‘Why not?’ asked Harry, putting down his paper.
‘Several of my best nurses come from overseas and don’t want to appear in the witness box for fear the authorities might discover that their immigration papers are not always, let’s say, in apple-pie order.’
‘That’s no reason to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing,’ said Harry.
‘We don’t have a lot of choice if the NHS isn’t going to break down.’
‘That doesn’t alter the fact that this thug hit a nurse –’ Harry checked the article again – ‘on a Saturday night when he was obviously drunk.’
‘Saturday night is the clue,’ said Emma, ‘that William Warwick would have discovered once he’d interviewed the hospital matron and discovered why she turns on the radio every Saturday afternoon at five o’clock.’ Harry raised an eyebrow. ‘To hear the result of the Bristol City or Bristol Rovers match, depending on which of them is playing at home that day.’ Harry didn’t interrupt. ‘If they’ve won, it will be a quiet night for A and E. If they’ve drawn, it will be bearable. But if they’ve lost, it will be a nightmare, because we simply don’t have enough staff to cope.’
‘Just because the home team lost a football match?’
‘Yes, because you can guarantee the home fans will drown their sorrows and then end up getting into fights. Some, surprise, surprise, turn up in A and E, where they’ll have to wait for hours before someone can attend to them. Result? Even more fights break out in the waiting room, and occasionally a nurse or doctor tries to intervene.’
‘Don’t you have security to handle that?’
‘Not enough, I’m afraid. And the hospital doesn’t have the resources while seventy per cent of its annual funding is spent on wages, and the government is insisting on cutbacks, not handouts. So you can be sure we’ll face exactly the same problem next Saturday night should Rovers lose to Cardiff City.’
‘Has Mrs Thatcher come up with any ideas for solving the problem?’
‘I suspect she’d agree with you, my darling. Hanged, drawn and quartered would be too good for them. But I don’t think you’ll find that particular policy highlighted in the next Conservative Party manifesto.’
Dr Richards listened to his patient’s heartbeat, 72bpm, and ticked another box.
‘One final thing, Sir Harry,’ said the doctor, pulling on a latex glove. ‘I just want to check your prostate.
‘Hmm,’ he said, a few moments later. ‘There may be a very small lump there. We ought to keep an eye on it. You get dressed now, Sir Harry. All in all, you’re in pretty good shape for a man approaching his sixties. An age when many of us are considering retirement.’
‘Not me,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve still got to deliver another William Warwick before I can get down to my next novel, which could take me a couple of years. So I need to live until at least seventy. Is that understood, Dr Richards?’
‘Three score years and ten. No more than the Maker’s contract. I don’t think that should be a problem,’ he added, ‘as long as you’re still exercising.’ He checked his patient’s file. ‘When I last saw you, Sir Harry, you were running three miles, twice a week, and walking five miles, three times a week. Is that still the case?’
‘Yes, but I have to confess I’ve stopped timing myself.’
‘Are you still keeping to that routine between your two-hour writing sessions?’
‘Every morning, five days a week.’
‘Excellent. In fact, that’s more than many of my younger patients could manage. Just a couple more questions. I take it you still don’t smoke?’
‘Never.’
‘And how much do you drink on an average day?’
‘A glass of wine at dinner, but not at lunch. It would send me to sleep in the afternoon.’
‘Then, frankly, seventy should be a doddle, as long as you don’t get run over by a bus.’
‘Not much risk of that, since our local bus only visits the village twice a day, despite Emma regularly writing to the council to complain.’
The doctor smiled. ‘That sounds like our chairman.’ Dr Richards closed the file, rose from behind his desk and accompanied Harry out of the consultation room.
‘How’s Lady Clifton?’ he asked as they walked down the corridor.
Emma hated the courtesy title of ‘lady’ because she felt she hadn’t earned it, and insisted everyone at the hospital still call her Mrs Clifton or ‘chairman’. ‘You tell me,’ said Harry.
‘I’m not her doctor,’ said Richards, ‘but I can tell you she’s the best chairman we’ve ever had, and I’m not sure who’ll be brave enough to replace her when she stands down in a year’s time.’
Harry smiled. Whenever he visited the Bristol Royal Infirmary, he could sense the respect and affection the staff felt for Emma.