Chapter Twenty-four

The infirmary block was situated behind the workhouse. The assistant disappeared as soon as Harry stepped inside. Harry stood and took a few moments to accustom himself to the smell of boiled cabbage and urine mixed with the peculiar rotten odour of institution disinfectant. The corridor was empty and he was debating whether to try the door on his right or left when a woman appeared. She was dressed in a blue cotton gown, starched cuffs, collar and apron, and sister’s veil.

‘Can I help you?’ she enquired briskly.

‘I am looking for David Ellis.’

‘Police or relative?’ she barked.

‘Representative of the Ellis children’s legal guardians,’ he answered cautiously, wondering why the police would want to see David Ellis again after bringing him in.

‘Follow me.’ She walked past him and led the way towards the door on their right. Harry was used to walking quickly but he had difficulty keeping up with her. She opened the door to a ward that held two dozen beds, ranged exactly opposite one another.

‘He’s here, Mr …’

‘Evans, Harry Evans.’

Harry walked towards the bed she pointed out. It was the one nearest to the nurse’s desk in the centre of the ward and, when he approached, he could see why. David was lying pale and gaunt, eyes closed, on his stomach. The sheets above his back had been lifted by a cradle.

‘What happened to him?’ He turned to the sister who was talking to the nurse at the desk.

‘You haven’t been told?’

‘No.’ He stretched the truth. ‘The workhouse master sent me here when I arrived to pick up David’s sister and brothers. He said that he had been brought here by the police.’ Harry knelt beside David’s bed. The boy opened his eyes. ‘David,’ he whispered.

‘You said you’d help us, Harry,’ David croaked accusingly.

‘I’m sorry, it took time to organize. But I have a house waiting for you, for all your family, and someone to take care of you.’

David closed his eyes.

Harry rose to his feet. ‘What happened to him?’ he repeated.

‘He was beaten, Mr Evans. With a steel-tipped horsewhip.’

Harry felt as though the room were moving around him. He clenched his fists and fought to keep his composure. ‘Will he recover?’

‘Hopefully, in time, with rest, care and good food. He is barely conscious now because he’s been sedated to help him cope with the pain.’

‘Can I take him with me now?’

‘I wouldn’t advise it. The doctor -’

‘Find him, get him on the telephone,’ Harry ordered. ‘I don’t care what it takes. I want this boy out of here now.’

‘He’ll need an ambulance and medical care,’ she warned.

‘I’ll pay for the ambulance, there’s a doctor in the Swansea Valley and I’ll hire a nurse until he has recovered.’ Harry clenched and unclenched his fists. He wished he’d knocked Robert Pritchard and all his bailiffs into the dirt and never allowed the workhouse master to take any of the Ellis children out of his sight.

‘You,’ Harry pointed his finger at the workhouse master’s chest, ‘You, and no one else, made the decision to hand a defenceless boy over to a man who whipped him within an inch of his life.’

‘Mr Ianto Williams is a respectable member of the community -’

‘I am sick to death of hearing that word from you,’ Harry shouted. ‘Your interpretation of “respectable” and mine are very different.’

‘I had no idea -’

‘Considering that you have the power to make life and death decisions that affect the people in the care of the parish, you should have,’ Harry cut in savagely. ‘They told me in the infirmary that the police took Williams into custody when they found the boy lying, more dead than alive, in his cellar. Ianto Williams is facing serious charges over his treatment of David Ellis. And if the boy dies, he will be facing the most serious charge of all. You knew Williams did business with the agent and that the agent hated the boy. It’s no thanks to you, Ianto Williams or Robert Pritchard that David Ellis is alive. In fact, given what he knew about the agent’s thieving, from which the three of you profited, I believe that all of you would prefer to see the boy dead.’

‘They were both respectable men and I never profited from any fraud … I resent your tone … I resent your implications … I … I …’

‘I was there, at the eviction of the Ellises, remember?’ Harry pressed his advantage for all it was worth. ‘I have spoken to the doctor who admitted the boy to the infirmary and I have sent for an ambulance to take the boy to the house I have taken for his family. I want his eldest sister released into my care so she can nurse him. And I want her released now!’

‘It would be most irregular -’

‘You’d prefer to wait for another one of your cronies to come and take her as a kitchen maid, so she can be beaten like her brother or,’ he narrowed his eyes and gave the master a look of utter contempt, ‘raped.’

