As the train approaches the centre of London, the untidy gardens of suburbia give way to tall buildings. Logan gazes on the landscape he has moved through so blindly, for years, awed by the spectacle. The more beauty and wonder he looks for, the more he sees. A train leaving the capital passes at speed, and in the flickering gaps between carriages, he sees the steel-girder framework of a half-built block of apartments behind it, and between those gaps, reflected in the windows of the passing train, the fully built block on the opposite side of the track. A show, just for him: the magical illusion of a building in both states, built and unbuilt, a flickering X-ray of a building being shattered, through the gaps, to its bones.

At Waterloo, Logan realizes he has inadvertently arrived during the evening rush hour. Armed police stand in pairs at the barriers, their semi-automatics slung across vis-vested chests. He spots the Metro in someone’s fist, shouting: RED ALERT! The headline is always fear or scandal. On fear days, like today, commuters are perceptibly tighter, grimmer, weaving more quickly through these major transport hubs where a sudden explosive death is more likely. Yet Logan feels blessed. There is no reason for him to die today. No atrocity will befall him. He breathes deeply and strolls through this crowded urban meadow, judging his pace and direction so as not to cause anyone annoyance, slowing or stepping aside where necessary, and observing the inward-focused faces of those who pass him with the deepest compassion. Everyone is so closed, as contained in the shells of themselves as if their clothes were their cars, and no one need consider that anyone around them also has dreams and disappointments, longings and losses.