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members of the Médic Ecosse medical staff present at the table. The other was Dr Thomas Kinscherf, medical director of the hospital, urbane, smiling and generally very much at home in dealing with people. Ross was seated opposite Neil Bannon, listening politely to what was being said around him and smiling at intervals. An occasional glance at his watch betrayed a slight impatience for proceedings to begin.
    Ross was a pleasant-looking man in his early forties, of average build and with fair hair swept back from his forehead. His skin was smooth and tanned and he wore frameless glasses with large, square lenses. He looked like a man at ease with himself, self-confident, successful in his chosen career and with nothing left to prove to anyone. His suit was conservatively dark but he wore a pink bow tie with matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. The typical, give-away flamboyance of the surgeon.
    The admin secretary, Giordano, was exuding charm as he spoke to the Scottish Office contingent. Any word uttered by the visitors claimed his rapt attention, any suggestion of humour brought a large grin and a hearty laugh. It was clear that the Médic Ecosse people were on their best behaviour. The day was all about good public relations.
    ‘Shall we begin?’ asked Bannon. He was one of the few people not smiling.
    Giordano brought the meeting to order and requested that the ‘financial parameters for debate’ be established. This translated into the reading of finance reports both from Médic Ecosse’s accountants and from the financial officials of the Scottish Office team.
    When they had finished, Bannon looked round the table at the gloomy faces and said, ‘Gentlemen, I think we should cut the Gordian knot and come straight to the point. It’s quite clear that this hospital cannot continue functioning unless it receives an immediate injection of cash. It’s a question of where this cash is going to come from.’ He paused. People round the table exchanged glances. ‘I understand that Médic International feel that they’re not in a position to invest any more at this time. This leaves public money and, frankly, this too is quite unthinkable at a time like this when we’re urging restraint on public spending and cutting back on even essential services.’ He paused again to let the buzz die down before continuing. ‘But there again, the alternative is equally unpalatable. The hospital would have to close down, with the loss of money already invested and the accompanying human cost in terms of jobs. This leaves us, as our American cousins might say, between a rock and a hard place. Personally I think it would be an absolute tragedy if an almost brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital with a world-class medical staff had to close its doors, but these are the bare facts.’
    ‘Not to mention politically embarrassing and bloody expensive for the Tory party,’ muttered the Labour councillor.
    ‘If it’s so state-of-the-art and world-class, why is it losing money?’ asked a distinguished-looking man who, unlike the others, favoured a light-coloured suit. He was a representative of a major Scottish insurance company which had invested at the outset in Médic Ecosse.
    ‘We feel it’s a problem we can deal with,’ replied Thomas Kinscherf. ‘We simply don’t have enough patients at this moment in time.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘It appears that would-be clients still prefer London hospitals, although we believe that with the right marketing this problem can be overcome. It’s just a geographical thing that we didn’t consider seriously enough at the outset and still haven’t taken the appropriate steps to remedy.’
    ‘There are plenty of patients not more than a mile from here,’ interjected the councillor. ‘It’s just that they don’t have the money to pay for all this fine treatment.’
    ‘I think we’ve been through all that,’ said Bannon rather testily. ‘The hospital’s being run as a business for