‘I did my duty -’

Harry had no compunction about interrupting him again. ‘I will ask you one more time. Send for Mary Ellis so she can take care of her brother on the journey to the Ellises’ new home and during his convalescence. If you refuse to release her along with her brothers and sister, I will call the police.’

‘And tell them what, Mr Evans?’

‘That I am concerned for her welfare after the way you deliberately placed the Ellis boy in harm’s way.’

‘I was not to know -’

‘You expect me to believe that after I saw you whispering with Ianto Williams and Robert Pritchard in the farmyard of the Ellis Estate? What was your share of the goods and livestock that were taken that day?’

The master reached for the bell on his desk and rang it.

Harry hadn’t been prepared for the change in Martha and Matthew in three short weeks. Martha’s long black hair had been cropped shorter than a boy’s, and Matthew’s head had been completely shaved. Both were dressed in workhouse smocks as grey, pasty and faded as their complexions. They were huddled in a corner, so close together it was difficult to see where one child began and the other ended. They stared up at him, all terrified eyes and quivering limbs, like puppies that had been locked into a dark kennel for the breaking period shepherds use before training.

They were on the opposite side of the waiting room, as far away from Betty Morgan as they could get. Harry looked questioningly at her. She shook her head. He had long since realized that the Ellis children were wary of strangers and didn’t make friends easily, but Betty Morgan was not only one of the kindest women he knew, she was also one of the most adept at thawing shy children. Even the most timid guests at his family’s and cousins’ birthday parties had blossomed into sociability under Betty’s gentle guidance.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. He turned and saw a nurse carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket of the inevitable grey flannel. Presuming the child was Luke, he stopped her before she reached the office door and held out his arms. ‘If that’s Luke Ellis, I’m here to pick him up.’

She handed him over, and the smile he’d intended for Luke froze on his lips. The plump, contented toddler had been transformed into a child as thin, weightless and delicate as a bird. His skin was the same ashen shade as his brother and sister’s, and beneath the blanket he was dressed in a miniature version of the workhouse smock, fashioned from rough institution flannel. Harry noticed the rough cloth had raised welts and sores on his delicate skin.

‘Luke?’ Harry whispered but the toddler stared unblinkingly at him without a spark of recognition. He carried him into the waiting room and over to where Matthew and Martha were glued together. They backed further into the corner. He fell to his knees, setting himself on the same level as them. To his horror, close up he saw bruises on their faces, arms and legs.

‘Martha, Matthew?’ He held the baby out to them.

They didn’t make a move.

‘Don’t you recognize your brother?’

They tried to press even closer to the wall as if they wanted it to swallow them up.

‘Don’t you know me?’ he persisted. ‘I said I’d try to get you out of here.’

Matthew spat full in his face.

‘You disgusting, dirty little brat!’ The nurse who had remained in the doorway stepped inside the room, but Harry held up his hand to stop her coming any closer.

‘They’ve been through enough, Nurse. Give them time to accept me again. Martha, don’t you remember how much you wanted to learn to read and write? The lessons I gave you… Martha …’ He sensed that she had focused on him and was actually looking at him for the first time. ‘Martha?’ he repeated hopefully.

She uttered an incomprehensible sob before flinging her arms around both him and Luke.

Harry freed the hand on the arm he had wrapped around her and stroked the stubble on her head. ‘It’s all right, Martha, it is going to be all right. I’m here to take you away from this place.’ He continued to kneel, uncomfortably crouched, pinned down by Martha, listening to her cries.

Matthew crept towards them, and Harry reached out, managing to wrap his left arm around both children. They remained, knotted together in the corner, until Harry’s muscles began to cramp.

‘Do you think we can move now?’ He pulled his head back and glanced from Matthew to Martha.

Betty Morgan left her chair and crossed the room. ‘I’m sure this young lady and gentleman would like to see the house you’ve rented for them and the bedrooms we’ve made up for them, Mr Evans?’

‘A house?’ Martha’s tear-stained eyes rounded in wonder.

‘Yes, Martha, a house,’ Harry repeated. ‘And this is Mrs Morgan. She is going to look after you.’

‘Mary looks after us. Where’s Mary?’ Matthew demanded fractiously.

