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anyplace.’
    Catherine and Isobel went out of the living room and through to the kitchen. Michael heard them talking for a few seconds, something about ‘not expecting too much’. Then they closed the kitchen door and there was silence.
    He sat in his wheelchair for a while, looking around. He thought that Isobel was good to look at, and very likeable, although he wasn’t at all sure about her taste in home decoration. She couldn’t have picked a bleaker and more depressing picture to hang over the fireplace, and as for all of her china figurines …
    But maybe
he
had china figurines over his fireplace, back at his apartment on Pine Street, and pictures hanging on his walls that were even bleaker and more depressing than this one. He just couldn’t remember.
    In the opposite corner of the room stood a small side table, with a crochet mat on top of it, and on top of the crochet mat stood a framed color photograph of a sallow, solemn-looking man with rimless eyeglasses and swept-back gray hair. Maybe it was Isobel’s father, although Michael couldn’t see much of a family likeness. In fact the man in the photograph looked Hispanic.
    After a few minutes’ more waiting, Michael thought that he might as well put his jacket back on. Grunting with effort, he hoisted himself out of his wheelchair and limped across to the window seat. He bent over stiffly to pick up his jacket, but as he did so he heard an engine running, right outside. He reached over and lifted up the calico blind, so that he could see what it was.
    A black Escalade was parked in the street right in front of Isobel’s house. Its windows were all tinted black, but the passenger-side window had been lowered halfway down, so that he could see a white-haired, white-faced man in sunglasses sitting in it. When he lifted the blind a little higher, however, so that he could have a better look, the passenger-side window was immediately closed, and the Escalade drove off, leaving nothing but a ghostly cloud of exhaust fumes.

FOUR
    D octor Connor knocked on his open door and said, ‘Surprise! Guess what?’
    Michael was sitting in the armchair beside his bed trying to solve a general knowledge crossword. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I have no idea. I can’t even guess ninety-nine per cent of this goddamned crossword.’
    So far he had managed only to fill in the word
mesa
, in answer to the question ‘
Large flat-topped mountain on which standing water may be found, and cattle grazed
?’
    He knew that it was a
mesa
with even more certainty than he knew his own name. He also knew that a larger flat-topped mountain was a
plateau
and a smaller flat-topped mountain was a
butte
– but he had no idea
how
he knew it, or why.
    â€˜Your sister Sue is coming to visit you this afternoon. She should be here around three. Isn’t that great?’
    Michael looked up. ‘I guess so, yes. I just wish I could remember what she looked like.’
    â€˜Well, that’s the main reason she wanted to come. She thought that if you saw her it might spark some memories.’
    â€˜You showed me that picture of her. That didn’t help.’
    â€˜Maybe when you see her in person, and hear her talking.’
    Michael folded up his newspaper and tucked it into the rack at the side of his nightstand. ‘I hope it helps, for her sake. It must be taking her at least five hours to drive here from Oakland.’
    â€˜See? You know that much. She’s staying overnight in our hospitality suite, so you’ll be able to see her again tomorrow before she drives home.’
    When she had gone, Michael eased himself out of his chair and went to look out of the window. His room was in a wing at the south-east side of the clinic, and so he could see the front entrance with its covered portico and its two snow-topped bay trees standing guard by the doors. He could also see part of the parking lot, with a fluorescent