‘That’s the thing though, isn’t it, with every paradise?’ she said, quietly. ‘It always ends with expulsion. With a fall from Grace.’

He wasn’t too sure what she meant, but he nodded anyhow.

‘And what about before now? Have you experienced any of these feelings before, over the past year or two?’

Stephen said that he’d been quite sad and isolated, back at home. That was why he’d come away, travelling. But the clairvoyance was new. The growing sense that there were patterns of meaning underlying the visible world, if you looked hard enough for them. He hadn’t felt as if he was a messenger, before, but now he was pretty sure of it. The problem was interpreting the message. And trying to work out if carrying it made him dangerous.

‘So it makes you feel powerful, does it?’ asked Dr Capple.

Stephen said that it did, kind of.

‘More powerful than you usually feel?’

He laughed at this, the first time he’d done so for days and days. ‘I don’t usually feel very powerful at all. I’m not really that kind of a person. It’s just now I’ve got this feeling, like it’s an emergency, you know? ’Cause whenever I’ve had the bad feeling, something bad has actually happened. And now I’ve got to work out what the message is that they’re trying to send me; and who I’ve got to take it to. It feels pretty big.’

‘Who is sending you the messages, do you think?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Stephen admitted.

‘Do you ever consider injuring yourself, or others?’

This question threw him. Injury was an odd word. Was she saying he ought to be considering these things? Was there an oblique suggestion in there, or was it a straight enquiry?

‘I’d never hurt anyone. I don’t even kill spiders. I shot a cane toad, once, when I was around eleven or twelve. It was up at my uncle’s farm. He had an air-gun, but it was horrible. I’d never do anything like that again,’ he answered.

‘And have you used any drugs at all, since you came to England?’

He didn’t know whether to admit to this or not. Maybe it’d be better not to own up about the drugs. He didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. Could she get him arrested? Deported, even? Would he get a criminal record? Would his parents find out?

She noticed his slight hesitation and spoke again: ‘It’s OK. What you tell me is confidential. I’m just trying to work out what would be the best course of action for you, meds-wise.’