Waiting for Dovidl, I uncap a pen and sketch a rapid plan on the back of a makeshift score-sheet from the Tawside Young Musicians’ Competition, which seems so long ago. There will be calls to make, budgets to calculate, staff to engage and train. This will not be a minor operation, but it is within my grasp. The skills to bring it off have been lying dormant. I can hardly wait to start.

Looking up after several minutes, I see a great emptiness of sky and sea at the spot where Dovidl last stood. Alarmed, I step outside and look around. The wind, much becalmed, whips me almost off my feet. I cannot see or hear a living soul, just the shrieking of gulls and the howling of gusts. Something he had said about ‘praying for it to end’ sends a shiver up my spine. I take an agitated few steps towards the precipice, but stop well short of the edge. Instead, I turn round and walk behind the van where, shielded from the wind, I find him swaying and praying the nineteen blessings of the afternoon service. He points to his lips, and I acknowledge with a nod that I know he cannot be interrupted.

‘We must go soon,’ he says, on uttering the concluding affirmation of God’s oneness and kissing his curling prayer-book as he returns it to an inner jacket pocket. ‘It gets dark at six and I have to pick up my youngest from yeshiva.’

He is back in the van, packing away the Thermos. ‘There’s plenty of time,’ I say, authoritatively. He opens his hands, in that characteristic gesture of simulated resignation. ‘I have some questions,’ I begin.

‘Ask away.’

‘When, exactly, did you accept this identity?’ I demand, pointing to his beard, his garments, his ghetto. ‘Not the outer trappings, but the actual faith. When did it overcome your healthy scepticism and become the new you?’

‘Who knows?’ He shrugs. ‘At some point, perhaps in London, perhaps up here, I stopped asking such questions. It was easier to buy the whole package on trust and stop searching the ingredients. Once the wrapping was off, there were no further problems. Anything that was unanswerable could be accounted to the Creator. Knowing that it was beyond human comprehension, the pain was taken away.’

‘Like having an appendectomy under hypnosis?’

‘If you like. Or treating cancer homoeopathically. If you believe in the older, herbal therapy, there is a chance it will work just as well as radical surgery. And if it fails, the end result is the same either way.’

‘It relieved you of taking responsibility for your treatment?’