“Wait here!” he told her, and at the nearest Pret bought three All Day Breakfasts, which he put in a bag with a large latte. Back in Soho Square, the woman hadn’t moved, but sat blinking into the weak sunlight, occasionally calling out to passersby, but reserving most of her attention for two or three pigeons hobbling about in front of her. Kearney handed her the bag.

“Now,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”

She gave him a cheerful smile. “I don’t see anything,” she said. “I take my medication. I always take it.” She held the Pret bag for a moment then returned it to him. “I don’t want this.”

“Yes you do,” he said, taking things out to show her. “Look! All Day Breakfast!”

“You eat it,” she said.

He put the bag down next to her on the bench and took her by the shoulders. He knew that if he said the right thing she would prophesy. “Listen,” he assured her, as urgently as he knew how, “I know what you know. Do you see?”

“What do you want? I’m frightened of you.”

Kearney laughed.

“I’m the one frightened,” he said. “Look, have this. Have these.”

The woman glanced at the sandwiches in his hands, then looked over her left shoulder as if she had seen someone she knew.

“I don’t want it. I don’t want them.” She strained to keep her head turned away from him. “I want to go now.”

“What do you see?” he insisted.

“Nothing.”

“What do you see?”

“Something coming down. Fire coming down.”

“What fire?”

“Let me go.”

“What fire is that?”

“Let me go, now. Let me go.”

Kearney let her go and walked away. Aged eighteen, he had dreamed of himself at the end of a life like hers. He was reeling and staggering down some alley, full of revelation like a disease. He was old and regretful, but for years something had been combusting its way from the centre of him towards the outer edge, where it now burst uncontrollably from his fingertips, from his eyes, his mouth, his sex, setting his clothes on fire. Later he had seen how unlikely this was. Whatever he might be, he wasn’t mad, or alcoholic, or even unlucky. Looking back into Soho Square, he watched the schizophrenics passing his sandwiches from hand to hand, peeling them apart to examine the filling. He had stirred them like soup. Who knew what might come to the surface? In principle, he felt sorry for them, even amiable. The praxis of it was bleaker. They were as disappointing as children. You saw light in their eyes, but it was the ignis fatuus. In the end, they knew less than Brian Tate, and he knew nothing at all.