He puts his weight on his feet and strips the blanket slowly off the bed. He folds it because he can’t have a loose edge drag against someone’s foot in the dark. He pads down the length of the ward and carries the blanket into the bathroom, closes the door tight, shutting himself in, dropping the folded blanket to one side.

The silence is abrupt. In the absence of the numerous sounds of human life he now hears the drift of rain upon the roof overhead.

He moves confidently without needing light; long ago his feet memorized the dimensions. The faint hint of illumination defines the high vent window-heavier vertical stripes are the steel bars set into the opening. Even without its bars it would be too small for Duggai to wriggle through.

He crouches. Under the third sink his hands move with quick familiarity: a deft spanning and twisting of the wide fastenings until the elbow of drainpipe comes free. He upends it into his palm and the kitchen knife drops into his hand, a reassuring weight. He lays the pipe elbow aside on the floor with silent care; to replace it would take time and he has examined each step carefully from all directions and determined that there is no need to replace the pipe because they will know about the breakout anyway. It has taken him years in the other place and months in this one to work out the plan and fix each detail in his mind; this is the night he has aimed for and he moves swiftly without waste.

Four paces take him to the outside wall. With the blade he unscrews the four screws that hold the plywood panel over the cavity in the wall (access to the incoming hot and cold water pipes). It has taken several months’ nightly work with fingers and the table knife to cut through the outside paneling and scrape through the stucco. Eight nights ago the knife went through free to the outside of the building and he knew he’d cut his way close enough. Since then it has been a matter of waiting: he has waited for a night black with rain.