Thick flakes were falling around them as Bannerman and Sally stepped out of the car. Half a dozen other vehicles sat close to the house, ledges of snow accumulating on their roofs. The house looked better cared for than its neighbours. Sandblasters had restored the stone to its original honeycomb yellow, window sashes and shutters a freshly painted green. It was an impressive building with turrets at each of its four corners, and steeply pitched grey-slate roofs.

They mounted the steps to double swing doors and pushed into a bleak tiled hallway, a staircase to their left climbing to the next floor. The air here was warm and heavy with a sour smell that reminded Bannerman of the school dinner hall. A nurse in a starched white uniform came out of a room at the far end. She was preoccupied with charts on a clipboard and didn’t notice them at first. When she looked up she seemed momentarily taken aback. She approached and spoke to them in French. Sally replied, and Bannerman wondered why he was surprised by her fluency. But, of course, if she taught English she must speak French. The nurse smiled and nodded and asked them to wait.

The two stood in the hall shuffling impatiently, neither inclined to conversation. In the still of the house, the only sounds to reach them were distant. Muffled voices, the opening and closing of doors, the chatter of a typewriter. Then the clatter of footsteps on the stairs and a man in a dark suit came down to greet them. He shook both their hands solemnly and addressed himself to Bannerman in English. ‘You’ve come to see little Tania. I am Doctor Mascoulin.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘Neil Bannerman.’ And he turned towards Sally. ‘This is . . .’

Mascoulin interrupted. ‘Yes, we’ve already met.’ And Bannerman glanced at Sally, surprised to learn that she had been here before. He realized how little he really knew about her. Mascoulin said, ‘Tania’s with some of the older children still in the playroom. Perhaps you would like to observe her first. She has not integrated well, but maybe that is to be expected.’

He led them upstairs and down a cream-painted hallway. Halfway along it he opened a door that led into a small observation room. A dozen seats were gathered around a one-way mirror that allowed for observation of the children without being seen. They found themselves looking into a large, brightly lit room where eight or ten children were involved in various stages of play. Paintings and drawings, clearly done by the children themselves, covered its walls. Games were spread out on a long, oblong table and two of the children sat on tubular steel chairs playing with a pile of wooden bricks. Other pieces of apparatus and more chairs lay scattered about the floor, seemingly at random.