Still, it was his bench, and he planted himself on the far end, half turned away from the girl to give her privacy. Far below, the valley, at the height of autumnal splendour, glowed in the morning sun. The trees, half stripped of their golden foliage, swayed in the breeze. A throng of brown cows, enjoying the last mild days before the winter set in, dotted the hillsides. A slice of pastoral simplicity, frozen in time. Not the view one would expect from a psychiatric hospital, but perhaps that was the charm of a madhouse set amongst remote mountain peaks. He had hoped to be gone by now, but Gessen was proving to be a formidable adversary, impervious to deflection or charm.

At the flicker of movement to his right, he risked a sideways glance. The girl, tearing at the skin on her thumb, winced when she drew blood. He coughed discreetly. ‘Are you visiting someone?’

She turned her face, blotchy and red-eyed, in his direction.

‘What?’ She blinked. ‘Oh, I didn’t see you there.’ She waved her hand above her head. ‘Away with the fairies, as my gran says.’ She sniffled and blew her nose. ‘And I’m not crying, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just hay fever.’

An English girl. The sound of her accent – London, if he wasn’t mistaken – triggered a rush of homesickness. How he longed to go back. His snug house, just a short stroll to the college. The book-lined study he kept neat as a pin. His tidy garden. He wondered, with a pang, how his students were getting on without him. Or what his housekeeper thought about his disappearance. Two days ago, he’d posted a letter to Magda to let her know he was fine, and to carry on with her regular duties while he was away.

‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ he said, as she shifted on the bench, ‘I was just admiring the view.’

She examined him with the penetrating gaze of the young, though her eyes had gone misty again. Medicated to the gills like the rest of them, he supposed. He’d balked at swallowing the prescribed tablets himself, having never taken anything stronger than an aspirin before. One blue and white pill was for depression, the other two for anxiety. Anxious he might be, considering the circumstances, but he wasn’t depressed. He had a right to refuse the tablets, but the dispensary nurse, whose manner was kind, strongly urged him to follow doctor’s orders.

The girl sighed and studied her nails, bitten to the quick like a child’s. How terrible to be so young and so sad. Perhaps he could jolly her out of her mood. ‘Which part of England are you from?’

‘London.’ She tugged the sleeves of her cardigan over her wrists. ‘But I’m at university now.’

‘Not Cambridge by any chance?’