‘I’m not sure, Matthew. But I’m hoping we’ll see her soon.’ Harry crossed his fingers.

‘This house? Is it our house?’ Matthew wriggled free from Harry’s arms.

‘No, Matthew, I’m sorry, I couldn’t get you back into your house,’ Harry apologized.

‘Then who’s living in it?’ Matthew demanded. ‘The agent?’

‘Not the agent, Matthew. No one is living in it because there’s nothing there,’ Harry reminded him gently.

‘You let them take all our things. All the chickens, the pigs, the ducks, the cows, even Davy’s dogs and the kittens,’ Matthew said accusingly.

‘I wish I could have stopped them, Matthew. But I couldn’t.’

‘I want everything back the way it was.’

Harry found himself struggling to contain his emotions. ‘So do I, Matthew. But it may not be possible. I won’t lie to you, or make promises I can’t keep. But I will get you a house that you can live in that will be yours. Just not that one.’

‘Don’t want any other house,’ Matthew retorted, with a trace of his old spirit.

‘Yes, you do, young man,’ Betty countered firmly. ‘And you’ll go to the house Mr Evans has rented for you right now.’

‘Won’t!’ Matthew’s bottom lip began to tremble.

‘You’d rather stay here?’

‘No!’ Matthew shouted at Betty.

‘Then I think it’s time that we went and settled you in the back of Mr Evans’s car. There are warm blankets waiting for you, and bottles of milk and packets of biscuits. You and your sister can snuggle down, talk to this little one and remind him that he has a family who care for him.’

She took Luke from Harry, and held out her free hand.

Matthew stared at it for a full minute before reaching out and clasping it.

‘Mary Ellis, the master wants to see you right away.’ Joyce Crocker, a recent elevation from inmate to ward maid, shouted as she ran into the yard that separated the entrance block from the building that housed the wards.

Mary dropped her scrubbing brush back into her pail of cold water. A trickle of fear coursed down her spine, momentarily paralysing her. Like every other inmate she knew the master only sent for people when he wanted to punish them.

‘You want permission to rise, Ellis,’ the supervising orderly prompted.

‘Permission to rise, miss?’ Mary murmured tremulously.

‘Granted. You’d better tidy yourself up,’ the middle-aged woman advised brusquely. ‘You can’t walk into the public areas or see the master looking the way you do right now.’

Mary gazed ruefully at her grimy, dirt-smeared smock as she rose to her feet. She would have liked to have asked, ‘How can I tidy myself up when this is all I have to wear?’ But every question she had put to people in positions of authority during the last three weeks had culminated in a blow, and she was loath to risk another.

‘Come on, I’ll take you to the washhouse first, Mary.’ Joyce led the way back across the yard to the women’s lavatories. Mary trailed behind, stumbling awkwardly and twisting her ankles when she tried to quicken her pace in the rough wooden clogs that were too large for her feet.

‘Here.’ Joyce handed her a piece of green carbolic soap. ‘Wash your hands and face.’

Mary turned on the cold water tap, the only one there was, and held her hands beneath the flow of water, but she didn’t use the soap. Her skin was still burning from the over-generous helping of caustic soda that had been tipped into her bucket.

‘You’d better rinse your face as well. You’ve dirt on your forehead and nose.’ Joyce picked up one of the rags they used as towels and held it, ready.

‘Thank you.’ Mary lowered her face to the sink, dipped her hands under the stream of cold water and rubbed her face. Joyce was more sympathetic than most of the orderlies because she knew what it was like to be an inmate. ‘Why has the master sent for me?’

‘I don’t know, but there’s a young man in his office, and he was shouting at the master and the master didn’t shout back. Your brothers and sister have been sent for as well. It could be that someone in your family has come to take you out,’ she suggested optimistically.

‘We haven’t any relatives.’

‘The young man was tall, blond and very good-looking. A real toff. Do you know anyone like that?’

Mary’s spirits lifted. She nodded.

‘A relative?’ Joyce pressed.

‘A friend. A good friend.’ Mary had hoped and prayed that Harry would try to help them, but even now she was too afraid to believe that it was really him. It could be any young man …

‘Lucky you to have rich friends. I’ve give whole worlds,’ she said illogically, given her lack of possessions, ‘to know someone like him. I saw his posh car parked in front of the reception block. Perhaps his family needs servants, or perhaps he’s discovered that you’re a long-lost cousin.’ She strayed into the realms of romance. ‘Or, it could be that he’s heard about your brother.’

