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She shifted a little in the seat The last thing she wanted to do was sit here in his company after that

But she still had to ith this guy every day So she took a deep breath and plastered an interested look on her face, ignoring the little strands of hurt she felt inside

His phone buzzed with a text and when it flashed up, she saw the screenshot that lay behind it It was the saan had next to his bed The picture of Esther on the beach, laughing

So twisted inside her She had no reason to be jealous, absolutely none Of course Regan should have a picture of his mum, but did Joe also need to have it on his phone?

She stared at the array of papers alongside a laptop on the table ‘What on earth have you been doing?’

As he sat down at the table and started organising his papers her eyes went to one of the pictures Joe had put on the wall What drew her attention was a large, grand-looking house surrounded by an expanse of gardens Fro it see in front of the property—it was clearly their family home She had no idea what house prices were like over there, but one look at the obviously expensive property made her feel distinctly unco to Joe’s an lived in She tried not to calculate in her head how rand house What was the English TV series set before the here they had staff? It was nearly as big as that

‘Is that a house or a castle?’ she quipped Unease spread across her No, e; she could sense the instant hostility and she couldn’t do a darned thing about it It was like every automatic defence system had just slid into place

‘It’s not a castle,’ he said with a wave of his hand, then peered back at the screen ‘At least, I don’t think it was’

Her skin prickled She actually wasn’t sure if he was joking or not She licked her lips It was funny how being uncoer than the average house, I iine’ She tried to make her voice sound casual

He leaned back against the sofa and nodded towards theand the hospital across fro as this place’

She folded her arms across her chest ‘I’m not so sure’

He shook his head ‘Nah,’ he said breezily ‘And anyway, didn’t you know everyone lives in a castle in Scotland?’

Of course he was joking, but just the way he said those words tugged at soht her that only those who had never had to worry about money would make a quip like that

‘Here’ He turned a large piece of paper around to face her He hadn’t thought twice about their conversation He hadn’t even noticed her reaction

She bent forward It was aareas It was littered with red and blue dots

‘What is this?’ She was confused

‘I decided to take a look at soers traced across the paper ‘The ones with the red dots are the patients currently attending that have tuberculosis The ones with blue dots are the ones we know have multi-resistant tuberculosis’ He leaned forward so his head was alest cluster’

She nodded slowly The information wasn’t a surprise to her, she’d just never seen it laid out this way Her skin prickled The district with the biggest incidence of tuberculosis was the one where her parents lived, and in which she’d been brought up

He kept talking as he moved so out and doing follow-ups’ he gave her a slightly teasing s I’ve checked up on some of these patients There’s a low uptake of tuberculosis vaccinations after birth Not everyone is bringing their children to the clinic What about if we set up a kind of pop-up clinic to try and screen some people for TB, and immunise any kids that have been missed?’

He was clearly bri with enthusiasm at the prospect ‘Is this district one I should be worried about? Are the cri for a response ‘Because I’ve checked some of the other stats I know there’s deprivation and poor health I know one of the biggest issues for the kids in that area isto address that while we’re there?’

Soer ‘What, do you want to give them all money to feed their kids too?’

He pulled back, obviously surprised by her outburst She ran her fingers through her hair ‘Do you think we haven’t tried these things before?’ she asked ‘Do you think we haven’t tried to find neays to help the people who need it most?’ Her words came out more fiercely than she’d meant them to, but she couldn’t hide how many buttons his ideas had just pushed

Joe was looking at her with cautious eyes He clasped both hands together and spoke carefully ‘Of course I think you’ve tried different things But so is ain’ His voice was low ‘I don’t know the people in these areas the way that the rest of the staff here do I can only look from an outside point of view My public health head tells me we have a current hotspot for tuberculosis, and potentially more cases of multi-resistance Can’t we take a look at this?’