A junior doctor comes to fetch Tilly and Jomier. He escorts them along corridors, up two storeys in a lift, along more corridors, then down some stairs. As they walk he makes some cursory remarks about the rebuilding programme: they hope the refurbishment will be completed by 2011.

They wait in the antechamber to Professor Adams’s office. Jomier feels his odium medicinae awakening within him: the conceit and complacency of these despotic consultants with their courts of houri nurses and fawning registrars when the chances of a cure from cancer in Britain are the worst in Western Europe. Jomier reins in his resentment: he has undertaken to forgive – even the time-serving incompetence of Britain’s NHS. Nor would it be politic to betray feelings to Professor Adams which might distract him from his search for the needle in the haystack.

They are shown in to Professor Adams’s office. It dates from the 1960s: one wall is of plate glass giving a view over east London, the others of unplastered brick. Books and papers are stacked on bracket shelving. On the walls – framed certificates, photographs of grinning children, one a girl on a pony, another of Adams playing golf. He is a medium-sized middle-aged Englishman – lean, brisk, fit. He glances at Jomier and Tilly as if assessing their status: should he stand or should he stay seated? He seems to recall that Louisa is a private patient and so gets to his feet. He comes out from behind his desk, shakes them by the hand, then points towards a hard square-armed sofa set against the wall. He himself sits down on a square-armed armchair. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ Both decline his offer. ‘No, quite right. It’s from a machine.’