If they had done this to a site in Britain or Ireland, he thought, everybody would have said it was a typical desecration. But the Japanese were, maybe, a little more mellow. This was a culture where monks would quietly earn a living from charging for entry to their temples and shrines — even for services — as well as rake off hundreds of yen apiece for ridiculous little charms, like something out of the Middle Ages.

With relief, he returned to the shrine itself.

The shrine was modest. Its main buildings — vermilion-painted wood topped with blue tiles — were grouped around a central square. Facing the lake was the haidin, the hall of worship, and on either side were the honden, the main hall, and the homotsu-kan, the treasure house. Declan hurried through the square to the torii gate which stood at its rear, a plain affair of grey wood, two uprights topped by two cross-pieces. Beyond the torii stood a narrow vermilion archway, and behind this a steep flight of steps soared up the hillside.

Declan paused a moment to gather his strength; he still felt exhausted from his unwelcome encounter with Tokyo. But he set his sandalled feet on the first of the steps, and began the familiar climb.

Futaarasan Shrine nestled at the feet of Mount Nantai, a green-clad volcanic cone which rose above it, reaching all of a mile and a half above sea level. Futaara was actually an old name for the cone, and the true centre of the Shrine was set at the lip of the caldera at the summit. Each August pilgrims would come this way, through the old torn gate, leaving behind the absurd world of charms and plastic swans and tourists, and climb up here to the violent, quiescent heart of the volcano, just as Declan now climbed, alone.

He knew he couldn’t wait until August; he knew he must do this now.

The climb was long and arduous, and by the time it was completed he was sweating hard, his breath coming in gasps. But the view from the lip of the caldera was magnificent: the old volcano mouth itself, the numerous mountain lakes and volcanic cones, rounded and furred over by trees, and Lake Chuzenji, blue and sleek and beautiful from this distance, a vista too remote to be spoiled by the foolishness of its visitors.

Japan was built on the junction between plates deep in the Earth, and was plagued by volcanism and earthquakes. And so everywhere you went, rounded volcanic hills stuck out of the landscape. It gave the landscape a sense of impermanence, he thought, and also a human scale.