Every fragment of my life from my conception forwards has led me to this single moment of existence.

The more he looks at her, the more like a child she becomes.

Are you suggesting you were destined to be a murderer?

She is back to her foot.

Murderer is a judgemental term. It has bad associations, Dr Logan. I can no longer relate to them. I think of the whole business differently now.

How do you think of ‘the whole business’? He cannot veil his sarcasm.

I understand you won’t get this, Dr Logan. I’m saying it for the record anyway. Some day, people will get it.

He doesn’t like how often she says his name. As though she’s nailing him to darkness, chanting a curse.

Get what?

Her eyes rise like twin moons over the surface of some alien planet. And it is he, planet Logan, whose craters and dried-up lakes are thrown into relief. April’s gaze is steady.

I was the means by which some people left this life. That’s certain. But on another level it was all agreed between us.

What are you saying?

What I said. Those people on some level wanted to die. Co-opted me as the means as much as I co-opted them to bring me to this moment of epiphany.

Epiphany?

Epiphany, Dr Logan. The falling into place of profound understanding. I have seen the light, Dr Logan.

She smiles, and the smile is so unnerving that he doesn’t know how to respond. Not because it is threatening, or evil, or deranged, but because it is purely, innocently happy. The smile of his six-year-old daughter on a beach with a bucket and spade in her hands. He shakes the memory out of his head.

The young people who died in the bomb, he says. The bomb you placed on the bus.

Yes.

You were angry with them?

Isn’t that a leading question? She glances at the camera, smiles. Again, innocent. Amused at him. Yes, I was angry with them. The way I saw it, they were turning their backs on God, who had created them. And they made fun of anyone who did believe in God. They saw faith as a sign of stupidity. When you assume the soul is an illusion, Dr Logan, there’s no limit to how badly you can treat people.

But when you assume the soul is real, it’s a kindness to blow people up?

In a way, that’s truer than you know.

How so?

If you assume the soul is real, death isn’t the end, is it, Dr Logan. Death is an illusion.

Logan is on his feet, surprised upright by a rush of anger.