Dominic left his last house call, out at Dutton’s Farm, at six-thirty p.m. and headed for home. Alfred Dutton, a sixty-year-old sheep farmer, had been suffering from chest pains, and having already recovered from one heart attack, which had struck at a time of enormous stress during the foot and mouth epidemic (which had resulted in his entire flock being slaughtered), Dominic quickly made the decision to call for an ambulance. His policy being an old and faithful one; ‘better safe than sorry’. Having waited for paramedics to arrive, Dominic drove down to the valley floor, relishing the thought of being off duty for the next two days, barring unforeseen emergencies. Home was a detached Yorkstone house – on a little-used minor road, a mile outside the village – at which he lived with his wife, Paula. The location was idyllic, a far cry from the Chapeltown area of Leeds, where he had previously been in practise for over twenty years.
