And so they are made to watch Julius die a second time. It is a sort of shadow play, something a favourite uncle would project upon a bedroom wall to amuse the children with the clever shapes of his hands; happens off-centre, backlit by the weak light of a gas lamp, turned low and placed on the ground somewhere behind the players’ bulk. Grendel’s shot that closes the play rips the half-light like a fork of lightning. As though in answer, first one, then several of the lamps above their heads flutter back to intermittent life, oscillating between a bromide darkness and flashes of dull yellow.

Within Charlie’s arms, Livia is writhing, fighting his embrace. He does not remember grabbing hold of her, pulling her head into the flimsy safety of his chest. She wants to run over to where her mother lies lifeless in the dirt. A few steps ahead of them, Thomas is picking himself off the ground. Farther ahead, Grendel places the pistol on the table — a tool discarded — and bends to free Mowgli from his straps. He removes the needle from his body and, along with it, a small beaker now filled with the boy’s lifeblood; stoppers the beaker and places it carefully upon the table, inches from the gun, before strapping the feverish child into a cloth sling that he fastens across his chest and hip.

It is only when Grendel steps away from table and gun that Charlie releases Livia, all the time conscious of the confusion in her Smoke. She darts away from him, catches up with Thomas who himself has started moving. For two steps they run abreast, touching elbows for comfort. Then their paths separate. Livia is heading to her mother, Thomas to the dead schoolmate of theirs who hangs tangled in iron bars like a fish within its netting: down on his knees, his ashen head stuck through the grating, arms thrown outward at a messianic angle. Beyond Julius lies a man with a beaten-in face and a fleshy mound that was Headmaster Trout.