Some of the kids who stand in the aisle see it now. They fall quiet, too.

‘It’s OK,’ the old boozer with the grubby beard and the hacking cough says. He looks along the tracks and nods. ‘It’s slowing. The brakes are on. We’ll be all right.’

The panic dissolves into nervous giggling.

The rear wheels of the bus find some traction. Everyone on board rocks backwards as the bus powers out of the crossing.

Fifty metres away, the coastal express screeches to a stop.

The number 83 bus climbs the icy slope into Patten’s Island.

‘Shit a brick,’ the bus driver says to himself. ‘Shit a shitting brick.’

Behind him, the noise from his passengers rises, their revelry ramping up again.

An Inconvenient Delay

Under emergency braking, it takes just over four hundred metres for the coastal express to reach a stop from its eighty-two miles per hour.

In Carriage C, a couple, both in their early fifties, gather up belongings that have been hurled forward by the harsh braking. One mops her Bloody Mary off the table. Her wife scoops Kettle Chips back into their bag.

‘I apologize for the delay,’ the driver says over the PA. Everyone listens silently. The tremor in her voice is unmissable. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to wait here …’ A gulp. ‘We’ve had something … someone …’ She’s quiet for a moment. ‘Somebody has jumped in front of the train. Sorry.’

The carriage is quiet.

‘Dreadful,’ the woman whispers to her wife.

‘Selfish bastard,’ a voice mutters a few seats back.

The woman stands.

‘Josephine, don’t,’ her wife says, but she doesn’t listen.

‘Somebody is dead,’ the woman snaps. ‘Would it hurt you to have a little empathy?’

‘Sorry,’ the young guy says. ‘Gonna be stuck here ages though.’

‘And that’s the real tragedy, is it?’

‘No. No. Sorry.’ He looks at the woman and begins to smirk.

‘Is something funny?’

‘Ms Calloway?’

‘Yes.’

‘You taught me art at Kent Academy.’

‘Oh, right. Yes, so I did. You’ve grown.’

‘Never thought I’d still be getting bollockings from you at thirty!’

‘Well, behave yourself then.’ She wags her finger. ‘You’re not too old for a detention.’

‘I wish you’d just leave things, Josephine,’ her wife says as she retakes her seat.

Ms Calloway looks out of the window over the snow-covered marshes. ‘Just outside Ebbswick,’ she says. ‘God forbid it’s someone I know.’

Her wife squeezes her leg. ‘Do you want to call it off? I know you’ve not been keen.’

She thinks about it for a moment. It’s true, she’s not been enthusiastic about this weekend away. In fact, she’s had a distinct sense of unease whenever she’s thought about it. A vague dread, the nature of which she’s been unable to put her finger on. But as of these last few minutes that strange feeling has lifted like a fog.