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could tell by the way she was frowning and shaking her head that he had ruffled her professional feathers by suggesting Barry take over the case.
    â€œI can do antenatal visits perfectly well, you know, Doctor O’Reilly. I fail to see why we need to involve Doctor Laverty…”
    â€œWhoa, Jenny.” O’Reilly held up his hand. Lord, he thought, preserve me from professional sensitivity. “You can indeed,” he said. “But there are two things you need to think about. First, you’ll not be doing her ongoing care or delivery…”
    â€œBut I could. I’m fully trained.”
    â€œJenny, you’re here to run a clinic, not run obstetric services.” O’Reilly kept his voice quite level.
    â€œI suppose.” She sounded a bit less tense.
    â€œAnd second, she has a small anterior fibroid that you don’t know about and that Barry and I have both had the opportunity to examine.”
    â€œOh,” said Jenny, clearly distressed. “I should have—I could have—”
    â€œNo, you couldn’t. You haven’t seen her old notes because the patients don’t make appointments in advance, and you’d no idea who was coming today and couldn’t look at her medical history beforehand. And like an eejit I’d locked the filing cabinet after morning surgery the way I always do. You’d no reason to suspect anything much in a healthy young woman and reckoned you’d find out about anything unusual when you took her history for the well-woman form.”
    â€œYou’re right. And if I’d been worried I’d have asked you to unlock the files,” Jenny said.
    â€œI’m sure you would. Now look, because it’s not going to make any difference to her care, it didn’t really matter that you didn’t know. And I didn’t want to mention the fibroid in front of her. There’s no reason to worry her.”
    â€œOh,” said Jenny. “I see. That makes sense.” She nodded, smiled. “Sorry, Fingal. Sometimes I can be a bit touchy.”
    â€œI understand.” And he did. It would have been much harder for a young woman at medical school. She’d have had to fight her own battles, he was sure, but Jenny was not using that as an excuse now. He admired that. “Warm in here,” he said, and he wasn’t only referring to the heat of the sun. “Let’s get a bit of fresh air.” He went to the window and opened it. For the moment there was no traffic noise on Main Street and from the trees of the churchyard opposite a series of twice-repeated notes rang loudly and sweetly. “Hear that?” he said. “The song thrush is back.”
    â€œIt’s a beautiful song,” Jenny said.
    â€œIt is that,” said O’Reilly, “and I’d be happy to listen to it all day, but I think, Doctor Bradley, perhaps I’d better go and get your next patient.”
    â€œThanks, Fingal,” she said quietly, and he knew what he was being thanked for.
    As he left, the bird began again and the purity of its song reminded him of a caged bird in a hotel lobby, long ago.

5
    Cry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Dogs of War
    Fingal had finished handing his suitcase and their coats to the cloakroom attendant. The caged budgerigar in the lobby of Belfast’s Midland Hotel tweedled, pecked at its cuttlebone, and for no apparent reason announced, “Get up. Get up.”
    â€œPoor wee thing,” Deirdre said as they passed it on their way to the hotel’s palm court dining room.
    â€œIndeed it is,” Fingal said. “And far from home. Its ancestors came from the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Madeira.”
    â€œAnd you’re going to be far from home too, Fingal,” she said.
    He was. Nazi Germany’s jackbooted armies, panzer columns, and squadrons of stukas with their “Jericho Trumpet” dive sirens screaming had smashed into Poland