‘My brother! Which brother?’ Mary took the towel and wiped her face. It smelled musty, and without thinking, she dropped it on to the basin.

‘The only name I heard was “Ellis”. Ellen, one of the ward maids in the infirmary, came into the kitchen earlier to get some grease. They sent her because Matron knows that the master and his family have goose for dinner every Sunday. She said that an Ellis boy had been brought in and he was in a bad way.’

‘Brought in from where? Wasn’t he already here? What’s wrong with him?’ Questions tumbled out one after the other, but, panicked by the thought that one of her brothers was ill, Mary didn’t wait for answers.

‘All I know is what I’ve told you. Perhaps no one’s come for you. Perhaps the toff’s nothing to do with you, and …’

‘The master sent for me to tell me bad news.’ Mary ran headlong out of the door.

‘Wait for me,’ Joyce shouted. ‘I’m supposed to take you. And you haven’t hung up this towel. You could be put on bread and water for that.’

‘Mr Evans,’ the master called to Harry from the corridor outside the waiting room.

Harry looked up at him without rising or relinquishing his hold on Martha and Matthew.

‘Mary Ellis is in my office.’

‘Mary …’ Matthew ran forward but Betty caught him by the waist and held him fast. ‘I know you want to see your sister but you have to wait here with me, young man.’

‘I’ll return as quickly as I can.’ Harry pushed Martha gently towards Betty and climbed to his feet. ‘You two be good for Mrs Morgan and look after Luke until I come back.’

‘We’ll see Mary then?’ Matthew asked plaintively.

Harry felt like a coward when he pretended that he hadn’t heard the boy. He crossed the corridor. The office door was open and he walked straight in. The master was sitting behind his desk. A female inmate was standing with her back turned to him. He knew she was a female because her smock was longer than the ones the men wore over their trousers. But her hair had been cut as close as Martha’s.

‘I have considered your request, Mr Evans,’ the master said formally, ‘and if Mrs Morgan is prepared to sign all the relevant papers you may take Mary Ellis with you now.’

Harry blanched when he realized that he was looking at Mary. Where she had been slender, she was now broomstick-thin, and as he walked to her side he saw she was as pallid and gaunt as her brothers and sister. ‘Mary?’

When she didn’t respond, he saw that the workhouse had succeeded in doing what none of the other tragedies she’d had to face in her short life had. She’d been cowed, and the fighting spirit he’d so admired had been destroyed. He wondered if the separation from her brothers and sisters had contributed more to her broken state than the punishing regime of the workhouse.

‘Mary?’ he repeated softly.

She continued to stare down at her feet, unable or unwilling to look him in the eye.

Harry’s temper, constrained for so long, finally erupted. Wishing he’d never followed the advice to wait and help the Ellises through official channels, he shouted, ‘The condition of the Ellis family is an absolute disgrace. The younger children are malnourished. Miss Ellis has obviously been starved and mistreated, and her brother has been beaten to within an inch of his life. This is not a workhouse. It is a death house. The only wonder to me is that anyone survives here at all.’

‘We do the best we can to care for the destitute with the limited means at our disposal, Mr Evans.’ The master pretended to study a paper on his desk.

‘If you allowed the friends of those human beings you label destitute to take care of them, you wouldn’t have to trouble yourself to draw wages from the parish.’ Harry said cuttingly. He heard a vehicle halt outside the main entrance and glanced through the window. As he’d hoped, it was the ambulance. ‘Mary, we’re going.’ He offered her his arm as if they were leaving a ballroom.

‘Given the circumstances, I am sorry to have to remind you, Mr Evans, but the Ellis family are wearing workhouse property.’

‘Where are the clothes they arrived in?’ Harry questioned, his temper still simmering at boiling point.

‘We burned them. They were verminous.’

‘No, they were not,’ Harry contradicted baldly.

‘It is workhouse policy to burn all prospective inmates’ clothes.’

‘Why?’

‘Our regulations are designed to keep the institution clean and disease-free.’

