‘For our session today, I’d like to conduct a word association exercise.’ She beckoned for him to follow her into a different adjoining room, not the elegant sitting room as he’d hoped. This room was quite small in size and sparsely furnished with a straight-back chair and a chaise longue, upholstered in black leather. Here, at last, was the infamous couch. Did this mean he’d advanced to a new level, or that he’d gone back a step? As he eyed the set-up with a prickle of anxiety, he imagined the ghost of Freud – or was it Jung? – gazing smugly upon him.

She waited as he lay down and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Before we begin, could you tell me which language you prefer? I’ve got assessments in French and Hungarian, as well as English. Usually, we find that the patient’s native tongue is best, but in your case…’

‘English, if you please. I’ve spoken almost nothing else for forty years.’

A whisper of shuffled paper. ‘Here’s how it works: I’m going to read out a series of words, and after each word I say, you tell me the first word that comes to mind. Don’t think about your answer. Just say the first thing that pops into your head. The whole exercise should take about fifteen to twenty minutes.’

Her skirt rustled as she settled into the chair behind his head. On the wall, an abstract painting in soft pastels hung directly in his line of sight. Perfectly innocuous, exceedingly bland. Something one might find at the dentist or in a mid-class hotel room in Leeds.

‘Ready?’ Dr Lindstrom cleared her throat and began. ‘Water.’

He scrunched his brow, wondering if there was a way to game this thing. ‘Wet.’

‘Blank.’

‘Paper.’

‘Iron.’

‘Magnet.’ A spot on his left foot itched. This was ridiculous, being reduced to a lab rat. Though it was probably no worse than the sensory integration experiments he put his test subjects through. Asking them to identify a scent or sound while he flashed a series of words or colours on a screen, their scalps studded with electrodes. But such experiments were meant to elucidate key neural pathways in the brain. This ludicrous exercise felt like two children playing a game of pat-a-cake.

‘Broken.’

Fatigue weighed down his limbs. ‘Bones.’

‘Father.’

‘Gone.’