«Believe me, if you understood as much about people as I do, Miss, er — you would believe anything,» said Standish, in his most professionally reassuring tone of voice.

Kate stared into the tired, wretched face of the young girl and said nothing.

«You have to understand,» said Standish, «that we have to be rational about this. If it was tomorrow's stock market prices, it would be a different story. That would be a phenomenon of an entirely different character which would merit and demand the most rigorous study. And I'm sure we'd have no difficulty in funding the research. There would be absolutely no problem about that.»

«I see,» said Kate, and meant it.

She stood up, a little stiftly, and brushed down her skirt.

«So,» she said, and felt ashamed of herself, «who is your newest patient? Who has arrived most recently, then?» She shuddered at the crassness of the non sequitur, but reminded herself that she was there as a journalist, so it would not seem odd.

Standish waved the nurse and the wheelchair with its sad charge on their way. Kate glanced back at the girl once, and then followed Standish through the swing-doors and into the next section of corridor, which was identical to the previous one.

«Here, you see,» said Standish again, this time apparently in relation to a window frame.

«And this,» he said, pointing at a light.

He had obviously either not heard her question or was deliberately ignoring it. Perhaps, thought Kate, he was simply treating it with the contempt it deserved.

It suddenly dawned on her what all this Here you see, and And thising was about. He was asking her to admire the quality of the decor. The windows were sashes, with finely made and beautifully painted beads; the light fittings were of a heavy dull metal, probably nickel-plated — and so on.

«Very fine,» she said accommodatingly, and then noticed that this had sounded an odd thing to say in her American accent.

«Nice place you've got here,» she added, thinking that that would please him.

It did. He allowed himself a subdued beam of pleasure.

«We like to think of it as a quality caring environment,» he said.

«You must get a lot of people wanting to come here,» Kate continued, plugging away at her theme. «How often do you admit new patients? When was the last —?»

With her left hand she carefully restrained her right hand which wanted to strangle her at this moment.

A door they were passing was slightly ajar, and she tried, unobtrusively, to look in.

«Very well, we'll take a look in here,» said Standish immediately, pushing the door fully open, on what transpired to be quite a small room.

«Ah yes,» Standish said, recognising the occupant. He ushered Kate in.

The occupant of the room was another non-large, non-blond person. Kate was beginning to find the whole visit to be something of an emotionally wearing experience, and she had a feeling that things were not about to ease up in that respect.

The man sitting in the bedside chair while his bed was being made up by a hospital orderly was one of the most deeply and disturbingly tousled people that Kate had ever seen. In fact it was only his hair that was tousled, but it was tousled to such an extreme degree that it seemed to draw all of his long face up into its distressed chaos.

He seemed quite content to sit where he was, but there was something tremendously vacant about his contentedness — he seemed literally to be content about nothing. There was a completely empty space hanging in the air about eighteen inches in front of his face, and his contentedness, if it sprang from anything, sprang from staring at that.

There was also a sense that he was waiting for something. Whether it was something that was about to happen at any moment, or something that was going to happen later in the week, or even something that was going to happen some little while after hell iced over and British Telecom got the phones fixed was by no means apparent because it seemed to be all the same to him. If it happened he was ready for it and if it didn't — he was content.

Kate found such contentedness almost unbearably distressing.

«What's the matter with him?» she said quietly, and then instantly realised that she was talking as if he wasn't there when he could probably speak perfectly well for himself. Indeed, at that moment, he suddenly did speak.

«Oh, er, hi,» he said. «OK, yeah, thank you.»

«Er, hello,» she said, in response, though it didn't seem quite to fit. Or rather, what he had said didn't seem quite to fit. Standish made a gesture to her to discourage her from speaking.

«Er, yeah, a bagel would be fine,» said the contented man. He said it in a flat kind of tone, as if merely repeating something he had been given to say.

«Yeah, and maybe some juice,» he added. «OK, thanks.» He then relaxed into his state of empty watchfulness.

«A very unusual condition,» said Standish, «that is to say, we can only believe that it is entirely unique. I've certainly never heard of anything remotely like it. It has also proved virtually impossible to verify beyond question that it is what it appears to be, so I'm glad to say that we have been spared the embarrassment of attempting to give the condition a name.»

«Would you like me to help Mr Elwes back to bed?» asked the orderly of Standish. Standish nodded. He didn't bother to waste words on minions.

The orderly bent down to talk to the patient.

«Mr Elwes?» he said quietly.

Mr Elwes seemed to swim up out of a reverie.

«Mmmm?» he said, and suddenly looked around. He seemed confused.

«Oh! Oh? What?» he said faintly.

«Would you like me to help you back to bed?»

«Oh. Oh, thank you, yes. Yes, that would be kind.»

Though clearly dazed and bewildered, Mr Elwes was quite able to get himself back into bed, and all the orderly needed to supply was reassurance and encouragement. Once Mr Elwes was well settled, the orderly nodded politely to Standish and Kate and made his exit.

Mr Elwes quickly lapsed back into his trancelike state, lying propped up against an escarpment of pillows. His head dropped forward slightly and he stared at one of his knees, poking up bonily from under the covers.

«Get me New York,» he said.

Kate shot a puzzled glance at Standish, hoping for some kind of explanation, but got none.