A pause. When Silva spoke again he sounded dumbfounded. ‘I’m afraid it’s not my place to discuss the findings of our treatments with outsiders,’ he said in a manner which left Martin in no doubt that he’d hit the bullseye.

Excitedly, he outlined his theory to the psychiatrist. ‘This is Anouk’s system. She delays her answers by three, which basically means…’

‘That she doesn’t answer the first one until she’s been asked the fourth.’

‘And then answers the second when she’s asked the fifth and so on. You have to adjust the answers by three positions.’ Martin looked triumphantly, first at the paper with the questions, then at the sheet of answers. Everything made much more sense if you put Anouk’s first answer beneath the first question, her second answer beneath the second question, and so on. The results were as follows:

Question 1: When I came to see you a couple of hours ago with Dr Beck you mentioned a name to me, Anouk. Can you remember what that was?

Answer: Martin

Question 2: Do you have any idea where you are at the moment?

Answer: Anouk draws a ship.

Question 3: How old are you?

Answer: 11+3.

Question 4: My God, who did that to you?

Answer: My mama.

Question 5: But you know I’m not a bad man, don’t you?

Answer: ??? (Probably nods in agreement.)

Everything was so clear, so logical. And effortlessly easy when you knew the system. And yet, when on the phone to Silva, Martin had arrived at the sixth question, he felt as if he’d overlooked something fundamental again.

‘This is quite remarkable information, Dr Schwartz,’ he heard the psychiatrist say. A couple of other sentences followed, but Martin wasn’t really listening.

He picked up his pencil and stuck the end with the rubber into his mouth.

He’d asked nine questions in that therapy session. Anouk had answered five with her system. The sixth had remained open.

‘Can you tell me the name of the person you’ve been with all this time?’

Martin sat back down at the kitchen table and wrote No. 6 on the answer sheet. A tingling sensation ran down his back from the neck to the coccyx. ‘Would you agree with me?’ he heard Silva say. He said yes, even though he had no idea what the question had been.

Question 6.

When he first recalled their session he’d assumed that Anouk hadn’t written anything after ‘My mama’. But now he wasn’t so sure.

Martin shut his eyes and once more turned his thoughts back to that loathsome ship. He was in Hell’s Kitchen again. Asking the exhausted-looking Anouk, ‘Is there anything I can bring you?’

He recalled the alarm for the ship’s exercise drill. Seven short tones and one long one.

Anouk picking up the toy computer one last time.

‘Can you tell me the name of the person you’ve been with all this time?’