Then he takes Ergo back to his own flat that still smells like the bins at the back of an Indian restaurant. And he sits in his favourite chair and sweats against the cushion.

51

The newscaster reads out the note from Young Levant’s rucksack.

It doesn’t take long for these things to get out.

‘We are The People of Choice

The ones now with courage

And we choose not to fear

This is one solution

It is not the end

Nor is it the beginning

There are always more who choose to live

There is but one certainty’

The letter is displayed on the screen and relayed in perfect received pronunciation, pausing slightly at the end of each line, giving it the gravitas it surely deserves.

That middle-aged, white man furrows his brow on cue and lowers the tone of his voice, feigning concern, remaining detached as he tells the doctors, the poets, the dilettantes, the nobodies, that ‘…authorities are yet to release the identity of the nine alleged cult members as several are yet to be identified, though family members have been contacted in most instances. The note was found in the rucksack belonging to the Man in the Light.’ He says this part so casually, like everyone is referring to the dead young man in that way. One of those catchy marketing phrases that somehow sticks. Like Yes We Can or Got Milk? or Brexit.

‘Police are following up leads that suggest he may have been the leader of this small and wayward group…’ He trails off. They don’t have anything that really constitutes information.

And what they do have appears to be wrong.

Wayward? Maybe. But small?

The online presence of The People of Choice is trending. Their page is getting hit after hit. Click after click. And like after like.

Comments are emerging every minute. Some positive, some inquisitive and some more abusive.

‘It’s a solid mantra but what are the beliefs behind it? Who is your God?’

‘This group is fucking sick. Did they not think about their families?’

Several people write ‘hang on…’ followed by a laughing face.

But these queries pale in comparison to the number of people asking ‘Is there a website? How do you become a member?’

What that newsreader failed to acknowledge was the scale and severity an action like this can have. He insults the organisation when he refers to The People of Choice as small and wayward. And, if anybody dared to read the note properly, they would understand that the nine people on the bridge was not a single event. It was not the beginning. Nor will it be the end. They wanted to feel like part of something. And now they are.

It is becoming a movement – somebody will call it that in the next two days – and it is bigger than anybody could have imagined.

52