“When it’s over, I want to schedule some quality time. A vacation, somewhere safe. A spa weekend, maybe. Would you like that?”

“Yes, Bob.” I hear her, but her heart isn’t in it. She’s gazing inwards again, already thinking herself into the frame she’s got to be in to do her job properly. “We can talk about it when I get back.” I let my arms drop and she steps backwards, away from me. Closer to the kitchen table, so that her left hand is within reach of the violin case. It’s instinctive, she always does that: like a hit man ensuring he knows where his pistol is, so that he can reach it without thinking, using muscle memory in the dark. “I’d better go and get dressed. Are you going to stay up?”

I nod. “I’ll see you off.”

It’s not as if I’ll be able to get back to sleep again.

• • •

ONCE MO’S TAXI COMES TO WHISK HER AWAY, THERE DOESN’T seem to be much point in sitting around the house brooding. Everything here serves to remind me of her absence, like a jaw from which a tooth has unexpectedly disappeared. So I force myself to make some breakfast, eat it in silence—it’s too early for the Today program on Radio 4, my usual breakfast-time distraction—and I leave for the office around the time Mo’s flight is pushing back for departure. Dawn is breaking as I reach the front door and let myself in. I go straight to my office, fire off a couple of terse, ill-tempered emails to various people (by way of pissing on the fire hydrant to let them know that I’m on the job even earlier than they are), and head to the coffee station for the first in-flight refueling of what promises to be a very long day.

Pete, bless his cotton socks, is either running late or has wangled a day off for pastoral duties. Consequently, I’m on my own in the office when Andy knocks on my door around ten o’clock. Obviously he’s gotten the memo I sent out at oh dark o’clock. I let him in. “So, what do you think?” I ask expectantly.

Andy lowers himself gingerly into the guest chair and puts his feet up on the stack of dysfunctional laptops. “About your proposed methodology?”

“That, and the targets.”

He purses his lips and inflates his cheeks like a gerbil, then allows the whistling exhalation to escape. “Let’s see. Silver nitrate in styptic pencils, allergic reactions to. Hirsutism. Anemia and photophobia. A bunch of synonyms you dug out of a medical thesaurus. And you expect to find something?”

“I don’t expect, Andy. But it’d be good to eliminate the obvious, wouldn’t it? It’s sound protocol to ensure we’re not getting false positives, and it will hopefully conceal what we’re really looking for.”

“Which I was just getting to . . .”

“Krantzberg syndrome.”

“Yes, that.” He looks doubtful. “You think you can find it in the population at large?”