I indicate and wait for a long enough gap in the traffic. “Remember that an indicator is not a right of way,” says Dad.

“I remember.”

Maybe it’s the sugar rush, but I perform the maneuver, unperturbed by such thoughts as death and carnage. It’s just traffic. It’s just a motorway. I don’t know why I made such a fuss.

Or it could be because my head cannot accommodate any additional concerns. There’s enough going on. Like Iris. I should try her again. Leave a message this time. Except I don’t know what to say.

And Brendan. But if I ring him, I’ll have to tell him that I’ve lost Iris.

What kind of a person loses a person?

I breathe in, hold it for five, breathe out.

“Are you okay, love?” Dad asks through a mouthful of cake.

Never speak with your mouth full.

That was one of his mantras.

So was, Fronts, backs, and individuals. When he’d send us to wash our hands before dinner. And after dinner.

He was a stickler for table manners.

I hand him a napkin. He looks at it for a moment before setting it on the seat beside him.

I don’t think we’re all that far from Zurich. Maybe two hours.

And then what?

Zurich is a city of a million people.

How do you find one person in a city of a million people?

30

Signal your intention to change course and pull in.

Zurich looks about the same size as Dublin city, which is to say not all that big. Even so, I can’t get my bearings. I keep crossing bridges over the river and back again. If I wasn’t so desperate, I could look at the lake properly.

Admire it even. The reflection of the tall, narrow buildings that flank it, with their wooden-shuttered windows and the way the sun glances off their curved rooftops.

But you can’t notice any of that when you’re driving around with no idea of where you’re going, on the wrong side of the road, with the day getting away from you like water down a drain.

The streets are crisscrossed with pedestrians and cyclists and cars and trams and long buses that bend in the middle, like accordions. I am going around in circles, I’m sure I am. I’ve seen that bank before, haven’t I? And that one. And that one.

There are a lot of banks.

None of the pedestrians are Iris.

Now I’m driving over another bridge and I turn left for no other reason than it’s the least difficult option and now I’m driving along the lakeside again. A car behind me beeps and I jump and Dad jumps and I think hard about just stopping. Right here, in the middle of the road. Putting on the hand brake and folding my arms and just sitting here, refusing to move until somebody arrives to take charge.

And then I see her.

Glimpse her. The back of her. On her sticks, making her way up the steps of a hotel. I brake and open the window. I lean out. “Iris.”