“I’ll go.” Leanne puts a hand on my shoulder. The gesture disarms me. It’s the first time she’s touched me since we arrived here. Is she trying to reassure me or stop me from going after Al? She sprints off into the darkness before I can react, her scarf falling from her head and trailing behind her as she runs.

Daisy glances across at me from beneath her woollen hood. She’s discarded her waterproof jacket in favour of a yak’s wool blanket, like the Ekanta Yatra women wear. Her eyes are hooded and tired, her lips set in a thin, tight line.

“I don’t know what Al’s problem is,” she says. “Ruth wasn’t close to her family and she obviously didn’t have any other reason to return to the UK. Why else would she have burned her passport?”

“Dais—” Her name forms on my lips but she turns and walks away, strolling down the line of mourners, before I can say it. She passes Frank, who sees me watching and raises a hand in a silent hello. I ignore him, too busy watching Cera enveloping Daisy in a warm hug.

The flames are dancing higher now, licking at the soft frayed edges of Ruth’s burial shawl. I can see the silhouette of her profile above it, the curve of her belly, the shape of her arms crossed on her chest. I can see all of that – I can see that there is a body on the mound of wood five metres from me – yet I still can’t accept that it’s real.

“It’s hard to take in, isn’t it?”

“It’s surreal,” I say as Johan stands beside me, blocking my view of Daisy and Cera. Johan doesn’t reply. His eyes are fixed on Ruth as the flames engulf her feet, her calves, her torso. The shawl catches fire quickly and she’s lost in a cloud of black acrid smoke.

“What’s Isaac doing?” I ask, watching him walk anticlockwise around the body three times before standing still.

“Saying goodbye. Hindus walk around a dead body three times – once for Brahma the creator, once for Vishnu the preserver and once for Shiva the destroyer: the trinity of Hindu gods. We do this to say goodbye to Ruth’s body, her mind and her spirit.”

The fire crackles and pops, and several women in the line cover their noses and mouths with their scarves or arms.

I look at Johan. “Was Ruth a popular member of Ekanta Yatra?”

A muscle twitches in his cheek and he swipes at his eyes as thick, grey smoke drifts towards us. It smells, disgustingly, of cooked meat.

“Popular?” The muscle twitches again but his expression remains impassive. “Well, I liked her.”

“Did Isaac?”

He doesn’t reply. His eyes blink and water as the smoke swirls around us, but his gaze doesn’t waver from Ruth’s body.