He scuffs his feet over the green cubes of broken glass and shiny laughing-gas capsules in the shelter. Unfamiliar with this bus route, he scans the timetable. As he studies the minute print, he hears squeaking wheels and footsteps come to a stop immediately behind him. His eyes focus on the reflection in the plastic screen. Right behind him is an old-fashioned navy blue pram pushed by a woman wearing a fuchsia headscarf.

He doesn’t know her name, nobody round here does. But everyone knows who she is, as they cross the road to avoid her, or nod hello out of charity.

‘Will?’ the woman asks.

He feels himself stiffen but he doesn’t look round.

‘It is Will?’ Her voice is gentle, homely.

The pram is almost touching him as he turns to look at her. Her face is softer than he expected. For a moment, he’s not wary of her. The wheels squeak as she rocks the pram gently back and forth. Will can’t remember a time when she wasn’t to be seen lapping Ebbswick, always pushing this same well-polished pram, always dressed the same way: blue jeans, white anorak, pink headscarf. The sight of her has always elicited the same reaction in him: a combination of the creeps and an unmistakable second-hand sadness. But up close, as she is now, she’s an unintimidating woman of maybe seventy, who speaks nervously and smells of fresh washing powder and soap. Who, it seems safe to assume, has been derailed by unbearable tragedy in the distant past.

Will nods. How the fuck does she know my name? He’s never spoken to her before – he’d definitely have remembered.

‘How are you, Will?’ She smiles and stares deeply at him.

He’s willing a bus to round the corner. ‘You all right?’ he asks vaguely.

She nods, making cooing noises at the pram.

Forgetting himself in the awkwardness of the moment, he glances round the raised hood into the pram. It confirms what he, and everybody else in this town, has long known. There is no baby.

‘Won’t be long, I’m sure,’ he says, gesticulating towards the road.

‘I’m not here for the bus.’ She puffs out her cheeks and giggles, putting on a show to amuse the mound of bedding in the pram, before looking back at Will. ‘I’m here for you.’

He sidles towards the kerb.

‘I have a message for you.’

Don’t be afraid.

There’s nothing to be scared of.

Sure, at a glance, she seems crazy. She isn’t. These people we dismiss as mad see more than most. The looser their grip on the obvious realities, the more attuned they become to the quieter voices. She hears me. She sees me. She wants to help.

So listen. Listen to what she has to say.

Let’s change things.