In the corridor on the way to her room, Phoebe had a sensation of weightlessness, as if gravity had let go its hold on her. It lasted only a second or two, then she seemed to pass effortlessly through some glair-like substance, and was her solidly grounded self again. Yet even when she reached the door to her room and was inserting the key in the lock, something of that peculiar buoyant feeling remained. It was at once unsettling and faintly thrilling. She felt as one feels when the vase slips from one’s hands and seems to hang suspended for an instant before plummeting to the floor and exploding into a thousand pieces.

In her room, she stood motionless in the middle of the floor, trying to regain her equilibrium. The window was open on to the pale-blue day. The gauze curtain stirred, the hem of it making a faint scraping sound as it brushed back and forth over the carpet.

The telephone stood on a cabinet beside the bed. A squat, smug black thing, it seemed to dare her to approach it. She felt the same antipathy to phones as she did to hotels. There was so much she had in common with her father, she thought ruefully. She lifted the receiver. The male operator, bright and brisk, spoke to her in fluent English, which for some reason she resented. He requested her to hang up, saying he would call her back. She put down the receiver. The feel of the Bakelite, heavy, smooth and chill, made her shiver.

It had occurred to her on the way down here that all this business of ‘Doctor Angela Lawless’, and who she really was or wasn’t, might be an elaborate ploy by her father to get her away from Paul Viertel. She wouldn’t put it past him, for he was devious when he set his mind to something. He had never approved of Paul, even though – or because? – he was his wife’s nephew. It had nothing to do with the fact that Paul was a Jew, she knew that. No, with Quirke, it was always personal.

She sat back on the bed with her hands pressed hard against the mattress on either side of her, thinking. Then she snatched up the phone again, intending to cancel the call to the hospital. But she got a different operator this time, whose English was poor, and she couldn’t make herself understood, and in the end she hung up. She was flustered. She had an image of a bird floundering in a net as colourless as air.

The phone rang, making her jump, and the mattress springs jangled under her. She picked up the receiver. It was the first operator, informing her that he was putting her through to the hospital. Then a female voice spoke to her in Spanish. Stammering, she replied in English.

‘Please, I wish to speak to Doctor Angela Lawless.’