‘I won’t be here next year, of course. By then we shall have appointed a new superintendent. My friend and colleague Peter Andritsch will stay for a year to oversee the change, then he too will retire. I don’t know if we can afford to replace him as well. We are living in difficult times, as you all know. We have very little money in reserve and the depression shows no signs of easing up. As for what is happening in the political world … I suppose one day our children will be able to make sense of it. I certainly can’t. To see democracy suspended – and the country in the hands of private armies …’

Franz resettled his rimless glasses. ‘I came here forty years ago. It was in another century, when we believed that science was our servant and that between us we could cure all the ills of humanity. I had studied under Dr Alzheimer. And I was grateful to come to this place and find in Dr Midwinter and Dr Rebière two men who shared the great optimism of the age. So before we confront whatever challenges await us, I would like you to raise a glass to them both – and to a better time. Our founders and our benefactors, Thomas and Jacques.’

There was applause and earnest assent – ‘Jacques and Thomas’ – from those who remembered and from those who had never heard of either man.

‘How nice for you,’ said Anton.

‘Thank you,’ said Charlotte, her eyes shining.

Anton was not so drunk that he couldn’t see the effect of the mention of her father’s name.

This must be what a child’s love is, he thought, seeing the flush beneath her skin. A current that electrifies a living person after you yourself are dead. An energy as powerful as the one that made Galvani’s frog fly from the dissecting table …

‘… outside for a moment. Once I’ve checked on Harriet,’ Charlotte was saying. ‘Would you mind passing that saucer of chocolates so I can take them up to Mary?’

‘Of course …’ The reflexive courtesy of some old Styrian rule book made him stand and pull back the chair for her, swaying for a moment as he did so. He watched her leave, finished his glass of wine, then, after a moment’s hesitation, Charlotte’s glass as well. She’d hardly touched it anyway.

Outside in the hall, in the press of bodies, he found himself next to a woman who looked as if she might be the twins’ mother.

‘Excuse me, may I introduce myself?’ he said.

‘Of course. My name is Kitty.’

‘I thought so. Though in the archives of the clinic you are better known as Fräulein Katharina von A.’

Kitty blinked. ‘You must be the journalist.’

‘I am. Anton Heideck. The most remarkable thing is that you look so much like Martha and so little like Charlotte. Yet they are indistinguishable.’

‘Well, that would be remarkable. Almost impossible, some would say.’