‘Oh, Adele let her flat. Those new places down on the Quay are snapped up by companies looking for accommodation for senior staff moving into the area. They’re so convenient…’ Then, because he didn’t look especially impressed by the inevitable comparison with his own inconveniently rambling house, she said, ‘Since she wouldn’t be around to keep an eye on this place and I was having landlord trouble, we did each other a favour.’

‘Are you one of her research students?’

‘What? Oh, no. I’m her cleaner. And yours, actually,’ she said. ‘At least I was before I moved in. It’s part of the deal now I’m living here. Adele is saving you money.’

‘What happened to Mrs Turner?’ he asked, apparently not impressed with the fiscal argument.

‘Nothing. At least, quite a lot-but nothing bad. She won the Lottery and decided that it was definitely going to change her life.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, good for her.’

Could the man be any more restrained?

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asked.

Hurt herself? Was he suffering from a memory lapse? Partial amnesia, perhaps? She had done nothing. The accident had been entirely his fault…

‘When you fell,’ he persisted, presumably in case she was too dim to understand. Not that he appeared to care very much. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t bring herself to blame him.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Maybe you should check?’ he advised.

‘Good idea.’ Ellie hauled herself to her feet and discovered that her left knee did hurt quite a bit as she turned. She decided not to mention it. ‘How about you?’

Dr Faulkner winced a bit, too, as he finally made it to his feet, and she instinctively put out her hand to help him.

He didn’t exactly flinch, but it was a close-run thing, and she made a performance of testing her own limbs, flexing a wrist as if she hadn’t noticed the way he’d recoiled from her touch.