Then Saunders was in the aisle. He turned left and began to walk—walk, not run—for coach. The first part of his plan was to get to other people. He hadn’t worked out the second part of the plan yet. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead and focused on his breathing, just exactly as he’d been taught in Kashmir, way back down the long and winding road. A smooth in, drawn through parted lips. A clean out, puffed through his nostrils. I am not going to be killed and eaten by a wolf on an English train, he thought, quite clearly. Like the Beatles, he had gone to India as a young man to get himself a mantra and had come home without one. On an unconscious level, though, he supposed he had never stopped yearning to find one, a single statement that resonated with power, hope, and meaning. Now, at sixty-one, he had a mantra he could live by at last: I am not going to be killed and eaten by a wolf on an English train.

In and out went his breath, and with every step the door to coach was closer. In eight steps he was there, and he pressed the button that opened the door to the next car. The lights around the button turned from yellow to green, and the door slid back.

He stood looking into coach. The first thing he saw was the blood. A red handprint had been planted in the center of one window and then dragged, to leave a long, muddy-ocher streak across the Plexiglas. A mess of other red smears and splashes made a Jackson Pollock out of a window directly across the aisle. There was a red swipe dragged impossibly down almost the full length of the ceiling.

Saunders saw the blood before he saw the wolves—four in all, sitting in two pairs.

One pair was on the right, in the back. The wolf who sat on the aisle wore a black tracksuit with blue stripes, honoring a soccer team. Saunders thought it might’ve been Manchester United. The wolf who sat by the window sported a worn white T-shirt advertising an album: WOLFGANG AMADEUS PHOENIX. They were passing something wrapped in a napkin, something brown and circular. A chocolate doughnut, Saunders decided, because that was what he wanted it to be.

The other pair of wolves was on the left, and much closer, only a couple yards from where Saunders stood. They were businesswolves, but less well dressed than the gray wolf in first class. These two wore sagging, wrinkled black suits and standard-issue red ties. One of them was looking at a newspaper, not a Financial Times but the Daily Mail. His great black furry paws left red prints on the cheap paper. The fur around his mouth was stained red, blood streaked back almost to his eyes.