So he had allowed her to call the concierge and request him to order a taxi at once. It had arrived with surprising promptness and sped them off to the San Juan de Dios hospital, where they were received without warmth by the inexplicably tense and wary Doctor Lawless. Later, Quirke wondered why he hadn’t been more forcibly struck by the fact that of all the doctors that there must be in all of San Sebastián, it should be this one to whom he had found himself presenting his injured hand. It was life’s playful way to arrange these things, sometimes.

Doctor Lawless led him and Evelyn to a bench and bade them wait, and went and spoke to the nun seated behind the reception desk. The nun, in a grey habit and a sort of modified, miniaturised wimple, gave her a quizzical look. Quirke watched the exchange with interest. The doctor hesitated a moment, then turned abruptly from the desk and walked swiftly away down a corridor, without a backward glance, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the polished floor tiles.

Evelyn turned to Quirke. ‘Where has she gone?’

Quirke shrugged.

‘Don’t ask me,’ he said.

They waited. There was no sign of Doctor Lawless returning. The telephone at the reception desk rang.

Evelyn touched Quirke’s swollen hand. ‘You look so pale.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not the fainting type.’

‘But you have lost so much blood.’ She looked along the corridor down which the doctor had disappeared. ‘This is very bad,’ she said. ‘We must do something.’

She rose and crossed to the reception desk to speak to the nun, who was on the telephone. Quirke watched as the nun put a hand over the receiver and looked up at Evelyn and shrugged, and spoke a few words and then lowered her head until it was almost below the level of the desk.

By now the wad of cotton wool was soaked through with blood. Quirke felt increasingly light-headed, and wondered if after all he might be about to faint. One of his abiding fears had come to pass – he had injured himself, and was in a foreign hospital seeking treatment from people who were either indifferent or hostile. Suddenly he had a childish longing to go home. Maybe he should? There was a direct flight from Madrid, but when did it fly? He seemed to remember it only operated once a week. And how to get to the capital quickly, from way up here in the north? Was there a direct train? Or maybe he could fly from Barcelona, or even somewhere across the border in France.

He was becoming increasingly agitated, and his thoughts raced. It was the effect of having lost all that blood, he supposed. And why wouldn’t it clot? He seemed to have forgotten everything he knew about medicine.

Evelyn returned and sat down beside him on the bench.

‘Another doctor will come,’ she said.