The train arrived twenty-three minutes late, and she stowed her rucksack in the luggage area. She walked down the aisle to a seat a few places in front of a man who had just stood up, with the remains of a tangerine in his hand. She didn’t look at him – she just noticed the bright colour of the peel – and he didn’t notice her. He was deep in thought, for it had occurred to him that he still hadn’t bought a sandwich. Wherever the train was going, there wasn’t going to be a buffet car, or even a trolley. He decided to get off again, and would have done so had it not been for a woman with three small dogs on three tangled leads. She had luggage, too, and created such an obstacle he turned and walked the other way, to find he was now blocked by someone with a buggy. It seemed easier, in the end, to sit down, and before he knew it the doors had closed and they were rolling backwards.

His last tangerine would have to do, and that would be no bad thing – nothing would be wasted. The juice carton was a different story: it was still more than half full, so twenty-five pounds’ worth of Tomatin malt would soak into the earth and stones, unless he forced it down his throat even as he lay between the rails, or rolled himself across them. It would only need one, in fact, for the wheels would sever whatever he asked them to sever, even if one felt for the poor, poor driver. He’d heard that some poor souls saw the ghost of whoever they’d run down: they saw him or her, standing by the tracks. The worst thing, apparently, was the sheer helplessness – the inability to swerve and the knowledge that the brake couldn’t help… You had to blast your horn hoping he or she would change his or her mind and step back out of the way. Some drivers never recovered, and some thought they had, only to be plunged into mental breakdown years later.

He could write a note of apology, and pin it to his jersey – or fold it into his shoe, perhaps, with the debit card.

They soon came to the first station, and stopped.