Logan contemplates this. The hum of background conversation; the sputter of the espresso machine. He anchors himself in the comfort of normality before he continues. So your subjects, despite knowing they are taking part in a scientific experiment (he chews the words delicately, as if they are food that may contain grit)—

Believe they have experienced God, yes. Have obtained a direct connection with the Divine.

Matter of fact, as though she could, right now, reach the Divine on the telephone.

And?

And what?

Logan takes a considered breath: tastes on his tongue the molecules of damp that the heat of the place has steamed from coats.

Dr Salmon, excuse me, you know little of my purpose here and have been generous enough to spare your time. As I said on the phone, my client is a religious young woman currently facing serious charges.

April Smith. It isn’t a question. I guessed, she adds. And then I googled you.

Ah, he says. Well, how much the papers are leaking I am not aware, but I must ask that anything that passes between us remains confidential.

Of course. Her unruly strand of hair suggests otherwise. I might be trustworthy and controllable, it says. And I might not.

My client, he continues, wary of uttering her name in a public place, is not speaking to anyone else but God. And if I’m to help her, to assess her and therefore help her, I need her to speak to me.

To assess her and therefore help her? Dr Salmon repeats, her mouth twisting a little as though trying to contain a live worm. Your assessment will help her, will it? You know this in advance?

It is always my intention—

He knows he sounds pompous. The woman is making him pompous. Time to reboot.

Gabrielle – may I call you Gabrielle? She nods. What I want to know is what happens to your religious subjects after they – to their minds, at least – experience God at the push of a button?

Not quite the push of the button, she says, but I understand your meaning. Under laboratory conditions.

Invoked by you, he says. After their God experience at your hand, are they – are they changed?

She gazes out, through condensation, at the main campus concourse.

Yes, very much so.

In what way?

How would you put it? At peace with themselves.

And suddenly he twigs. What it is about her, Dr Salmon, that has been needling him from the outset.

You’ve experienced it yourself. Whatever it is that you do to create – what did you call it?

She smiles.

A direct connection with the Divine.

You’ve experienced it yourself, he says, allowing the repetition to harden his suspicion into fact.

She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t say no.