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called disease, paddling in the shallows and imagining we understand the profound mysteries that lie beyond the horizon.’
    ‘He said that to you, too?’
    ‘They all say it. It’s the latest fashion. In the old days they just said you’d got mumps.’
    I took out a handkerchief and dabbed the sweat on my neck. It was hot and stuffy in the cafeteria, or maybe it was just the knack Mrs Prestatyn had of making me squirm. From far away I could hear the dull click, thud and whirr of crockery being loaded into an automatic dishwasher. The air was hard to breathe, a fug filled with the faint smell of disinfectant, and industrial laundry soap, the stale scent of boiling cabbage and Mrs Prestatyn’s minty breath. Maybe it was just too warm. Hospitals were always like that, heated to keep sick people in pyjamas from shivering, like orchids in a hothouse. Mrs Prestatyn continued to feign reading. Finally she said, without looking up, ‘So now I suppose you’ve come to ask about Brainbocs.’
    ‘Meirion says he got sick.’
    ‘Royal Salop Infirmary. Top floor. Moved him off the cell block in February.’ She carried on reading her book, or pretending to. After a while she said, ‘You know my rates, Mr Knight. It’s not January so there’s no sale.’
    I unfolded a five-pound note and put it on the table and she put her book down on top of it and said the single word, ‘Glossolalia.’
    I waited for her to amplify but she didn’t even though she knew I hadn’t a clue what that was, so I said finally, ‘Do I get any more for my five pounds?’
    She looked up. ‘You’ve never heard of glossolalia?’
    ‘You’d be mortified if I had.’
    She grunted and said reluctantly, seemingly having already forgotten that I had paid for the information, ‘Glossolalia is the term used to describe people who create their own private language. Or, if you’re more of the Pentecostal persuasion, you might call it “speaking in tongues”. In Brainbocs’s case attended by intermittent dissociative auditory hallucinations.’
    ‘A private language?’
    ‘Won’t talk to anyone except in his new language. It shows clear signs of coherence and well-defined grammatical structures, possibly derived in part from the Finnish-Hungarian family. Dr Molyneux is transcribing it but progress is slow.’ She paused and added, ‘Also draws dinosaurs on the wall – makes his own ink from rennet and bird droppings.’
    I stood up to leave and Mrs Prestatyn lifted her book and shoved the five-pound note across the table. ‘There, take it.’
    I hesitated and she twitched. ‘Go on, take it before I change my mind. Or if you don’t want it there’s a box for the guide dogs by the door.’
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    She forced herself not to look at me, lifted the book and said from behind it, ‘Just find Myfanwy and we’ll say no more.’
    *     *     *
     
    By the water’s edge, rendered colourless by the mist, were some policemen on hands and knees searching the sand. Occasionally one of them would put something into something else that looked like a sandwich bag. If I hadn’t known better I would have said they were collecting shells.
    Drops of rain darkened the already damp sand like new stain on old wood. They fell on Calamity’s sou’wester with soft percussive thuds like someone learning to type. The outfit wasn’t new but I hadn’t seen it before.
    I said, ‘Not much chance of seeing Paddington Bear this afternoon.’
    ‘Which way?’ asked Calamity.
    I pointed in the direction of the marsh and the Waifery and we started walking away from the car with the same reluctance of people who have broken down in the desert and decide to abandon the vehicle.
    ‘If you feel like telling me why we won’t be seeing him, that’s fine, but I’m not going to ask.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Paddington Bear.’
    ‘He never goes out without his coat and hat, specially on a day like this. And now someone’s stolen it from him, poor