Vidor’s hand jerked at the shock of this pronouncement. He stared at the splotch of coffee he’d spilled on the white linen. Not that it mattered, but he hadn’t the slightest inkling. ‘Back home. You mean in Egypt?’

‘No, England. What made you think he lived in Egypt?’

Flustered, Vidor added more sugar to his coffee. ‘I heard he was from there.’

She cut her gaze away. ‘Why do you care all of a sudden? Ismail said you loathed him.’

Loathed? He’d found the boy annoying, but other than that, he certainly wasn’t worth fussing about. He chalked up Libby’s overheated emotions to the excesses of the young. But her words floated between them like a noxious cloud. Best to change the subject.

‘I thought I’d take a swim today, work off some of this food.’ He patted his belly. ‘Have you used the fitness facilities? I hear the pool is very nice.’

She scraped back her hair. ‘Better than those idiotic Movement & Meditation classes they make us do. What’s that all about? Do they think we’re stupid? Why not just call it Group Therapy and be done with it?’

In commiseration, he smiled at the frustration that so neatly mirrored his own. ‘But would you go to something called Group Therapy? I’d avoid it like the plague.’

Her smile, though sad, felt like a vindication of his poor attempt at humour. Over the rim of his coffee cup he made note of the slump of her shoulders and the blue smudges under her eyes. Impossible to imagine how such a girl, with everything going for her, ended up here. What existential tragedies could she have possibly suffered in her young life? Though it could be something organic, like anorexia. She was terribly thin, and her skin so delicate he could see a tiny blue vein beating in her temple. As far as he could make out, the only thing she’d had for breakfast was black coffee and two bites of toast. Wasn’t anyone monitoring her food intake?

A shadow blocked the light. He looked up to see the German woman, Babette, making a beeline for the buffet. He hoped she wasn’t planning to join them, but after she filled her plate, he was relieved to see her retreat to a corner table where she began to fork thick slices of sausage into her mouth. She was getting fatter and more choleric by the hour. It was an effort to drag his eyes away as she viciously tore into a hunk of rye bread. Gessen’s patients were falling apart right in front of him, so where was he?