She punched in something on the computer keyboard and a few minutes later a harassed-looking young woman, five feet nothing tall, hair drawn neatly back in a ponytail, appeared.

‘Ah, there you are, Nina. Is your pager not working?’

Nina said, ‘I was just seeing to Mrs Dempsey, Mrs Danks.’ The lilting intonation was slight but distinct. She sounded Polish, or maybe Lithuanian – he wasn’t good with accents.

‘Will you show Mr Barker here to Mr Kinsella, please?’

Nina held her hand out towards the double doors. ‘Come with me, please.’

Once they were safely on the other side of the doors, Nina looked up at him and smiled. ‘Don’t mind her.’ She tilted her head back in the direction of reception. ‘She’s not so bad as she sounds. Her bark is more bad than her bite. It’s nice that you’ve come to see Jeffrey. No one visits him now Beth is gone.’

‘You knew Beth, then?’

‘Yes. Beth, she was a good woman. Jeffrey, he is not always easy. It’s often the way, you know, when they have dementia.’

Indeed, he did know. ‘I understand. My father has Alzheimer’s too.’

She nodded. ‘It’s not so surprising. It sometimes runs in families.’ She suddenly seemed to realise what she had said. She touched his arm. ‘Oh, I am sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be. I already knew.’

And in truth he did know. In the small dark hours of the night, when the demons came calling, it was one of the myriad things he lay awake worrying about. The thought terrified him. When he’d first found out he’d even briefly started looking up living wills. But when Jo had stumbled over him looking up Swiss clinics in his office one day he’d decided it was time he pulled himself together. If the fates decreed that he was destined to end up trapped in an increasingly diminishing world like his father, he should at least make the most of his faculties in the meantime.

When they got to the day room there was no sign of Jeffrey Kinsella. But they had more luck when they got to his room. Jeffrey was seated in one corner, staring fixedly out of the open window. He appeared to be listening to the birdsong.

Nina said, ‘Jeffrey, you have a visitor. Your nephew has come to see you.’

David said, ‘Hello, Jeffrey.’

Jeffrey turned towards him. ‘Hello.’