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that served as a nurse’s office. Timetables, rotas and pictures of the Virgin lined the walls. He motioned them to be seated.
    ‘I thought I should bring you up to date on our thinking about this case,’ he began. Michael Delaney felt a moment of resentment. His son was more than a case. ‘James’,
the doctor carried on, ‘is still with us. We do not know how long it will take for the drugs to pass out of his system. Certainly their power is less, considerably less, than it was twelve
hours ago. Our hypothesis, and it is only a hypothesis, has been that if the withdrawal was going to kill him, it would probably have done so by now.’
    ‘Does that mean, Doctor,’ said Delaney, the hat spinning ever faster in his hands, ‘that he is going to recover, that he’s getting better?’
    Dr Stead had heard this note of hope against all the odds many times before. ‘I don’t think we could say that. Not yet. Not now. At this point the absence of bad news is almost good
news. That is all I can say, I’m afraid. It’s too soon for hope, for the present.’
    Delaney pressed him. ‘I understand your qualifications, of course I do. But would you say that his chances of recovery are better now? Better than they were, I mean?’
    The doctor looked down at his journal. ‘I would not wish to give you false hope. But if you pressed me, I should say that the answer is yes. Or probably yes. Our knowledge is so limited.
Forgive me, but I have been looking at a recent article in my medical journal here about the process of dying. It is, if you like, a timetable of the way death comes over the body. It is concerned
with diseases similar to, but obviously not the same, as James Delaney’s. It suggests to me that if he were going to pass away, he would have done so by now. I emphasize the word
“suggests”. We could be wrong.’
    Delaney was still looking for comfort. ‘Should we be more hopeful now? Is the worst over?’
    The doctor shook his head. ‘I could not agree to that at this moment. The crisis is not over. It may yet be ahead of us, I don’t know. But the breathing has become slightly more
regular in the last two or three hours. His colour may be fractionally better. That is good.’
    ‘And what’, Delaney went on, ‘would you have us do now? Should we stay with him through the night?’
    ‘That is entirely up to you. I think I would say that you should go home and rest before you come back. Lack of sleep is well known for causing lack of judgement. You have to weigh in the
balance the possibility of his leaving us while you are away against the need to remain strong for the days ahead, as you certainly have done up till now, Mr Delaney. Dr Moreland or I will stay on
duty by the bedside.’
    ‘I see,’ said Delaney. ‘Thank you so much for keeping us in the picture.’
    Father Kennedy added his weight to the doctor’s opinion. ‘I too think you should go home, Michael. I’m sure we can leave the young man in the hands of the medical staff. And,
of course, in the hands of God.’
    Delaney made up his mind quickly. In his own kingdom of finance he was famous for it. Father Kennedy accompanied him down the long corridor that led out of the hospital. They would both return
in a couple of hours.
    ‘Father, can you tell me some more about that saint on the wall? I’ve been looking at him all day. St James the Greater, you said he was called?’
    ‘Fisherman, disciple, martyr,’ Father Kennedy replied. ‘He was beheaded for his beliefs by Herod Agrippa, grandson of the biblical Herod, in about 44 AD . Legend has it that his
body was taken to the north-western coast of Spain in a stone boat. His remains were discovered centuries later.’
    ‘And what was he made a saint for?’ asked Delaney, pausing suddenly.
    ‘If you were a disciple and a martyr,’ said Father Kennedy, ‘it was virtually certain that you would become a saint some day. In fact, St James the Greater became much more
famous after