The children nodded and the old lady stood. Her face had cleared a little, some of the horror fading.

‘My daughter truly will be well?’

‘She truly will be well,’ Ben said, and he and Lily stood and watched as the little family bade them farewell and went to do their hospital visiting.

Ben was left with Lily.

She looked a thousand per cent better than the night before, he thought. She’d showered and changed. She was wearing a tiny denim skirt, a T-shirt and leather sandals-hardly the attire of a doctor about to do her rounds-but he could see nothing amiss with it. Except that her legs were covered with scratches. A couple of them were deep and nasty.

‘Let me see to your legs,’ he said, and she gazed down as if wondering what he was talking about. Seeing the bloody scratches, she merely shrugged.

‘They’ll be fine. Trivial stuff.’

‘Not so trivial if they get infected.’

‘I have more to worry about than infected legs.’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But legs come first. You want to come voluntarily or do you want to be carried? I’m a lieutenant, you know. I have authority in this place.’

She managed a feeble smile. ‘I’d rather be bribed with sweets,’ she said, and he shoved a hand in his pocket and produced a handful.

‘Eat one,’ he said, and she shook her head.

‘When did you last eat?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Then eat a sweet,’ he told her. ‘I’ll bathe those legs and then you’re going to be fed.’

‘But-’

‘Don’t argue, Dr Cyprano. As of last night your deputy head of council gave us authority in this place. I’m therefore representing the occupying force and what I say goes. You eat.’

She opened her mouth to protest. He’d been unwrapping a sweet while he’d talked and he popped it in.

‘No protests.’

‘No, sir,’ she told him with a mouth full of red sweet. ‘Or, yes, sir. I don’t know which.’