I had described my attempt to break into the food store at Lunghua, which Miriam thought comical but oddly touching. Already I was infatuated with this quick-witted schoolgirl, with her bold gaze and outrageous enthusiasms. At times she would lose interest in me, preoccupied with some grudge against one of the women teachers at the Perse, or after the endless rows with her mother about her drinking in the undergraduate pubs. The proctors had complained to her father that Miriam had been seen in a punt with a crowd of Trinity men, threatening them with a pint of beer in each hand.

Every moment with her produced some surprise. She told me that the optical experiments devised by Richard Sutherland were no more than a blind, part of a larger test to determine the psychological profiles of students who volunteered to take part in medical experiments. Research workers had always assumed that casually recruited volunteers formed a typical cross section of the student population.

“But that isn’t true. Richard says that the only ones who apply are either aggressive extroverts or neurotic introverts.”

“And where are the sane ones?”

“They never apply. They’re either getting drunk or necking on the river.”

“Call Professor Harris…” We were lying in bed together, and I searched below the sheet. “Where does that leave me?”

Miriam pressed my head to the pillow and brushed the hair from my eyes. “Jim, you’re a war criminal.”

“What?”

“Or you think like one. Richard and I were talking about you.”

“Another bogus test…”

“Listen, if you take away the war you behaved just like a schizophrenic child. Richard has a patient whose son was schizophrenic. He spent twenty years quietly trying to kill himself. It’s all he wanted to do.”

“And?”

“I forget. Anyway, you aren’t going to kill yourself. I need you for at least the next three weeks.” She sat up on one elbow, laying her right breast on my chest, and drew lines with her fingernail around her nipple. “Tell me, is it strange to dissect a woman? You say she’s the only one there.”

“Speak softly, she’s the queen of the dead.”

“I know she’s my biggest rival. Can you imagine dissecting me? Where would you start?”