Quirke didn’t reply, only tightened his mouth and looked away. It was as if she had accused him of some childish dereliction.

She had taken only a few sips of wine yet suddenly she felt dizzy. She put down her glass and rose, somewhat unsteadily, to her feet.

‘I don’t feel well,’ she said. Quirke frowned, in disapproval, it seemed. Now it was she who might be the undutiful child. ‘It’s all that travel,’ she said. ‘I think I should go to bed.’

Strafford, well-mannered to the point of tiresomeness, stood up too, unwinding himself from the chair’s embrace as if he were uncoiling a length of particularly flexible rope. Phoebe stepped past him and went towards the lift.

The old waiter again appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. He went ahead of her and opened the door of the lift and smilingly ushered her inside and stepped in after her. There was hardly room for the two of them. The old man gave off a smell of dust and dishcloths. He stood canted towards her with a fixed smile, speaking rapidly in what she supposed must be Spanish – or did the Basques have a language of their own? His voice was a faint rustle, like the sound of dry leaves blowing along a pavement. As the ancient lift clanked its way upwards they were given glimpses of the successive floors, each with its identical corridor, leading away. She felt dizzier still.

The waiter had her key, and he scuttled ahead of her and opened the door of her room. Once more he followed after her, almost crowding on her heels. She found her purse and gave him a coin – she didn’t know how much it was worth – and to her relief he departed, bobbing his head and obsequiously murmuring. The last thing she saw of him was his smile, lingering like the Cheshire Cat’s, as he slowly drew the door shut on himself.

She stood a moment in the middle of the floor with a hand to her forehead. She thought she might be developing a fever. The rhythm of the train’s wheels was still beating in her head. She was not a good traveller. She wished again, almost passionately, that she hadn’t come here.

She switched off the light and drew back the curtain. The lamps along the seafront glowed greyly, like dandelion heads. The sea beyond was a dark gleam, with here and there a flash of phosphorescence in the fold of a wave. On the surrounding hills, the windows of houses glowed yellowly. Strange to think of people behind each window, people she would never meet, would never know, hundreds, thousands of them, the countless ones. The enigma of other lives assailed her.