The lawsuit from Ismail’s father was settled out of court, and a great deal of money paid out by Gessen’s insurance company. A pointless exercise, he felt. All the money in the world wouldn’t bring Ismail back, nor ease his guilt and pain from the loss of such a vibrant young man. As for Hisham, another promising young student, and possibly one of Vidor’s victims, an email from Farzan Rahimi had informed Gessen of his fate.

During the spring thaw, a body had washed up on the shores of the Cam, several miles north of Cambridge. Forensic evidence revealed that it was Farzan’s friend Hisham, the student from the rival group in Vidor’s department, whose lab notebook was stolen. He’d been dead for several months, if not longer. Drowned, apparently, following a blow to the head. The man in Copenhagen, Ismail, Hisham. Possibly Vidor Sovàny. A quartet of death’s in Vidor’s wake. How many, Gessen wondered, had come before?

After he’d dealt with the authorities and provided support and job placements to the shell-shocked staff, Gessen, bewildered and exhausted himself, hadn’t known quite what to do. ‘Take some time away,’ Hélène had urged during the few days he’d stayed in her home and been too busy with the police and paperwork to grieve what he’d lost.

Uncertain of how to move on from the wreckage, he’d followed Hélène’s advice and made a pilgrimage to Jung’s former residence in Küsnacht, now a museum, seeking the great man’s counsel. While walking along the lake, he was reminded of Jung’s injunction on how to approach the second half of life. By ignoring the script of his youth and beginning again.

Startled by the sound of a door slamming shut in a gust of wind, he turned to study the framed painting that hung on the wall near his desk. It was the second painting created by Vidor – or possibly Malik – in his art therapy session with Isabelle. Two dark figures, one in sunlight, the other in shadow, faced each other on opposite sides of a deep ravine. In the distance, barely visible, a lone creature, perhaps a bird, or some mythical beast, hovered on the far horizon. A message or story Gessen has yet to decipher. But one day it would come to him, if he looked at it long enough, and with an open mind.

Having confronted – and survived – the prophecies of that long-ago fortune teller, who’d warned him about a dark knight, a gold ring, a monstrous secret, it was time to lay the past to rest.

High time, indeed, for a change.