God alone knew how he was going to get back to Century, but Alan Millet's wife always took the car on a Saturday night to her bridge session. He'd have to go back into Century, after a thing like this it would be expected of him.

Of course, all the business could have been managed at the end of a telephone, but that wasn't the way of the Service.

Not that Alan Millet could complain. Holly was his man, and once, long ago, Holly had been his pride.

The lights of the hospital blazed down on him as he turned off the pavement and threaded his way through the car park.

The Medical Block had a certain venerable charm, and the warmth cascaded around him. He was stopped by a porter. What was his business? Coronary Care, first floor, he was expected. Alan Millet ignored the uncertain statement that visitors were not permitted this late at night. In his wallet he carried the authority of a polaroid-printed identity card that governs entry to Century House. He hesitated for a moment at the top of the stairs, looked both ways down the corridor, and saw the upright figure of a uniformed prison officer.

He nodded a courtesy greeting and pushed his way through the doors. He saw two occupied beds and, from the pillows, pairs of concerned eyes peered at him. They were the living, they could resent the circus arrival that had been summoned to the curtained laager in the far corner. There was a trolley beside the semi-concealed bed, its top stretcher surface empty. A nurse was detaching electrodes from their cables, another was writing her notes busily. Two young doctors stood close to each other, their eyes hollowed by tiredness. A pair of West Indian porters, expressionless, wheeled the trolley away across the open-plan unit and out through the door.