Zürich

Zürich is the setting of Blake’s search for Jane Glasson, and the city marks a decisive turn in that search: after arriving as a visitor with little certainty beyond a lead, Blake recognizes Jane in person and resolves to stay close to her. The city’s measured, orderly appearance contrasts with the urgency of that discovery.

Arrival and first impressions

Blake reaches Zürich after a hundred minutes in the air, landing at Zürich Airport and registering the unfamiliarity of Switzerland through its expensive-watch and Swiss-cheese advertisements and an immigration officer who seems almost clockwork. She exchanges money using Don Challenor’s credit card, then asks the tourist office for an inexpensive but decent hotel. Its staff recommend the Marta, five minutes from the main railway station, and arrange two nights for two hundred francs. They mark both the Marta and the Marriott on her map before she takes the train into the city.

The journey from the airport is brief. From the train, Zürich appears large, grey, and clean. Blake sees blue-and-white trams crossing rain-smeared streets and finds the city close to her expectation of a place that is cool, calm, and contained. She leaves a message for Gareth Lawler, whose phone goes to voicemail, and texts Don to say she has arrived.

Streets, station, and river

At Zürich Hauptbahnhof, Blake joins the crowd spilling from the train with suitcases and rucksacks and crosses the busy concourse. Although her map shows the Marriott almost as close as the Marta, she heads first to the Marta to check in and put down her bag. Outside the station, she follows the crowds across a bridge over the river and uses the map to trace her route to the hotel. The city is presented through movement and orientation: platforms, marked routes, trams, and the river provide the practical frame for Blake’s search.

Finding Jane

The search culminates in a corridor where Blake sees a woman approaching. The recognition comes first as a visual impression: the woman’s face, hair, and eyes seem to resolve like an image in a picture puzzle. As she draws nearer, Blake identifies her as Jane Glasson. Jane is older than in Holly Walsh’s photograph, but, as Gareth had said, not very different; Blake feels certain of the identification.

Afterward, Blake sits with her tea as the early-evening crowd passes along Limmatquai. She considers contacting Don, but chooses to wait until she is somewhere more private; she also thinks of calling University Hospital Zürich to ask about Gareth’s condition. Looking up at the building, she cannot see its seventh-floor dormer windows from where she sits, but knows that Jane is there. Zürich’s calm, navigable streets have brought Blake to a discovery that changes the purpose of her stay: she has found Jane, and is determined not to lose her.