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communicate itself to colleagues and patients alike and he was universally regarded and respected for his genuineness. He said what he thought or nothing at all. He had no acquired bedside manner, no instant smile etched with insincerity, no eye to the future in whatever he said or did. Being a loner did confer on him a certain remoteness but it was not a hostile remoteness and the shutters only went up when anyone tried to get too close to him. But even that was done with elegance. He simply side-stepped anything he saw as an intrusion into his privacy with a, by now, practised ease and charm. He had a quiet intelligence that inspired confidence and an air of gentleness that the nurses in particular regarded more highly than any of his other qualities.
    The staff in A&E at Skelmore General knew that Saracen was a far better doctor than Nigel Garten, the unit chief, and had even been known on occasion to voice that opinion within earshot of Saracen. But he would have none of it. He had never been known to say a word against Garten in public, something that only made the staff respect him more.
    Nurses had been known to feel something more than respect for Saracen, for women found him attractive, not that he was overly handsome in the classical sense but his gentleness, his dark eyes and the enigma of his being a loner ensured that female company was always available should he desire it. And desire it he did, but only ever on a casual basis; that was always made clear from the start; friendship and fun was as far as the relationship was likely to go. It was for this reason Saracen tended to avoid involvement with young, impressionable student nurses who might conceivably see sex as a bargaining measure. Relationships with older woman were always more relaxed and satisfactory.
     
    Saracen looked out of the window and wondered what he should do with his time off. He considered going up to the hospital in the morning and poking around the mortuary in search of some answers to the things that troubled him and then he considered just forgetting the whole thing. The whisky helped him see the attraction of the latter option. It seemed a shame to spend a precious day off at the hospital. Why not do something entirely different? Why not?…Saracen thought for a moment and then he had it. Sea air! That’s what he needed. A good brisk walk by the sea would clear away the remaining traces of poison from his lungs. He would drive down to Gerham-on-sea and walk along the beach. It was only a ten mile drive and he could have lunch at the Ship Inn. That’s what he would do.

Chapter Three
     
     
    The fact that Gerham-on-sea was close to Skelmore was one of the few things that the job at Skelmore General had in its favour as far as Saracen was concerned. He had a soft spot for the English seaside resort, not knowing if this was a legacy from the happy holidays he had spent as a child with bucket and spade on British sand or whether it was something he had acquired after the obligatory period of outgrowing it. Whatever the reason, Saracen liked Gerham; for him it was the perfect example of the genre.
    According to Saracen’s rules Gerham-on-sea had everything it should have, a long pier with a theatre at the end, a life boat station, rows of boarding houses with absolutely predictable names, indeed one of the joys of his first visit had been looking for ‘Seaview’ and finding it. He had followed up with ‘Bella Vista’ and had completed a successful hat trick by coming across ‘Dunromin’ at the end of Beach Road.
    Many of the other houses were obvious amalgams of their owners’ names and it always brought a smile to Saracen’s face when he thought about them coming up with the names in the first place.
    “I’ve got it Margaret! We’ll call it ‘Jimar’!”
    “That’s a wonderful idea…Jim.”
    There was no sneer involved. Saracen’s affection for the place was quite genuine.
    On an April day Gerham-on-sea was almost