‘That’s it!’ cried Granger, ‘that’s absolutely it! The gospel is repeating itself! I have said to you – how are we going to feed all those people out there – and you, like Philip, have said the modem equivalent of what Philip said, which was. Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. But Jesus had asked Philip this question to test him, right? Because it’s written in the Bible that Jesus knew what he would do.’

Mike Bull stared at Granger, face to face, for a long time. Granger was trembling, and there was white spittle at the corners of his mouth. ‘Okay – sure,’ said Mike, uncertainly. ‘But what are you going to do?’

‘A miracle,’ said Granger. ‘A contemporary, practical miracle. Maybe not the feeding of the five thousand, but certainly the feeding of the five hundred.’

‘It can’t work,’ Mike Bull told him, with hushed earnestness. ‘Granger, it just can’t work.’

‘Do you think Philip believed the miracle that Jesus performed would work? Of course he didn’t. The only way that anybody can ever believe in a miracle is to see it happen in front of his eyes. Now, go to the stockroom and bring me five packs of that crispbread and two cans of tuna.’

‘Granger—’

Granger seized the front of Mike Bull’s shirt, not angrily, but with intense religious passion. ‘It’s what we believe in, Mike. It’s what we actually believe in. And now’s our chance to show that it can happen for real. We can work a miracle, Mike, just the way Jesus did. Others have done it. Others did it in Jesus’s time, and Jesus didn’t mind. He approved of it. We can work this miracle, and at the same time we can purge ourselves of all of our selfishness and our greed. Don’t you understand me? This one act is going to be our salvation.’

Season said, ‘Granger, if you go out there, they could very well kill you.’

Granger shook his head. ‘No, no chance of that. I know whose voice comes out of your mouth, Season. You’ve tested me before. Tested me hard, when I thought that I was testing you. They won’t hurt me, those people out there. Especially when they see what I’m bringing them. Especially when they clear up after they’ve eaten, and realise how much they’ve left over.’

He was exultant now, feverishly excited and unstoppable. ‘Go, Mike,’ he said. ‘Go get the bread and the fish. And tell young Tony to make ready to open one of the doors, so that I can go out.’