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Aloud she said, 'Certainly the front-line troops need their back-up staff—if you'll forgive the military analogy—but a hospital without its doctors and nurses would make a nonsense of most other departments, would it not?' Yes, that found its mark, judging by your expression! 'But I'm afraid I'm keeping you from your lunch. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me—I found it very informative.'
    I was probably way over the top there, decided Yona after the woman had told her rather shakily that she was free to go. But what a nerve she's got—lecturing me as though I were a potential trainee stamp-licker straight from school!
    'You didn't enjoy that little session,' commented Charlie Price when Yona eventually joined him in the canteen, after taking two wrong turnings.
    She smiled and gave him a potted version of the interview, and was soothed by his indignation. 'I dare say she meant well,' she felt able to say then. 'And no doubt she has a relevant health-care qualification.'
    'Are you kidding?' asked Charlie. 'She came to us from a firm of management consultants that had gone bust.'
    At that, Yona burst out laughing, drawing interested glances from nearby tables. Charlie seized that chance to make some introductions. What a pleasant lot, she thought later when going to join the boss as instructed. And a vast improvement on Mr Michael. Preston!
    She was five minutes early, but the professor was already there, eating a stale-looking sandwich and drinking coffee from a paper cup. 'You've caught me,' he said, looking like a naughty schoolboy. 'But my wife has threatened to leave me if I miss lunch more than twice a week.'
    'I'm surprised that she allows you even two weekly lapses,' returned Yona, who was warming rapidly to her new boss. 'I do hope it'll not be long before you let me take some of the load off your shoulders, sir.'
    'You must be a very formal lot up there in Edinburgh,' he said, 'if registrars are still calling the consultants 'sir'. Some of the younger ones here get their first names—even from students sometimes, though I'm bound to say I find that just a trifle too egalitarian.'
    Yona recalled Charlie calling Mr Preston Mike before she said, 'I was brought up the old way—sir.'
    'Yes, you would be,' he replied. Was that another reference to her famous father? She hoped not. 'Anyway, behind the scenes I'm Ted,' he invited.
    'Thank you—and I'm Yona,' she was saying when brisk, firm steps in the corridor were followed by a single brief rap on the door before Mike Preston came in. He had added a tie and a white coat to his morning outfit but, in Yona's opinion, he still didn't look the part.
    'I hope you don't mind, Ted,' he began, without so much as a glance for Yona, 'but I've told Senga Taggart that she can come this afternoon. She can't manage the usual follow-up clinic. Her niece is getting married that day.'
    'No problem,' agreed the professor, 'and it will be nice for our new colleague to meet up with a fellow Scot,' he added, by way of bringing Yona into the picture. 'You've not yet met my new registrar, Mike—Mr Mike Preston— Dr Yona MacFarlane.'
    'We met this morning—briefly,' said Mike Preston. He didn't add that he'd caught her trying to read something on her boss's desk, as she'd been prepared for. Yona was grudgingly grateful for that. 'You'll find us Lancastrians very direct and down-to-earth after the rarefied atmosphere of Edinburgh, Dr MacFarland,' he warned.
    MacFarland, indeed! She'd show him. 'We Scots are a hardy lot, Mr Prescot,' she retorted, chin well up. 'It'll be our dreadful weather, no doubt.'
    His eyes narrowed at that and the merest twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested that he'd recognised a worthy adversary. Meanwhile, the professor, who hadn't noticed the name mis-calling, was welcoming their first patient.
    Mrs Brown had walked in slowly and painfully with the aid of elbow crutches. She wore a supporting brace on her right knee and, in the absence of a