Perched high above the valley and ringed by jagged peaks, when the snows came they would be cut off from the world. He couldn’t help thinking it was a precarious location for a clinic, though he was familiar with the nineteenth-century vogue of establishing sanatoriums high in the mountains for the healing effects of the crystalline air. In an emergency, rescue by helicopter would be the only way out. Not that he would be here long enough to witness any of the infamous winter storms. After a week or so of rest at someone else’s expense – and who could say no to that? – he would return to his tidy house and bustling lab in Cambridge and pick up his life where he left off.

An attendant with an unruly thatch of ginger hair appeared from behind the boxwood hedge to announce it was time for Movement & Meditation. Had two days passed already? According to Dr Lindstrom, he’d been here a solid week. Though fuzzy on the details, he was brought to this place after suffering an accident of some kind in Copenhagen. An ischaemic attack from overexcitement, perhaps. Or a minor cerebral haemorrhage. That would account for the amnesia. But Dr Lindstrom assured him he was not to worry. All would be explained when he met with the clinic’s director. Her eyes had shone when she spoke the man’s name. Whoever the mysterious Dr Gessen was, she was clearly an acolyte.

Worse than the confusion about the exact details of his arrival, he had lost all sense of time. Along with his belt and shoelaces, they’d taken away his wristwatch and without it he was lost at sea. No timepiece or calendar to order his days. Only at the sun’s zenith could he guess with some certainty the position of the clock. Not even a sundial graced the grounds. With his days largely empty, but for the meals in the dining hall and the twice-weekly regimen of quasi-Eastern folderol the staff called ‘M&M’, a time-killing activity cooked up no doubt by the elusive Dr Gessen, the hours seemed to contract and expand in baffling ways.

He dropped his notebook in the canvas satchel the clinic had provided and followed the attendant to a round building with a thatched roof. His guide had a nervous, twitchy air. Another of Dr Gessen’s many disciples, Vidor supposed. The longer they made him wait to meet this mysterious character the more his impatience grew.

* * *

In the north turret of the manor house, Gessen adjusted the focus on the binoculars until his newest patient swam into view. Seated on a bench next to the bronze statue of swallows in flight, Vidor Kiraly emanated an air of ennui as he scribbled in a notebook. Twice he looked up to gaze at the high peaks across the valley.