They started across the lawn.

Captain Pile unlocked a heavy teak door in another yellow-brick wall with more broken glass on top. Graham's spirits, already sinking under the weight of Smithers Botham's massive ugliness, plunged further. The annex was ghastly. It looked older and bleaker than the rest of the hospital. It was as narrow as a ship, two stories high, a hundred yards long. Slates were missing from the roof, a good many windows were broken, and all of them were backed with stout iron bars. A jumble of small buildings sprouting iron stove-pipes were tacked on one end as an afterthought. The garden had for some seasons clearly been left to its own devices. Even Captain Pile looked faintly apologetic.

Inside was dark, damp, and empty. On the bare floor were sheets of newspaper, streaming toilet rolls, a pile of black-chipped enamel mugs, and other wreckage beyond Graham's powers of identification. Something scampered in the corner. The smell was strange, but predominantly faecal.

'Do you mean human beings actually lived here?' Graham exclaimed. 'And not so very long ago?'

'It's a bit musty,' Captain Pile agreed. 'I gather they used to keep their senile dementias in the place. You can't expect those sort of cases to take much notice of their surroundings.'

Graham eyed a wooden partition dividing the long room, its door swinging ajar. 'What's through there?'

'The night ward. This would be the day room.'

Graham picked his way gloomily through the rubbish to the far end of the annex. Of the tacked-on buildings, one revealed itself as the kitchen, with a stone floor and a black iron range. The second contained some cracked washbasins and three large bath-tubs raised proudly on pedestals in the middle. In the third, Graham found himself facing what appeared to be a row of horse-boxes. He discovered the half-doors opened inwards, to disclose lavatories with no seats and the chains encased in lengths of pipe running from cistern to handle.