“That’s Satan.” Crushed beneath the archangel’s boot, he had rather a comical, terrified look. Black wings, a red and lolling tongue. Michael, looking like a haughty teenager, was about to stick a sword in him. Around them a host of angels did battle among dark crags, the clouds billowing and roiling crimson and gray as though filled with fire.

From his backpack David brought out a rectangle enshrouded within layers of plastic. After unwrapping it, he called me over, and I found myself looking at the drawing from the night before, still in its frame. Now I could look more closely, I saw that the figure had wings. The face, even in sketch, was expressive.

“Look here.” David was indicating part of the painting, where a small barefoot figure stood poised on a crag, fierce faced, wings spread out. It was undoubtedly the same figure. In the angel’s hand was a spear.

“Don’t you see it?”

“What?”

“She’s a girl. A heresy. Angels are always ‘he’ in the Bible. I mean they’re all very androgynous, but this one is unmistakably a girl. You asked how you were back then. How I saw you. And I suppose this is my best answer. Can you not see the resemblance?”

And I supposed that in a way, I could.

We spent the night in an IKEA out by the airport. It was dark by the time we got there. With no mapping app to guide us, we had been wandering, lost, for what seemed like an eternity through a bleak industrial area. While we were above the flood level, there were no passing cars. In my shoes, my wet socks chafed my feet. Following the sound of an engine, we arrived at the depot where we found a security guard and another man in overalls both standing over the open bonnet of a pallet truck. I sat down on the curb, blank with exhaustion, while David spoke to them. He came back with a torch. A bribe had changed hands.

“We can stay. You can plug your phone in. The power’s on, but they don’t want us using the lights.”

“My legs are so tired.”

“That’s what I told them. I said, la donna’s legs are tired. We’ll find somewhere to sleep.”

We passed a long row of tills, then climbed a set of stairs. On the next level there were the model rooms, the kitchens and living rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms, built to show off the stock, so you could imagine your life improved by it. The light from the torch played over the cushions and cutlery holders, the bunk beds, the clever storage solutions. It was as if all human wishes for comfort had manifested themselves in one place, and the result was alarming, as though touched by unreliable magic, so that you knew anything you took away from here would come to possess you.