A man’s voice took over, saying, ‘We Friends agree with Mr Zappa. God doesn’t need the help of a man in a silk suit asking you for money. Quakerism is an experience-based faith—we only trust what we’ve experienced ourselves. Quakers have an unmediated relationship with God—in other words, we go direct. There’s no holy book, no churches or clergymen, no official creed, and we don’t always use the same words. We define our experience of this immense “something other” in different ways. “The Divine” is one, “God” is another, “the light” . . .’

‘You can go in, you know.’ Simon turned, found a security guard standing behind him, an elderly man with a concave chest. ‘People turn up late all the time.’

‘I’m all right out here.’

‘Suit yourself. They won’t bite.’ The man started to walk away.

‘Is there anything else going on here tonight?’ Simon called after him. ‘In the building, I mean.’

‘No. Just Quaker Quest.’

Simon thanked him. No doubt, then: Aidan Seed was inside that room—a man who’d looked Simon in the eye and sworn he believed only in the material world, facts and science.

Checking the security guard wasn’t watching him, Simon turned the door handle, opened the door a fraction. Now there was a gap between it and the frame that was wide enough to see through. He saw chairs in semi-circular rows, people’s backs—some straight, some hunched. There was Seed, in the middle of the front row. Simon couldn’t see his face.

Beyond the chairs, the top half of the woman who had mentioned Frank Zappa was visible. She was talking now about something called ‘giving ministry’. She was young, younger than Simon, with a pretty, doll-like face, which surprised him. He frowned. Had he been expecting everyone at Quaker Quest to be pig-ugly? Her hair was dark brown and glossy, centre-parted and tied back from her face. Like Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoons, only more attractive. She wore a blue sweatshirt and a rectangular blue plastic badge on a string round her neck, with a large white ‘Q’ on it.

The other speaker, the man, wore the same uniform. He was bald, overweight and sweaty. When the woman stopped talking, he took over, defining what worship meant to him. ‘It’s in every sense the spring, the ground,’ he said. ‘It’s what sends me out into the world.’ Having delivered his lines, he stood back, smiling.

‘When all the still centres of all the people present meet in the middle, we call that a “gathered meeting”,’ said Olive Oyl. ‘When a meeting gathers, that’s our opportunity to get to know one another in the things that are eternal. Actually . . .’ She paused and giggled, as if she’d just remembered a rude joke. Simon imagined the sort of comments Colin Sellers would be making if he were here. I’d like to meet you in the middle, darling. Etcetera.