As he waited on the platform at the tiny station in Saint-Odile, Gessen studied the printed itinerary provided by his assistant. Assuming no delays, he should arrive in London shortly after midday. In his carry-on bag, he’d tucked the folder of Vidor’s case notes to review on the trip, though doubtful he’d find anything he hadn’t spotted before.

He’d gone over the transcripts from Vidor’s sessions a dozen times. Searching for clues or a break in the rambling narrative where Vidor betrayed himself in a lie. But each retelling of his family history spooled out like finely spun thread. Too smooth, Gessen felt, his fingers tingling like antennae, each time he listened to the polished replies. On Vidor’s home ground, with any luck, he might dig up something to shatter the illusion of the perfect life his patient insisted upon.

* * *

A ray of sun broke through the clouds as the taxi turned into Camden Road, a tidy street of terraced houses, and slowed to a stop in front of number 29. The white paint on the window frames was showing signs of age, but otherwise the Georgian house, with its glossy black shutters and bright red door, looked well cared for. In a round clay pot on the doorstep, a profusion of orange and yellow asters bloomed, and the box hedge bordering the front garden was trimmed with surgical precision. Someone must be looking after the place while Vidor was gone.

A striped cat with protruding hip bones and a feral look lurked in a corner of the garden, its yellow eyes narrowed in suspicion as Gessen passed through the front gate. He wondered if this was the cat Vidor mentioned in the letter he’d written to a woman named Magdalena Bartosz. It was clinic policy to have a quick look through any patient’s letters before they were posted from the village. A breach of privacy that made Gessen uneasy, but he’d been forced to institute the practice a few years ago when a written cry for help from a Russian oligarch’s son brought a SWAT team to the clinic’s front gates.

He brushed a bit of lint from the lapel of his coat before mounting the steps and pressing the bell. Schools would be out for the day, but there were no sounds of children in the road. Nothing but the twitter of sparrows and the faint hum of tyres on a distant street. When no one answered, he pressed the bell again. Such was the scarcity of knowledge about Vidor’s life, Gessen had no idea whether or not he lived alone. The seconds ticked past, and as he turned away, disappointed to have struck out so soon, the door swung open. A solidly built woman with dyed blonde hair coiled in a bun, appeared in the doorway.

‘Is this the home of Professor Vidor Kiraly?’