He dried his face and dragged a comb through his hair. The family must be contacted at once, and he would have to inform the staff and patients. With one of their number dead, and the police asking intrusive questions, the calm, healing atmosphere of the clinic would be torn to shreds.

* * *

Gessen jumped at the knock on his office door. Ursula slipped inside, looking as rumpled and miserable as he felt. Her skin was dull, and her hair bundled hastily in a ponytail. In her tired eyes rose a question she had no need to ask.

When he tried to speak, it came out as a croak. ‘They’ve found him.’ It wasn’t necessary to say that Ismail was dead. The slump of his shoulders was enough. What next? He couldn’t think what to do, other than to lie down in the dark and pray it was all a bad dream. Together, they would have to coordinate the news of Ismail’s death, as well as cope with the ensuing fallout. As the clinic’s director, he would inform the family, while Ursula told the patients, one by one, with Gessen providing any follow-up if needed.

As they huddled together in the grey light, they agreed for now to say it was an accident. But the patients would surely wonder how it was possible for Ismail to have wandered off. They might even start questioning the security arrangements and worry about their own safety. Or – worse – demand the freedom to wander about as they chose, regardless of the risk.

Had Ismail been so desperate to return to his studies, and the girl in England he wished to marry, that he’d endanger his life? A bitter taste rose in his throat. Too late to admit he’d been wrong to agree with Ismail’s father that his son needed treatment. The boy had been mildly depressed, there was no question of that, but his earlier, half-hearted attempt at suicide was more likely an act of desperation than a sign of severe illness. Locking him away from his studies and the girl he loved was cruel medicine. With each passing day, Ismail must have felt the mountains closing in on him, and the walls of his prison driving him to madness. Escape, whatever the cost, the only way out.

A contest of wills between father and son. An eternal tale that often ended in tragedy. Oedipus. Zeus. Ram. Had he learned nothing from the exploits of the ancients he’d devoured as a boy?

After Ursula left, Gessen switched on his computer and pulled up the map of the grounds. A dotted red line indicated the electronic periphery of the clinic. Normally, if a patient crossed this boundary, clearly marked by a chest-high wooden fence, an alarm would sound in the operations centre, and a member of Security would rush to the site.