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buying me a shirt. ‘Well, he was in that raid. And then what?’
    ‘A piece of shrapnel of some kind, sir. Caught his cheek on the right. There was a good deal of contamination with brick dust and other debris and though the wound was carefully cleaned at the time - once they got him out, that is, and that took several hours - and it was tolerably well stitched, there is a degree of keloid about the scar. He’s got some shrinkage of the musculature so that his smile has been altered - the corner of the mouth on the right lifts slightly - ’
    And when it does, a little voice deep in her mind whispered, when it does, your belly turns over.
    ‘- and there’s a slight pull on the eye on that side. You may not think it all that bad, and it wouldn’t be perhaps if he were anything but what he is. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief - their faces don’t matter so much. But an actor?’
    ‘I’ve seen some actors with less than perfect faces,’ Max said drily. ‘And I believe that there are some who make an excellent living mainly because they have rather odd faces, rather than because they have perfect ones.’
    ‘Perhaps they were born with such looks and learned to get used to them,’ Charlie said. ‘Brin - Mr Lackland - started out with considerable good looks and regarded them as a definite asset to his career. He’s now lost them because of this injury and the effect has been to make him very - to cause considerable disturbance.’
    Max looked at her shrewdly. ‘Tried to do some damage tohimself, has he?’
    She went scarlet. ‘How did you - I mean, I really can’t -’
    Max shook his head, amused at her naivety. ‘My dear girl, you really must give me some credit for having experience in my own speciality! I’ve been called in by more surgeons and dermatologists and what-have-yous because their depressed patients have made a suicide bid and listened to them waffling around the issue in a state of sheer funk, terrified I’m going to call in the police and have them hauled off to court. But do be reasonable, my dear! I’m a psychiatrist, one who is concerned with the psychological well-being of my patients. I’m the last person to help the police uphold a law I consider appalling! I’ve kept the police at arms’ length in more attempted suicide cases than you’ve removed appendices. So let’s stop making silly evasions and get this story sorted out properly. What did he do?’
    ‘He swallowed a handful of Nembutal.’
    ‘How many?’
    ‘I’m not sure. He was rather vague about it. I was on duty late one night and I went to do a ward round and - ’
    Went to do a ward round? jeered the little voice inside her mind. Went to see him, you mean. You’re besotted with him and that was why you were on duty late, just for the chance of seeing him.
    ‘I was doing a late round,’ she said more loudly, looking very directly at Max, aware of her still heightened colour and furious with herself because of it. ‘And I went to the ward to see him. I’d been trying to do a neatening of the mucous membrane inside the mouth and was going to see if we could reassess the possibility of excising the keloid to tidy his scar, and that was why he was in the ward. I found him very dozy and - ’ She swallowed. ‘He was flushed and agitated and I asked him why he was in such a state and he told me he’d been saving up his Nembutal because he was so unhappy and - ’ She stopped and stared down at the floor. How could she tell the hard-faced man sitting there looking at her so coolly how she had felt when it had all happened? How there had been that lurch of sheer terror as she had looked down on that flushed face she loved so much and seen the tears in those dark eyes, and how her hands had shaken as she had pulled back the covers and unbuttoned his pyjama jacket so that she could setthe bell of her stethoscope to his chest?
    His heart had been pounding strongly but dreadfully fast, and she had stood there listening, trying