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Martha’s death. The thought of going through it again provoked the same dizzy feeling I’d experienced when Julia had surprised me at the door. There was an email from one of the GPs at the surgery, Dr Sian Rushden. I grimaced. We had a silent understanding - she kept out of my way if I kept out of hers. A late night email from her, requesting a review of my services, wasn’t a great omen.
    Finally, I scanned an email from an address I didn’t recognise. As I read and re-read it my heartbeat crept up until I jumped to my feet and started the quick routine I’d learnt to help keep my emotions under control as a youngster: four carefully controlled moves designed to get my breathing under control. Whilst I was doing them, I looked down at the phone screen, as if to stare it out and ward off the email. The subject header was blank, but the message contained within it was clear: Another one of your patients dead? Who’s next? Physician, heal thyself

Chapter 4
    There was something odd about my front door.
    It had always been a little peculiar, the way the swirls of frosted glass stared back at me when I stood fumbling with my keys. Always so patient, yet so oblique. When I’d first rented the place, I’d wondered about asking the owner to change the door. Glass doors weren’t my favourite, especially not in my current singleton predicament. Without housemates, a lover or even a dog to share my house with, I needed protection from prying eyes.
    As it happened, I needn’t have worried. The glass was quite useful, allowing me to see the shape, albeit slightly distorted, of my visitors as they stood blindly by, peering at its opaque blankness from the other side. Today, though, I didn’t trust my powers of perception. I hadn’t slept well, and I’d suffered a late running day. Consequently, it wasn’t just the glass in my door: everything felt distorted. It looked as if the welcome mat had been moved and there were scratches around the lock I didn’t think had been there before.
    I shrugged my shoulders. There were lots of things I’d never noticed before. It was as if I was only just waking up now to my surroundings after a long sleep. Recently I’d started reflecting on why I’d even come here at all. Of course, I knew why. I’d chosen this village in the English heartland for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was far enough away from my childhood home to put a distance between myself and my remaining family. My younger sister, Amelia, and I had never been close. The distance also served to draw a line under the past and keep it well away from the present time. Secondly, getting a job had been easy. The market for psychotherapists was less competitive in the Midlands than in the South. Furthermore it seemed nobody wanted to work in a place like this. Other youngsters in my field were keen to cut their teeth in bigger towns and cities where they could enjoy life to the full. Finally, moving here was supposed to have provided me with a fresh start. I’d wanted to be in a place where nobody knew me. It didn’t matter to me that the village felt worn and tattered around the edges, nor did I care that the locals behaved like creatures from another planet. Although my privately educated, home counties background had marked me out from the start, their behaviour hadn’t fazed me. I’d told myself it would be a challenge.
    I’d comforted myself with excuses. Without doubt, the local community had suffered. They bore a grudge against the ruling classes, and with good reason. I could just imagine what the place had been like in the eighties: miners’ strikes and mass unemployment ripped people’s livelihood out by the roots. Just like that. More than two decades on, it felt like the region had never made a full recovery. People turned up at the surgery to see my medical colleagues and their collective health was poor. Asthma, diabetes, lung cancer and heart problems were all far too common, probably more so than