finished. The small party left her office, crossed the landing and were ushered out into the wide corridor connecting the men’s and women’s medical blocks. Clotilde stood and watched them go, Dr Thackery towering over his companions, his head a little bent, deep in thought. He really needs a wife, thought Clotilde, then wondered why on earth she had thought that.
She spent the next hour with Sally Wood, making notes, seeing that the right forms went to the right departments, making sure that the instructions she had received were passed on, and by the time that was done the patients’ dinners had arrived and they both went into the ward and served the complicated diets suitable for ulcers, heart failures, kidney disease and diabetes, and that done, Clotilde left Sally to dish out the puddings while she went from bed to