When we arrive, the hospital doesn’t resemble any I’ve ever visited before, though a modern block would have seemed bizarre at the end of a rough track that’s fighting a losing battle with nature. Instead, it’s more like a large village. Inside a perimeter fence are dozens of buildings, some grander than others, with rendered mustard-coloured walls and tiled roofs. Other structures are simpler huts. Staff and patients walk between the buildings or sit on verandas, listless in the heat. Signs in English and another script point to the out-patients and the pharmacy.

We get a guarded welcome from Siya, the postgrad who has been given the job of settling us in. She’s our age, dressed in a T-shirt and long combats, and is beautiful enough to be the fifth member of All Saints.

‘Someone pulled strings to get you in here,’ she says. ‘We’re mostly Indian-staffed and we don’t welcome foreigners gawping at our patients.’

She leads us past a refectory. ‘Vegetarian food only, and there’s no smoking or drinking here, plus you will help with manual labour to keep the campus clean.’

I imagine Wilcox’s reaction if he were in my shoes.

‘And as for your girlfriend –’ she turns to Kerry – ‘I hope you have a good book with you because there is nothing for an unqualified person to do here.’

I glance at Kerry and see an expression I know too well: determination. The last thing she intends to do here is read.

Before I get the chance to settle into the dorm room in our cottage, Siya wants to take me to meet the Boss.

‘Can’t I shower?’

She doesn’t even bother to answer.

‘What’s the Boss’s name? Is he scary?’

‘Her name,’ Siya snaps. ‘It’s Dr Murty but everyone calls her the Boss.’

The Boss scrutinizes me as I step into her office, the fan whirring above her desk. She is wiry but powerful, with thick tortoiseshell glasses that obscure any sense of her age. ‘You’re here because you are interested in discovering more about public health, but what can you do for us?’ she asks, without preamble. ‘We don’t need average people. What is the one thing you are better at than anybody else?’

Even if I weren’t exhausted and sweatier than I’ve ever been in my life, I’d struggle to answer. When I was a kid, it was easy: physics, first aid, talking my mum into getting up even when she felt there was no point anymore . . .

‘I’m quite proficient at basic patient care. Feeding. Bathing.’

‘That is what families do here. Come on, boy. You are studying medicine. You must be made of something more than your appearance suggests.’

As I did in Mr Mukherjee’s office, I look around for inspiration but the space is almost monastic.