Harry looked at the smock Mary was wearing. ‘Or more likely they were burned because you want to further humiliate the destitute by insisting they wear rags. I wouldn’t force a criminal into this cloth, let alone a baby like Luke Ellis.’ He opened his wallet, extracted a five-pound note and flung it on the desk. ‘That should more than compensate the parish for anything they laid out on the-Ellis family’s keep. I’ll expect an official receipt to be sent to my solicitor’s office. If it isn’t, I’ll know that you appropriated it, the same way you appropriated furniture that was removed by Robert Pritchard’s bailiffs.’

‘I object to your tone -’

‘Send a clerk out to my car with the papers you want signed. Mrs Morgan has already taken the children there.’ Harry grasped Mary’s hand and practically pulled her through the door and into the courtyard. He glanced over to the corner where he had parked his car. Betty Morgan had already settled the younger children into the back and was sitting in the passenger seat, but he steered Mary out of their sight towards the ambulance. A nurse was sitting on one of the side benches in the back. David was lying face down as he had been in the infirmary, on a stretcher in front of her.

‘How is he?’ Harry asked.

Mary looked from Harry to the nurse and back and finally spoke. ‘David?’

‘Yes.’ He helped her into the ambulance and the nurse moved up on the bench to make room for her.

‘He’s been given something to help him sleep through the journey. I doubt he’ll wake until tomorrow morning.’ The nurse glanced from Harry to Mary. ‘I know he looks bad, but he will recover.’

‘Mary? Mary?’ Harry had to repeat her name twice before he felt he had her attention but she still refused to meet his gaze. ‘I have to drive the others down the valley, but I’ll see you at the house.’

‘House,’ she repeated uncomprehendingly. She picked up David’s limp hand and held it in her own.

‘I have rented a house for you and your family.’

‘The others?’ She couldn’t tear her gaze away from David.

It was then that he realized she hadn’t understood a word he’d said. ‘Matthew, Martha and Luke are in my car, Mary. I’m going to tell the ambulance driver where to go. He’ll drive you to the house I’ve rented for all of you. I’ll see you there.’

‘You have them all? Martha, Matthew, Luke …’ She didn’t look away from David.

‘They’re all safe, Mary. Another hour and you’ll be …’ He would have given a great deal to have been able to say home. ‘You’ll see them shortly. And,’ he looked across at the grim facade of the workhouse, ‘I know I let you down but I swear that neither you nor your family will ever have to go into a place like this again.’ He stepped down from the ambulance and closed the door.

Martha waved shyly to him from the car. Feeling as though he had been given a greater reward than he deserved, he waved back to her before walking around to the driver’s cab.

The road between the workhouse and the inn was interminable, and the whole time Harry drove, his thoughts were with Mary and David in the ambulance. All three children fell asleep huddled beneath the blankets in the back, before he pulled into the yard of the inn, the nearest place to the cottage that he could park his car.

‘Shall I take the children straight into the house, Harry?’ Betty asked.

‘Please. I’ll help you.’ Seeing that Martha, unlike her brothers, had woken and was scrambling out, Harry lifted Matthew into his arms, leaving Luke for Betty. He carried him into the kitchen, where, thanks to Enfys, a fire blazed cheerfully in the hearth. He set the boy in an easy chair.

‘It’s all right, Matthew, you’re in that house I told you about,’ Harry reassured him when he opened his eyes and looked around in confusion.

‘Sit next to Matthew for now, Martha,’ Betty suggested when she led Martha inside and set Luke gently on a sofa. ‘Then, when we’ve had a cup of tea and you’ve woken up a bit, you can have a look at the bedrooms we’ve prepared for you.’

‘I’ll be back in a few minutes, Betty. Will you turn down one of the beds in the boys’ room, please?’ Harry went to the door.

‘The boy is seriously hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll turn back the bed in the master bedroom.’

‘Thank you, Betty, but I think he’d prefer to share a room with his brother, and his brother with him.’ Harry smiled at Martha. ‘The Ellises like doing everything together. Don’t you, Martha?’

She didn’t exactly smile but her lips crinkled.

Harry crossed the garden to the car park. The driver had opened the back of the ambulance and Mary was sitting on the floor next to David’s stretcher. The nurse stepped down and stood beside Harry.

‘He didn’t wake during the journey?’ Harry asked.

