‘That’s the last of the stuff from the car,’ he announced, his good humour returning. ‘So I’ll start shifting some of this stuff into the lab.’

He climbed to his feet and took off the jacket of his crumpled linen suit, which like all his clothes, was a legacy of more than a decade in the Far East. Before next winter, he reflected wryly, he would have to get something warmer.

Angela looked up briefly from her papers.

‘Sian will be back soon, she can tell you where some of the things go. Then she can start putting the reagent bottles and apparatus in the right places.’

He humped a dozen boxes into the next room, which had been his late aunt’s dining room but which now was lined with white Formica-topped kitchen units, a large wooden table standing in the bay window. With the last carton in his arms, he stopped in front of Angela.

‘Where d’you want this microscope?’

She tapped her lists together and stood up, almost as tall as Pryor.

‘I’ll come and see, shall I? You’ll be using it as well, once we get some histology going.’ They spent the next hour in their new laboratory, unpacking boxes and starting to fill cupboards with bottles of chemicals and strangely shaped bits of glass. Even though it was not yet mid-morning, the old mansion was already stifling in the hot June day and Angela Bray mentally added a couple of electric fans to her next list of purchases.

‘Where’s that damned girl?’ asked Richard eventually. ‘I hope she’s going to be reliable.’

Sian Lloyd, their new laboratory technician-cum-secretary had offered to stop off at the post office to get a supply of stamps and a wireless licence.

Angela sighed. ‘She has to get a bus from Chepstow, then walk up from the village. Give her a break, Richard, she doesn’t have a car like us.’

‘Talking of a break, we could do with our elevenses.’

He looked hopefully at his partner, who steadfastly ignored his hint that she should assume some domestic duties. ‘There’s no milk’ she said. ‘But if you want black Nescafé, feel free to make it.’