It was Wednesday, but there was nothing else for him to do until the following Monday, when he was to start carrying out post-mortems for the coroner at the small public mortuaries in the area – assuming there were any customers that day. Though he wished no one any ill will, he trusted that the mortality statistics would ensure that there be some sudden deaths, suicides and accidents, as this would be almost their only financial income until their reputation spread and business came in from further afield. Thanks to a professional contact in Bristol University, he had been offered twenty lectures a year to medical students. The salary was derisory, but it gave him a nominal academic appointment and hopefully widened his medico-legal contacts which could lead to work from police, lawyers and doctors in the area.

As he hefted up heavy textbooks on to the shelves, he thought that the last time he had opened any of them was six thousand miles away, in the island city at the bottom of the Malay peninsula. He had enjoyed his years in Singapore, but with the Empire rapidly shrinking, it was time to move on, especially when the university had been so generous in wanting to get rid of him.

As he ruminated about his life in the tropics – and his failed marriage – he heard the distant ringing of the telephone on a table in the hall. Pryor had already asked the GPO to put extensions in the office and the two doctors’ rooms, but it would be weeks before they got around to it. He started towards it, but his new employee had beaten him to it.

‘There’s a call for you, Prof!’ said Sian, speaking as excitedly as if the call was from Mars. ‘It’s some solicitor, maybe he’s got some work for us.’

Sian Lloyd had already identified strongly with the venture and was agog that maybe someone wanted their expertise. Pryor hurried into the hall and picked up the heavy black phone. A carefully measured voice answered his ‘hello’.