She walks into the bedroom, expecting it to be the same as the one in Cornwall. And it is, including the canvas photos on the wall. Except that the couple are on what must be a local beach in Brittany and it’s Catrine, not her, emerging from the waves. She can’t tell if it’s Rob or not behind her. She assumes it’s Gilmour.

She closes the door and leans against it, breathing heavily. It’s such a relief to be on her own, even for only a couple of minutes. Every inch of her is slick with sweat. She tries to calm herself, to trawl through her super-recogniser training, find something – anything – that might help her. Nothing. She takes off her clothes and puts on the gown with a terrible sinking feeling. It’s a bad fit. They always were. She hated her time in hospital, the sterile smell, the nylon sheets, the machines winking at her bedside through the night. Only the staff were nice – and Rob, who came to visit her that day. Why is she wearing a gown again? It’s as if the past six months haven’t happened and she’s back in hospital.

Something awful is about to happen to her, that’s all she knows. She sits on the end of the bed, staring out at the terrace and the sea beyond. Brittany might look like Cornwall, but it feels very different now.

She gets up and tries the outside door. Locked. No surprise. She’s been brought to this place for a reason. She thought it was by Rob, who wanted her to help him spot his doppelgänger, but it’s too late for that. Gilmour is already here.

A knock on the door. Putin enters the room before she has time to answer.

‘We need to go,’ he says, looking Kate up and down.

She slips on the flip-flops and follows him through the atrium, past an easel with one of her unfinished paintings of Stretch. She guesses it was too much to find a doppelgänger who could paint too. The kitchen area is tidier than in Cornwall, but apart from that it’s the same.

‘If he likes something, he sticks with it,’ Putin says, waiting for her to catch up with him. She doesn’t want to walk in front, conscious that her gown barely ties up at the back. ‘Houses, cars, women.’

‘Is there more than one of you?’ she asks.

‘He’s looking,’ Putin says, touching a hand to the scar on his head. ‘These things take time. I also like to think I’m unique.’ For the first time since he picked her up at Paddington, he smiles, creasing his tiny eyes.

She doesn’t smile back. ‘What happened?’ she asks, nodding at the scar.

‘Gil made me well again. I was fitting twenty, thirty times a day. Then he put a neural probe in my brain.’

‘No more fits?’