Season watched Tony sliding back one of the metal bars from the door. ‘Granger’s so messed up,’ she said. ‘I thought he was so together. But he’s so messed up.’

‘He’s been in analysis for ten years.’

Granger stood with one hand clasping his huge crucifix as Tony reached down and turned the key in the supermarket door. In his white kaftan, he looked thin, spiritual, and vulnerable, quite unlike the first time that Season had met him, and very unlike the day he had come around to see her alone at the house on Topanga Canyon. Outside, on Highland Avenue, she could see the crowds shifting and swaying in curiosity. She looked at their faces, and in a strange way their hunger and their fear had given them the same concentrated intensity that Granger was showing on his face. It was an extraordinary confrontation of utter need with utter faith.

Tony pulled open the door, and pushed Granger unceremoniously out on to the sidewalk. Then Tony locked the door again, and barred it. He glanced across at Mike Bull with an expression that meant – I didn’t want to, but what else could I do? Mike shrugged, and turned away. Mike wasn’t yet ready to have his support for the Church of the Practical Miracle and what the church believed in tested to the limit. He wasn’t yet ready to admit that he might have joined it because Mrs Linda Javits, divorcee, regular customer, and possible replacement for his dead wife Anne, was also a member. As it turned out, Mrs Javits hadn’t answered when Mike had tried to call her and tell her that the congregation was assembling in the supermarket, and for all he knew, she could be just as dead as Anne. He hadn’t told anybody, not even Tony, although Tony had noticed that he went into his office more often than usual, for a quick stiff shot of whisky.

Granger Hughes stood on the sidewalk outside the supermarket with the early-morning sunlight rising behind him. The cool breeze flapped his kaftan around his ankles. The crowd on the opposite side of the road stood silently and watched him.

Granger raised a hand. ‘I have brought you food,’ he said, in a clear voice, ‘I have brought you sustenance enough for all.’

There was a restless murmuring in the crowd. One or two of them stepped forward, until they were only a few paces away from where Granger was standing.

‘You should all be seated, as the five thousand were seated on the mountain,’ called Granger. ‘Then I will walk amongst you and distribute what I have brought.’

One of the men, with a pinched face and an orange floral shirt, said, ‘What’s that you got in the basket? Samples?’

‘This is all I shall need,’ said Granger, with great calm. ‘Are you kidding?’ asked another man.