Doctor my eyes

On the day: 
18/04/2012 


On the way: 
Her coat is double-breasted. No sniggers, please, it's too easy. 
Her coat is double-breasted, knee length, vertical ridges, a conker brown bag with black straps, soft leather, like her boots, black, forgiving but stylish. Powder compact in hand, with some sort of pink design on its lid, Art Nouveau perhaps, but less Mucha, more Lautrec, y'know, Moulin Rouge, or Revue Rose, maybe I'll recognise it if I only turn my head a little this way, or that, oh yes, that's more familiar, its... its... oh, it's a Moomintroll, carefully combing her lttle fringe peering over hippopotamoid mouth into a tiny mirror. Finnish fairytales, French follies. Near enough.
But here's where the powers of perception step up a gear. It's her more functional bag that gives the clue to the stop where she'll be disembarking, the words National Clinical Research in white. The hospital. Which may explain the long minutes carefully spent applying minimal but immaculate make-up. She'll have to look healthy but not tarty, like she takes care but is not obsessed with the way she looks, like the details are important but so is the big picture, like she has a steady hand, a keen eye and the ability to perform under pressure, like she gets her timing right and she knows where she's going, to be in the right place at the right place. Oh no, there's nothing you can hide from the master detective, it's elementary my dear Watson. Ask me anything. Anything. Or should I say, "Dr Watson"? Hah! How do you like that? Huh? Um, well.  Actually maybe nurse Watson.  Nurse at least... Definitely.
The train stops, opens waits, closes leaves. She sits back in her seat, thumbs a stick of gum in her mouth, and gazes though the window at the rain on the passing red brick chimneys, cracked conservatories and unkempt back gardens. 


On the pod: Into The Fire - Thirteen Senses


On the front page: Radical cleric back in jail but legal battle goes on