‘I’ll fix us some food,’ Melissa says before disappearing again.

‘How long have you been together?’ I ask.

‘In this world and worlds to come,’ he answers, and the gnomic riddles with which he peppers his conversation seem as explanatory to him as they are incomprehensible to me. ‘Her people are the original inhabitants of this land and she holds a deep affinity for it, can trace its ley lines with her spirit. Knew too where we would find water. You know, Mikey, what the Bible says about such a woman?’

I shake my head because my once acute Bible knowledge has faded a little with disuse and my memory feels hazy, in part caused by the confusions unfolding all around me.

‘“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.”’

His voice seems drawn from somewhere deep inside himself and when he speaks it takes on an incantatory feel that is accentuated by a slight rocking back and forward. For those few seconds he seems far away, oblivious to my presence, and then, returning, he looks at me, as if seeing me for the first time, before asking, ‘And have you been blessed with a wife?’

‘My wife has died but yes I was blessed,’ I tell him.

‘That blessing will never leave you, Mikey. It will stay with you all the days of your life.’

And I remember Madame Binh telling my fortune and it feels once more as if I am sitting with someone convinced of their mystical powers of insight when everything else I know about them suggests that they live exclusively inside whatever distorted reality they have constructed. And what silently shakes me is that, while to all appearances Donovan might have shed his former self, he still feels able to assume the role of my mentor, the imparter of the knowledge he assumes I lack. A relationship I want to break free from once and for all.

‘How did you end up living here?’ I ask.

‘A life twists and turns,’ he says, ‘until, if you let it, and if you hold yourself in readiness, it leads you to where you need to be.’

‘So how long have you been here?’

‘Heading towards twenty years.’

‘And you left the Service?’

‘The Service left me, Mikey,’ he says, looking at the darkened fireplace. ‘I’m going to light it later. It can get cold at night. Seeps into your bones. I was involved with Eagle Claw when we tried to bring the hostages out of Iran. As you can imagine, that clusterfuck didn’t promote anyone’s career. Somebody had to take the rap. I was just one of many fall guys. They did me a favour, Mikey. Opened my eyes to things that had been hidden to me.’