‘Fear is a very interesting emotion,’ said Dr Sinclair. ‘You can’t be afraid retrospectively. You can only fear something that hasn’t happened yet.’

Setting up the tape for him, Cooper paused before pressing the ‘play’ button. Damn right, he thought. That was why there were so many things to be afraid of.

‘Scared to live,’ he said. ‘That’s the way you described Mr Lowther’s current state of mind.’

‘That’s correct.’ Sinclair looked up. ‘If you don’t understand that concept, then you haven’t learned to glimpse what goes on in other people’s minds. Some individuals find life unbearable, every day a torment. They become convinced that continuing to live will be such an ordeal that dying is the only possible escape.’

Cooper couldn’t think of an answer to that. He started the tape, and they listened to John Lowther’s interview in silence for a few minutes.

‘Yes, some people go abroad, hunting for whores. No – for babies.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Is it time?’

‘He’s conflating two subjects in his mind here, I think,’ said Sinclair. ‘The whores and babies thing, I mean.’

‘I wondered if John Lowther could be a paedophile. What do you think, Doctor?’

Sinclair shook his head vigorously. ‘No, there’s no indication of that.’

‘Are you sure? I’m no psychiatrist, but babies and whores sounds a very dubious association of ideas to me. I understand that Mr Lowther doesn’t quite know what he’s saying, but isn’t that sort of thing called a Freudian slip?’

‘Freud has nothing to do with it. You don’t understand how this works. What we’re dealing with here is not an association of thoughts, but a disassociation. Mr Lowther’s brain is skipping so quickly to an unrelated subject that there appears to be no distinction or separation between them, as far as the listener is concerned. That’s not the way it is in the patient’s mind – his brain just isn’t making normal connections, the way ours would. Mr Lowther is probably saying words that sound like the ones he’s thinking.’

‘OK. Anything else?’

Cooper pressed the ‘play’ button again, and they listened to the rest of the interview. Sinclair jotted a few notes.

‘Yes, in this interview, I think we can hear pressure of speech, where the patient speaks quickly and incessantly. Also derailment, or flight of ideas, when he switches topic, sometimes in mid-sentence. That can be in response to an outside stimulus.’

‘I like your tie.’

‘Yes, that sort of thing. You might also detect a degree of tangentiality, when he replies to questions in an oblique or irrelevant manner. To you, in your profession, that would probably sound very suspicious and evasive, I imagine.’

Cooper nodded. Evasive was the exact word that he’d used about John Lowther after his interview.