‘Was there anything about . . .’ He stopped just short of the fatal word. He had been about to ask if there had been, in the same issue of the paper, anything about a murder at the docks. But what had all that to do with him? It was a former life, over and done with, something he had forgotten about. Since then he had died and been reborn a score of times.

‘About what?’ she prompted him.

He looked at her blankly. ‘What about what?’ he muttered. She decided that he must be tired. ‘You must be tired,’ she told him.

‘But what about this private ward business?’

‘Oh, that’s tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You’re being moved tomorrow.’

‘Yes, but who’s behind it?’

‘Some friend of yours,’ she said impatiently, as if it were his business to know the names of his friends. ‘I don’t know the name. They’ll tell you tomorrow when they move you.’

They moved him the next morning, out of the ceaseless racket of the public ward with its communal wireless and echoing vastness, over to a tall, narrow room with big windows and only one bed. He looked round bewildered at the trappings of comfort, the neat washbasin, the vase of flowers, the wireless set on the bedside table. Mr. Perkins, who brought him over, could tell him nothing. But just as they had finished getting him into bed, the sister came in.

‘I expect you’d like to dictate a letter to your friend, thanking him,’ she said.

‘I would if I only knew who it was,’ he answered.

‘Haven’t they told you that? Dear me, how silly. I thought you knew. It’s a Mr. Roderick. Mr. Bernard Roderick, of Stotwell.’

He lay back in silence.

‘You can dictate your letter to me if you like,’ she said.

‘You’re sure they got the name right?’ he asked.

‘Of course the name’s right. We had quite a lot of dealings with him, over the telephone and by letter. He’s even arranged all the details, like having the wireless hired by the week and the bills sent to him. Didn’t they give you that note he sent?’

‘A note to me?’ He was still stupefied.

‘Who else?’ she said in the tone that comes to those who control their impatience, either masking it or releasing it in calculated amounts, for years together. ‘Here it is on the dressing-table.’ She handed it to him. It was a small, neat envelope with a card in it, such as expensive florists enclose with flowers sent by wire. He took out the card. It said, ‘Hoping you will be as comfortable as can be expected. Bernard Roderick.’

‘You’re lucky to have such a generous friend,’ said the sister. Her inquisitiveness, like her impatience, had never been off the lead, but she was human.

‘Lucky,’ he said.

‘I suppose it’s someone you’ve known for a long time,’ she prompted.