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that depression, and you get into a loop that eventually kills you, but not before you experience the most utter wretchedness it is possible to feel. That’s part of what is going on in your nervous system right now, and you won’t do anything to stop it. Maybe you don’t want to. I’m not a psychiatrist.’
    There was a silence while I tried to take in what Colin had just told me.
    ‘You mean, I’m not very well?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Colin gently, and for the first time his smile disappeared and a rare look of concern replaced it; for the first time I felt real worry about what he had been telling me. The worst thing was that I had already forgotten most of what he had just said. ‘Yes,’ Colin repeated, ‘you’re not well. In fact you are dying, although whether you will die tonight, or next week, or next year, I can’t tell. I imagine we will need to hospitalise you in a year at the latest, based on your present test results. I hope you still have plenty of money and can afford to go private. It would be a fairly grim outlook in the NHS. Victims of self-abuse are low on their priority list just now.’
    ‘Don’t worry about my money,’ I said: ‘I’ve got endless amounts of the stuff. And don’t worry about hospital. I’m drinking the healthiest drink invented by man: red wine. I think I know a thing or two about this as well, you know.’
    ‘Have you ever been to Colombia?’ asked Colin.
    ‘What?’ I asked, startled by the abrupt change of subject. But as Colin spoke I was somehow in two places at once. In my kitchen, in my home, it was warm and stuffy and Nurse was next door in my sitting room, watching television; Colin was drumming his fingers again, waiting for my reply. At the same moment I was walking quickly along a rain-soaked street in Bogotá. It was always raining in Bogotá - never for too long, but it never stopped for long either. The pavements were slick with rain and the lights of passing cars gleamed on the wet stone. I was heading for the Hotel Bogotá Plaza. I had just flown in on the Avianca flight from Medellín, and I’d had the taxi drop me two blocks from my hotel in case anyone had picked up on me at the airport. Footsteps echoed behind me, and in the silences between their echoes I thought I could smell that awful odour of putrefaction. It was probably nothing.
    ‘Why do you ask?’ I said again.
    ‘You talked about it a lot while you were out for the count: about travelling to Bogotá from Medellín, and about people following you. It sounded like a bad script for a bad movie except that you went into a creepy amount of detail.’
    ‘I’ve never been to Colombia in my entire life - as far as I know,’ I said.
    ‘As far as you know,’ said Colin. ‘I mean, you would know, wouldn’t you? You don’t travel ten thousand miles to another continent and then forget you’ve been there - do you?’
    ‘I don’t know what I mean,’ I said angrily. ‘You’re confusing me. Why are we talking about Colombia?’
    ‘We’re really talking about why you were talking about Colombia.’
    I gave up and said, ‘Look, is there anything else I should know?’
    Colin got to his feet and said, ‘I’m sending Nurse Susan away now. There doesn’t seem any point in having her here if you don’t want her.’
    ‘Nothing personal,’ I said.
    ‘There’s something else wrong with you,’ said Colin, abruptly. ‘It’s not a condition I have ever come across before, and I need to talk to a specialist I know before I can confirm my opinion. I hope I’m wrong.’
    ‘You’re being very depressing, Colin,’ I told him. I tried to smile but couldn’t.
    ‘I’ll call again tomorrow if you’re in - at about this time?’
    ‘I’m always in,’ I said.

Three
    When I had told Colin that I had endless amounts of money to pay my medical bills, I was being optimistic about my financial position. I used to have a lot of money, which I made from the sale of the software-development