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somebody.
    ‘He worked in the Cabinet Office. In Edinburgh. He’d been there for ages. I think he was one of the people who drafted the original constitution. I mean the one that expressed the ideals of the founding fathers, before the totalitarians got hold of it.’
    ‘You worked for those totalitarians, Mum.’
    ‘Thanks for the reminder. I didn’t see it like that. I was trying to do my best for everybody.’ I slumped against the kitchen table suddenly. ‘I ended up not doing the best for anybody, didn’t I? Oh, God, I’m sorry.’
    She gave me a small shake. ‘Don’t be silly, the important thing was you tried. Didn’t you always say it was better to be on the inside trying to reform the system than on the outside throwing – tomatoes?’
    ‘I’m not sure about the tomatoes,’ I muttered, and then followed the direction of Jen’s gaze. ‘Real tomatoes! How did he get hold of them?’
    Jeff flashed a grin at us and winked.
    ‘He doesn’t say much, does he?’
    ‘Mum! He can hear you! You’re not old enough yet to get away with that kind of thing.’
    ‘Not old enough… I suppose that’s something.’
    ‘Is there any more?’
    ‘More? Oh, about Mr Goodfellow. Well, I first got to know him during one of those spells when we had our heads above the parapet. In my department, I mean. He helped me to draft a section in the Environmental Awareness Bill. He wasn’t very taken with the government of the day. I think he thought the rot had set in when all the parties fragmented. There was nobody to keep them in line, you see.’
    ‘In line? But it was good for democracy, wasn’t it? Giving people a voice? That kind of thing. Keeping them in line sounds as if they were all school kids.’
    ‘I suppose so… Anyway, it’ll be good to have a proper chat with him some time while we’re both here. I’d be interested to hear what he thinks about things.’
    But apparently I wasn’t destined to find that out.
    When we got back up to the ward, Mr Goodfellow wasn’t there and, more worryingly, neither was the nurse in the corner, whom I now thought of more as a security guard.
    ‘I expect he’s gone for some medical procedure,’ said Jen.  ‘He’ll be back soon.’
    But he wasn’t back at all that day. I had a bad feeling that this development might have something to do with what we had talked about earlier. Was Jeff a spy after all? Was the kitchen bugged? The answer to the second question was almost certainly ‘yes’. Why would they bother bugging the rest of the place and leaving a gap in their surveillance in a room where the usual occupant was openly behaving in a subversive manner, with his hand-chopped tomatoes and crafty little trifles?
    In the morning there was still no sign of Mr Goodfellow.
    ‘Maybe they’ve let him go home,’ said Jen uncertainly.
    ‘If he still has a home to go to,’ I said, thinking of the house we used to live in, now almost certainly under water along with most of our possessions. Still, we were all alive, I told myself for comfort. I knew thousands of people had lost their lives in the storm and the subsequent flooding. And that was just here in our own little country. The death toll across the world probably ran into millions. We were the lucky ones. The survivors.
    I shivered.
    ‘Are you all right?’ said Jen. ‘Will I get Dr Watson?’
    I knew she was worried about my fever recurring. It must have been frightening for her, not knowing what to do as the infection gradually got worse and worse. Even in the helicopter on the way to this hospital I had still been burning up and hallucinating.
    ‘I’m fine. I’d rather he hadn’t gone yet though. Now that I’ve remembered who he is, I was looking forward to having a chat.’
    ‘Maybe he’s left to avoid you!’ Jen teased.
    There might be more in that than she thought. He might not want to be reminded of occasions in his past life, which presumably was gone for ever. I would have quite liked to catch