Unfortunately, Isobel didn’t get a chance to answer, because it was at precisely this moment that fatigue completely overtook Andrew and his head dropped, face-first, onto the kitchen table. His right hand slowly relaxed its grip on his cup of tea, and a quiet snoring noise began to gently disturb the air.

Isobel had heard a vast amount of late-night disjointed chatter in her time, and much of it had come from Andrew. “Low earth orbit” was new, though. And how had he correctly recalled the figures for acceleration due to gravity?

More to the point, why was Andrew incapable of coherent thought, but entirely able to pronounce “phosphorescent” and “pachyderms”?

The sensible reaction at this point would have been for Isobel to shrug her shoulders, turn off the lights and remove all the sharp objects from around Andrew before going up to bed. Fortunately, Isobel considered “sensible” to be a euphemism for “boring”, so instead, frowning slightly in concentration, she opened his briefcase and began to read.