Wada had decided to put the long flight to London to good use by brushing up on her English. She’d bought an English translation of her favourite novel, Sasameyuki, by Junichiro Tanizaki, to read on the plane. The title in English was The Makioka Sisters, which didn’t capture any of the allusive subtlety of the Japanese original. Understandably, the translator had failed to find any way to convey in English what the word sasameyuki – lightly falling snow – conjured up for a Japanese reader.

This didn’t surprise Wada. She found the differences between the two languages fascinating even when they were also frustrating. As for Sasameyuki, she’d first read it aloud, to Hiko, during the early months of the coma he’d never woken from. The doctors had told her recovery was out of the question, but it had taken her a long time to believe them and, during that time, Tanizaki’s leisurely tale had been the only source of consolation she could find.

She started reading the book on the train to Narita airport and continued after the plane had taken off. She felt too alert to follow the example of many other passengers and snatch a few hours’ sleep before the scheduled mid-afternoon arrival in London. Her view of jet lag was dismissive. She intended simply to view Monday as an unusually long day, but her resolve didn’t sustain her much beyond struggling through disembarkation, baggage reclaim and immigration checks at Heathrow. She actually fell asleep on the train into London and reached the Envoy Hotel, just off Russell Square, yawning uncontrollably and with her eyes watering in the spring sunshine.

The Envoy was a conventionally smart hotel for tourists and business travellers. As she checked in, Wada managed to register the fact that it had been thoroughly modernized. As Kodaka had surmised, she wasn’t going to learn much about what had happened there forty-two years in the past simply by being a guest in the present.

Her room’s bland but comfortable furnishings told the same story. Even if she could learn the number of the room Shitaro Masafumi had died in, it would make no difference. The Envoy Hotel of 1977 was out of her reach.

She’d checked her phone on landing for a message from Kodaka, but there’d been nothing. It was past midnight now in Tokyo, so it was likely he’d wait till morning to contact her.

That gave her the chance to get some of the sleep she needed. She could barely keep her eyes open by now. Unpacking could wait. She closed the curtains and lay down on the bed.