfolded.

‘Um… It seems you two know each other,’ Darcy said.

‘Mmph.’ It was all Ally could manage.

‘And you’re using your grandpa’s name,’ Doris was saying. ‘Dr Westruther. How wonderful is that? I never did like Lindford. Evil is as evil does and…’ She caught herself. ‘Well, he was your father and he’s long dead so maybe I shouldn’t be speaking ill of him. But if your poor mother had just decided to go back to using Westruther…’ She gulped and hauled back, still hanging onto Ally but beaming across at Darcy. ‘Isn’t this just wonderful? A Dr Westruther in Tambrine Creek again after all these years.’

‘She’s a masseur,’ Darcy said, and Ally glowered.

‘Don’t say it like I’m a dung beetle.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, dear,’ Doris told her. ‘He’s the best thing since sliced bread is our Dr Rochester. Do you know, we didn’t have a doctor for five years before he came. And he’s so nice.’

‘I can see that,’ Ally agreed.

‘I did hold the ladder,’ he told her. ‘And I got blue hands.’

‘You scared me.’

‘Your grandpa was the doctor here?’

‘Grandpa died seventeen years ago.’

‘That’s when Ally left town,’ Doris told him. ‘Her father came and took her away. Nothing we could say made any difference. But…he looked after you, didn’t he, lass?’