regrets, now, turning down his offer of a cup.
‘How did your employers get involved?’ he asks. ‘Did you tell them?’
‘No, I wouldn’t have made a fuss, but it was too late. The police went to my house while I was in hospital. They couldn’t find any information on my next of kin, so they contacted my employers. The head of human resources came to see me in hospital and then it all became official.’
He is still nodding. He knows this too. ‘Your employers need your GP to certify you fit to return to work and your GP isn’t happy to do that without a psychiatric assessment?’
Felicity’s voice lifts, but her cheeriness is forced. ‘And that’s why I’m here.’
She waits for him to acknowledge that finally she has answered his question. Instead, he says, ‘Do you want to go back to work?’
‘Very much. Work is all I have.’
Suddenly, his soft hazel eyes are sharpened and he does not blink as he stares straight back at her. She is unnerved by his stare. This man sees more than he has a right to.
‘What about friends?’ he says. ‘A significant other?’
‘An opportunity has come up,’ she hurries on. ‘It’s the chance of a lifetime. If I’m not fit, I won’t be considered for it.’
‘I see. Let’s go back to that night on the common. What do you remember?’
‘I remember being at home before it happened. Having some dinner, catching up on admin. After that, nothing.’
‘We’re talking about a gap in your memory of several hours?’
‘Four hours. I sent an email at eight o’clock. I was taken to hospital shortly after midnight.’
He waits, as though he knows she has more to say. After a moment, she drops her eyes. Still he doesn’t speak. When she looks up again, Call-Me-Joe has a file on his lap.
‘Tell me about your job,’ he says. ‘What do you do for a living?’
He knows. It will be in her notes. This is not about what she says, it is about how she says it. Or maybe, about what she doesn’t say.
‘I work for the British Antarctic Survey,’ she says. ‘I’m a glaciologist.’
‘You study glaciers?’
Felicity opens her mouth to give the stock response about how glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that involves geology, physical geography, geophysics, climatology, meteorology, hydro—
‘I study ice,’ she says. ‘It’s mainly about ice. And its decline.’
He nods, vaguely, already losing interest. ‘The polar bears,’ he says politely. ‘Very worrying.’
He is humouring her, as so many do, and for a moment she forgets herself.
‘Ice isn’t just about polar bears.’ She leans forward, closing the distance between them. ‘The bears are dying because their entire food chain, just about every living thing in the Arctic region, is under threat.’
He smiles and looks down at his notes, already seeking a retreat, but she is only getting started.
‘Ice is an insulator, a cushion,’ she tells him. ‘As ice melts, heat from the ocean escapes into the atmosphere, warming the planet even more and creating a vicious circle. Without ice reflecting back sunlight, the oceans get warmer still. Cold seas produce a huge amount of methane; ice keeps it under the surface. You know that methane is a greenhouse gas, don’t you?’
He nods, a little nervously. ‘I knew that.’
‘Ice stops water evaporating. More water in the atmosphere means more of the big catastrophic storms we’ve been seeing, with the resulting loss of life and economic devastation. And don’t get me started on nearly two hundred Arctic communities that are struggling to maintain their way of life as the ice shrinks.’
‘I won’t,’ he says.
‘Ice is everything. Without ice, the planet’s finished. We all die.’
Silence. Joe picks up his pen and writes.
‘You’re writing crazy person, aren’t you?’ she says.
He laughs. ‘I’m writing knowledgeable, caring and passionate,’ he says. ‘And thank you. I won’t make that mistake again.’
He closes her notes with a decisive snap. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘You’re twenty-eight, in good physical health, with no recorded history of mental illness. Your parents died when you were very young, and you were raised by a maternal grandmother and then in local authority care when she passed away. You’re single, with no other nuclear family. You’ve worked for the BAS in Cambridge for a little over five years and even though you’re still quite young, you’re considered one of Europe’s leading experts in your field. Have I missed anything?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Just trying to save us some time. Normally, the background can take the entire first session.’ He smiles again. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling