Methodically he noted the contents of the room: the pale yellow walls, the easy chairs and chaise longues covered in white silk, the Bechstein baby grand, the Louis Quinze clock ticking quietly on the mantelpiece, the charcoal tones of the Auerbach landscape above it. On the coffee table in front of him was one of Gabrielle’s early self-portraits: a half-metre cube, made up of a hundred sheets of Mirogard glass, on to which she had traced in black ink the sections of an MRI scan of her own body. The effect was of some strange, vulnerable alien creature floating in mid-air. Hoffmann looked at it as if for the first time. There was something here he ought to remember. What was it? This was a new experience for him, not to be able to retrieve a piece of information he wanted immediately. When the paramedic had finished, Hoffmann said to Gabrielle, ‘Aren’t you doing something special today?’ His forehead creased in concentration as he searched through the chaos of his memory. ‘I know,’ he said at last with relief, ‘it’s your show.’

‘Yes, it is, but we’ll cancel it.’

‘No, we mustn’t do that – not your first show.’

‘Good,’ said Leclerc, who was watching Hoffmann from his armchair. ‘This is very good.’

Hoffmann turned slowly to look at him. The movement shot another spasm of pain through his head. He peered at Leclerc. ‘Good?’

‘It’s good that you can remember things.’ The inspector gave him the thumbs-up sign. ‘For example, what’s the last thing that happened to you tonight that you can remember?’

Gabrielle interrupted. ‘I think Alex ought to see a doctor before he answers any questions. He needs to rest.’

‘What is the last thing I remember?’ Hoffmann considered the question carefully, as if it were a mathematical problem. ‘I guess it was coming in through the front door. He must have been behind it waiting for me.’

‘He? There was only one man?’ Leclerc unzipped his windcheater and with difficulty tugged a notebook from some hidden recess, then shifted in his chair and produced a pen. All the while he looked encouragingly at Hoffmann.