University Hospital Zürich

University Hospital Zürich is both the place where Gareth Lawler’s life-threatening injuries are treated and the setting for Blake’s unexpected discovery of Jane Glasson. Its emergency and intensive-care departments impose practical limits on what Blake can learn about Gareth, while the hospital corridors bring the search for his condition into direct contact with the mystery surrounding Jane’s disappearance.

Setting and access

After hearing that Gareth has been taken to the hospital, Blake studies a map and concludes that it is not far from Platzspitz Park. The route becomes part of the search: Blake walks toward the station at the park’s far end, then takes a funicular most of the way up the hill to the hospital. The journey is a new experience, and the destination is not a single, easily navigated building. Blake describes a sprawling complex of old and modern buildings, where finding the right department requires assistance and more than one change of direction.

At the main entrance, an information sign sends Blake around the corner to another entrance. A staff member draws the route on a map and writes NOTFALLSTATION in capitals. At Emergency, another staff member searches Gareth’s name on a computer and identifies the Intensive Care Unit as his location. He marks a second route and adds INTENSIVSTATION. These instructions make the hospital legible to Blake as a sequence of thresholds—main entrance, emergency department, intensive care—while also showing how restricted access limits the investigation. Gareth is in intensive care, where visitors are not allowed.

Gareth’s treatment and condition

The hospital’s role begins before Blake reaches it. Moritz reports that Gareth was unconscious after the accident and appeared to be in very serious condition. He confirms that Gareth was taken to University Hospital Zürich, then explains that a later call to the hospital brought only limited news: Gareth was in surgery, and staff could not provide further information. The report establishes both the urgency of Gareth’s condition and the distance between those seeking answers and the medical information available to them.

Blake goes to the hospital hoping that Gareth might be conscious and able to explain what happened. That hope is sharpened by uncertainty over the accident: Blake considers whether the phone call that drew Gareth out of the hotel might have been a trap, but cannot see how anyone could have planned his route. The hospital visit therefore carries two questions at once—whether Gareth will recover, and whether he can clarify the circumstances that brought him there. In the corridor, Blake is nervous about the possibility of lasting injury and recognizes that Gareth’s absence leaves the wider investigation at a precarious point.

Recognition in the intensive-care corridor

The hospital becomes more than a place to seek medical news when Blake follows the signs toward intensive care. In a long, straight corridor, with afternoon light falling across the floor, Blake sees a woman approaching. Her ordinary clothes and practical shoes initially suggest that she might work at the hospital. Then Blake recognizes her face, hair, and eyes: she is Jane Glasson, older than in Holly Walsh’s photograph but unmistakably the same person.

The recognition changes the purpose of Blake’s visit. Gareth cannot be seen, and the hospital staff cannot offer access to him; instead, the corridor yields the person Gareth had come to find. The coincidence of these two searches is concrete rather than explanatory: Blake has come to learn whether Gareth is alive and encounters Jane while trying to reach the intensive-care unit. The hospital’s restricted ward keeps Gareth out of reach even as Jane’s presence opens a new line of inquiry.

Later information and narrative significance

After leaving the hospital, Blake phones to ask about Gareth and is transferred between staff before speaking to a nurse. Asked for a name and relationship to the patient, Blake gives Jane Glasson’s name and says that Jane is a friend. The answer reflects the uncertainty surrounding identities in this search: Jane is living under another name, while Blake borrows Jane’s name to obtain information. The nurse describes Gareth as stable but very seriously injured and confirms that he cannot receive visitors. He is alive, but not in a condition to speak with Blake any time soon.

That update closes off the possibility that Gareth can immediately explain what happened, but it strengthens Blake’s resolve to continue the work Gareth began. Later, Blake tells Jane that Gareth had seen her at Paddington station earlier in the year, had come to find her, and had arranged to meet her the morning before ending up in hospital. Jane calls the accident an accident. For the hospital’s narrative function, the sequence is crucial: it first makes Gareth’s vulnerability and absence consequential, then places Blake face to face with Jane, and finally becomes part of the account through which Blake confronts her. The institution is not merely a backdrop to the accident; its wards, corridors, and limits on access shape what can be known, by whom, and when.