‘Not once,’ she confirmed. ‘But as I said, I wasn’t expecting him to.’

Harry saw Alf in his workshop. He waved and shouted, ‘Alf, do me a favour, help us to carry David Ellis into the cottage.’

Alf dropped the cigarette jammed between his teeth, ground it under his heel and ran over to the ambulance. ‘We heard what happened to him. Couple of constables came in for a swift half after Ianto Williams was arrested and sent to Brecon.’

Harry took some comfort from the thought that Ianto Williams might be languishing in the same spartan cell he had endured. ‘When we’ve got David inside, do me another favour, please, Alf? Go into the inn and ask your mother to call the doctor?’

Harry found Toby in the bar and bought him a drink. He was looking at some sketches Toby had drawn of a hare when the doctor walked in. He rose to meet him.

The doctor set his bag on a chair. ‘Mrs Morgan tells me that you are jointly responsible for the Ellises.’

‘We are,’ Harry answered. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘After seeing that poor boy’s back a brandy wouldn’t go amiss.’ The doctor sat down. Harry bought a double brandy and set it in front of him.

‘They told me in the infirmary that he will recover,’ Harry said hopefully.

‘In time, but he’ll have to take it easy for months. There’s muscle damage. He’ll need a great deal of care, Mr Evans.’

‘I’ll see that he gets it. You’ll visit him again?’

‘Tomorrow.’ The doctor downed his brandy. ‘Do I send my bill to you, Mr Evans?’

‘You do.’

‘Here, to the inn?’

‘Even if I should move on, I’ll leave a forwarding address, but I have no intention of leaving for a while.’

The doctor tipped his hat. ‘I have two cases of diphtheria up at Bont Farm. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘I hope so.’ Harry looked out of the window and watched him cross the yard to his car.

Mrs Edwards left the bar and came over to collect the doctor’s empty glass. ‘Enfys has taken dinner over to the cottage.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Edwards. Mrs Morgan will have her hands full with the children for the next few days without worrying about meals.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr Evans, you’ve taken a lot upon yourself with those Ellis children. Not that they didn’t need someone to take care of them, what with David Ellis getting beaten,’ she added illogically. ‘And your own dinners are ready for you if you’d like to go in the dining room.’

Harry picked up his pint of bitter and led the way into the back room. Enfys had set out two plates of pork chops, apple sauce, peas, roast and mashed potatoes.

‘Penny for them?’ Toby asked after Harry had sat toying with his meal in silence for ten minutes.

Harry pushed his plate aside. ‘I lost my temper in the workhouse today. I shouldn’t have.’

‘Did you lose it before or after you saw David Ellis?’ Toby sprinkled more salt on to his roast potatoes.

‘After.’

‘Alf only helped to carry the boy out of the ambulance and into the cottage, but from what he said to me when he came back here, you had every right to be angry.’

‘My losing my temper is hardly going to help the Ellises.’

‘You paying all their bills and writing off their debts until they can get back on their feet is,’ Toby observed wryly, having been taken into Harry’s confidence about his inheritance and E and G Estates.

‘It’s the least I can do.’

Toby pushed his own plate aside. ‘As I’m not in the mood for Mrs Edwards’s afters -’

‘You never are.’

‘Fancy a drink in the bar?’

Harry shook his head. ‘The children have nothing except those damned workhouse smocks.’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It’s nine o’clock. The younger ones were sleeping on their feet earlier. Betty should have got them into bed by now. I’ll have to buy them some essentials tomorrow in Pontardawe but I asked Betty to check their sizes so I can order most of what they need with my mother to be sent down from Gwilym James. I won’t be long.’

‘Now where have I heard that before?’ Toby enquired sceptically.

‘I’m sorry I’ve not been good company lately.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘I’m sorry I’ve not been good company -’

‘You’re getting more like me every day. Do you realize that I came back here to spend a week and I’ve been here three?’

‘But you’re painting,’ Harry reminded him. ‘And producing work well within your deadline.’

‘Next thing you’ll be telling me is that this is as good a place as any in the world to paint.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Harry asked.

‘I suppose so, as I’m in no hurry to go anywhere else,’ Toby said philosophically. ‘If you think that I can help with the Ellises -’

‘I’ll come and find you in the bar.’