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there.
    The child was definitely beginning to work on Kane’s nerves.
    Beede was staring at Kane, but his expression was unreadable (was it disbelief? Was it irritation? Anger? What was it?) The woman merely stared at the ground, frowning, as if carefully considering something.
    ‘Did you see him?’ Kane asked again.
    ‘Uh… no. No. And I’m late – work. I’d better head off.’ Beede spoke abruptly. He touched the woman’s sleeve (she smiled), ruffled the boy’s hair (the boy released his mother’s skirt and gazed up at him), slung his bag over his shoulder, grabbed his helmet, his goggles, and rapidly strode off.
    Kane watched him go, blankly. Then he blinked (something seemed to strike him) and he focussed –
    What?!
    Beede disappeared from view.
    ‘Is anything the matter?’ the woman asked, observing Kane’s sudden air of confusion.
    He turned to look at her. ‘No.’ He put his hand to his head.
    ‘Yeah.’ He removed his hand. ‘ No …It’s just that…’ he paused, ‘Beede…There’s something…something odd. ’
    She nodded, as if she understood what he meant.
    ‘What is it?’ he asked.
    She smiled (that smile again) but didn’t answer.
    ‘Do you know?’
    He struggled to mask his irritation. She folded her arms across her chest and nodded again, now almost teasing him.
    ‘Then what is it?’
    ‘His walk,’ she said, plainly.
    Kane drew a sharp breath. ‘His limp ,’ he exclaimed (as if this information had come to him entirely without prompting). ‘He’s lost his limp. ’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But how…? When ?’
    ‘A while ago now.’
    ‘Really?’
    She nodded. Kane scratched his jaw –
    Two days’ growth
    He felt engulfed by a sudden wave of feeblemindedness –
    Too tired
    Too stoned
    Too fucked…
    He looked at her, hard, as if she might be the answer to his problem –
    Chiropodist
    ‘Did you get rid of it?’ he asked.
    She smiled, her eyes shining.
    Kane rubbed at his own eyes. He felt a little stupid. He steadied himself.
    ‘Beede’s had that verruca since I was a kid,’ he said slowly. ‘It was pretty bad.’
    ‘I believe it was very painful,’ she said, still smiling (as if the memory of Beede’s pain was somehow delightful to her).
    He coldly observed the smile –
    Is she mocking him?
    Is she mocking me?
    – then he gradually collected his thoughts together. ‘Yes,’ he said stiffly, ‘I have one in almost exactly the same place, but it’s never really…’
    His words petered out.
    She shrugged. ‘People often inherit them. It’s fairly common. Verrucas can be neurotic…’
    ‘ Neurotic? ’
    Kane’s voice sounded louder than he’d intended.
    ‘Yes,’ she was smiling again, ‘when a patient fails to get rid of something by means of conventional medicine we tend to categorise it as a psychological problem rather than as a physical one.’
    Kane struggled to digest the implications of this information. His brain seized, initially, then it belched –
    ‘But a verruca’s just some type of…of wart, ’ he stuttered. ‘You catch them in changing rooms…’
    ‘Yes. But like any ailment it can be sustained by a kind of…’ she paused, thoughtfully ‘…inner turmoil.’
    The boy was now sitting on the floor and inspecting his matches. He shook each box, in turn, and listened intently to the sounds it made. ‘I can tell how many’s in there,’ he informed nobody in particular, ‘just from the rattlings.’
    ‘We’ve met before.’ Kane spoke, after a short silence.
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    (He already heartily disliked how she just agreed to things, in that blank – that untroubled – way. The easy acquiescence. The cool compliance. He connected it to some kind of background in nursing. He loathed nurses. He found their bedside manner – that distinctively assertive servility – false and asphyxiating.)
    ‘You treated my mother,’ he said, feeling his chest tighten. She sat down on Beede’s chair, facing him. ‘I think I did.