He’d been observing Kiraly from a distance since the day he arrived, and yet Gessen still didn’t know what to make of him. Each observation was coloured by the fear that Kiraly might rampage again, though he’d yet to note anything alarming in the man’s behaviour. According to the staff, Kiraly was as placid and obedient as a well-trained beagle. Having agreed to cover the costs of his stay, a charitable act he could ill afford, Gessen tried to quell the nagging feeling he had embarked on a fool’s errand.

As with all new patients, Ursula was in charge of Vidor’s care during the settling-in period. He’d discovered early on, after a few false starts and one minor disaster, that the treatment phase proceeded more smoothly when patients were allowed time to adjust before starting on the arduous work of excavating the mind. Once they discovered that the clinic was more like a high-end resort than the nightmarish facilities of their imagination, or popularised in films, they dropped their guard and gladly abided by the rules.

But Vidor Kiraly wasn’t just any patient. Gessen would never be so crass as to shout it from the rooftops, but the presence of such an illustrious figure was a coup for the clinic, not to mention a boost to Gessen’s reputation as a skilled healer of intractable disorders. Now that Kiraly was here, however, with no hint of anything amiss, Gessen wondered if he hadn’t misinterpreted the case.

Amok syndrome. What was he thinking? It was exceedingly rare, with the majority of reported cases confined to the peoples of the Malay Peninsula. As a medical student he’d been advised to think ‘horses not zebras’, upon hearing the gallop of hooves. A caution conveniently forgotten in his zeal to take on Kiraly’s case. Had he presumed that one-in-a million zebra as a salve to his ego? The chance to cure a rare delusional disorder might just be wishful thinking.

More likely, Kiraly’s outburst was simply a matter of an overworked academic flying into a temper at the sight of someone he’d thought had come to taunt him. An old foe, perhaps, or a schoolboy nemesis. Academia was littered with such rivalries. But after reviewing again the photos of Vidor at the ceremony, the police report, and his chart notes with the tantalising words, amnesia and possible fugue state – catnip to Gessen – he changed his mind. Some variety of psychotic delusion was surely at play.