‘It certainly does,’ Gessen said. Impulsively, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry to be so mysterious. I would tell you more if I could, but doctor–patient confidentiality prevents me from saying too much. If it turns out that my suspicions are right, this Milen person could provide a clue.’

‘A high-profile case, is it?’ Bertrand gave him a questioning glance.

Had he said that, or was his friend fishing for more? Bertrand loved a good story. When Gessen didn’t respond, he pressed him again. ‘What makes you suspect your patient could be the boy from the Sorbonne?’

‘I’m not sure, exactly.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s just a hunch.’

When Bertrand paused to look into a shop window, Eveline leaned in close and touched his arm. ‘It’s Vidor Kiraly, isn’t it?’ She met his eyes.

Gessen’s thoughts spun. How could she possibly have guessed?

‘Sorry, I know it’s confidential, but Bertrand mentioned your high-profile patient had attacked a stranger unprovoked.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It’s all anyone can talk about in the lab, so I put two and two together.’ Eveline glanced behind her. ‘We’ve never met, but I do have a story about him that might help your case. Last year, just before the Nobel Prizes were announced, a bunch of us were sitting around trying to guess who might be tipped for the prize in Medicine or Physiology when Kiraly’s name came up.

‘Everyone was sure he would win. I can only imagine how disappointed he was not to get the call, but then he won the Søgaard, which is the next best thing, though I imagine it might have felt like a consolation prize.’ She looked behind her again. Bertrand had pulled out a notebook and was jotting something down. ‘We were at a cafe having drinks after work, so you might want to take this with a grain of salt, but a visiting scientist from Budapest said flat out that Kiraly wasn’t Hungarian. He’d met him at a conference in Berlin, apparently, and said that while Kiraly’s mastery of Hungarian was excellent, he would bet a whole stack of money that it wasn’t his mother tongue.’

Gessen stared at her. Not his mother tongue? ‘Perhaps, after forty years in England, I can only imagine that…’

Eveline shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t forget key expressions or idioms or tonal inflections. Look at me, I’ve spoken French exclusively since I was nineteen, but when I visit my family in the UK, no one would suspect I spoke anything other than English.’ She gave him a steady look. ‘It’s something to think about anyway.’ As Bertrand approached, she brought a finger to her lips. ‘Mum’s the word.’