‘Another one?’ Harry asks politely, reaching out for the cup. She hands it over, staring up in wonder at the attentiveness of such a huge, hairy man mountain and again reads the name on his door. He brings her another drink and backs off to hover nearby as she watches him and Ben over the rim of her cup.

‘Water?’ Harry asks Ben.

‘Er, yeah, yeah thanks.’

‘Ben Ryder,’ Safa murmurs in a voice now firmer and more normal. ‘You look like him and you’ve got the scar too,’ she adds, leaning forward in the chair to look at the faded cut down his right cheek. ‘But you’re not him.’

‘Can we sit down?’ Ben asks when Harry comes back with water and a handful of toilet tissue. Two white tufts of paper already poking from his nose that make Safa and Ben blink at him in the utterly surreal confusion of the moment.

‘Stops the bleeding,’ Harry says, handing them both a section of toilet tissue as Safa realises they both have nosebleeds. Drips of crimson on the fronts of their tracksuit tops. She looks down, seeing the same on her front, and takes the tissue. Two chunks torn and fashioned to be pushed carefully into her nostrils. Ben watches her then looks at Harry. His head still struggling to catch up.

‘Stops the bleeding,’ Harry says again, still holding a chunk of tissue for Ben.

‘I know you’re not Ben Ryder,’ Safa says, as Ben stuffs tissue up his nose. ‘I saw Ben Ryder die. I was there,’ she adds. ‘On the platform . . .’

It hits Ben hard. The sudden recollection of the uniformed police officer running across the platform screaming at the driver. The shape of her eyes. The angle of her head. The poise in her manner. Ben swallows, gripping the cup harder.

‘I need to sit down.’

‘And you?’ she says, turning her attention to Harry. ‘Are you meant to be Harry Madden?’

‘Aye. Harry,’ Harry replies and seems to think for a second before moving to the last chair.

‘Not the Harry Madden,’ she says clearly. ‘Not the Ben Ryder either.’

They fall into a heavy silence. All three with white toilet tissue poking from their noses, staring at each other suspiciously.

‘Heard about this, I did,’ Harry says in a deep, rumbling voice.

‘About what?’ Ben asks.

‘Mind games,’ Harry states, looking at Ben benignly.

‘What about them?’

‘This,’ he says.

‘What?! What mind games? Where are we? Who are you two and what the fuck am I doing here?’

‘You’ll not be cussing in front of a lady now,’ Harry says in a low, warning tone.

‘Fuck that,’ Safa says. Harry blanches and looks away as though embarrassed. ‘I agree, who the fuck are you two and what am I doing here? You are not Ben Ryder and you . . .’ She points at Harry. ‘I don’t know who you are.’