`What they are yet I know not - but they shall be

` The terror of the Earth '," said Kate, brightly.

Standish narrowed his eyes.

"Lear, Act 2, Scene 4," he said. "And I think you'll find it's `terrors' and not `terror'."

"Do you know, I think you're right?" replied Kate.

Thank you, Alan, she thought. She smiled at Standish, who relaxed into pleased superiority. It was odd, Kate reflected, that people who needed to bully you were the easiest to push around.

"So you would like to know precisely what, Miss Schechter?"

"Assume," said Kate, "that I know nothing."

Standish smiled, as if to signify that no assumption could possibly give him greater pleasure.

"Very well," he said. "The Woodshead is a research hospital. We specialise in the care and study of patients with unusual or previously unknown conditions, largely in the psychological or psychiatric fields. Funds are raised in various ways. One of our chief methods is quite simply to take in private patients at exorbitantly high fees, which they are happy to pay, or at least happy to complain about. There is in fact nothing to complain about because patients who come to us privately are made fully aware of why our fees are so high. For the money they are paying, they are, of course, perfectly entitled to complain - the right to complain is one of the privileges they are paying for. In some cases we come to a special arrangement under which, in return for being made the sole beneficiaries of a patient's estate, we will guarantee to look after that patient for the rest of his or her life."

"So in effect you are in the business of giving scholarships to people with particularly gifted diseases?"

"Exactly. A very good way of expressing it. We are in the business of giving scholarships to people with particularly gifted diseases. I must make a note of that. Miss Mayhew!"

He had opened a drawer, which clearly contained his office intercom. In response to his summons one of the cupboards opened, and tumed out to be a door into a side office - a feature which must have appealed to some architect who had conceived an ideological dislike of doors. From this office there emerged obediently a thin and rather blank-faced woman in her midforties.

"Miss Mayhew," said Mr Standish, "we are in the business of giving scholarships to people with particularly gifted diseases."

"Very good, Mr Standish," said Miss Mayhew, and retreated backwards into her office, pulling the door closed after her. Kate wondered if it was perhaps a cupboard after all.

"And we do have some patients with some really quite outstanding diseases at the moment," enthused the psychologist. "Perhaps you would care to come and see one or two of our current stars?"

"Indeed I would. That would be most interesting, Mr Standish, you're very kind," said Kate.

"You have to be kind in this job," Standish replied, and flicked a smile on and off at her.

Kate was trying to keep some of the impatience she was feeling out of her manner. She did not take to Mr Standish, and was beginning to feel that there was a kind of Martian quality to him. Furthermore, the only thing she was actually interested in was discovering whether or not the hospital had accepted a new admission in the early hours of the morning, and if so, where he was and whether she could see him.

She had originally tried the direct approach but had been rebuffed by a mere telephone receptionist on the grounds that she didn't have a name to ask for. Simply asking if they had any tall, well-built, blond men in residence had seemed to create entirely the wrong impression. At least, she insisted to herself that it was entirely the wrong impression. A quick phone call to Alan Franklin had set her up for this altogether more subtle approach.

"Good!" A look of doubt passed momentarily over Mr Standish's face, and he summoned Miss Mayhew from out of her cupboard again.

"Miss Mayhew, that last thing I just said to you - "

"Yes, Mr Standish?"

"I assume you realised that I wished you to make a note of it for me?"

"No, Mr Standish, but I will be happy to do so."