The man said goodbye as they came into Accrington, and Michael watched him step off the train and walk down the platform. Suddenly he was out of sight and Michael knew then that he should have followed him – he had missed his chance to talk to a prophet. As the train moved off, he was in silly, stupid tears again, and he got to his feet. The peel from his tangerine fell onto the floor, and he dried his eyes as they left the station, just as the sun turned red and flashed in his face. He gazed backwards, hoping for a last glimpse – but the bend of the carriages made it impossible, and they were balanced on the most colossal viaduct, teetering high over a glorious town. Should he press the alarm?

‘I need to get down!’ he would cry. ‘I need God!’

The train wouldn’t stop, and if it did they wouldn’t let him jump down onto the tracks and run back to the platform. In any case, it would be too far now. He’d be detained by officials or even arrested – and how would he get back to anywhere and leap in front of anything, ever? He stood helplessly, and the windows were all too small. He couldn’t get his head out now, and smash it into a concrete post, and in any case a pre-recorded voice was soon shrill in his ears: Burnley or Manchester was the next station, Manchester Road? It was the next station-stop, and there were people on the train who wanted to get down at that place, too. There were more people, determined to carry on with their lives here on another random stretch of greyness, with Accrington long gone. The Asian woman, for example: she was on her feet, putting away a tablet. There was no hesitation, for she was one of the great army of people who knew her destination. He stood aside to let her pass, and watched her pick up the rucksack. She stepped off the train with it, even as a jogger came through the park in Birmingham, and passed an empty bench. Semi-conscious Morris had been flung into the undergrowth nearby, and she spotted him.

She called the police.

Ayesha, meanwhile, was with her parents, hoping they wouldn’t object to her opening a bottle of wine – and poor Morris was too weak to speak, and couldn’t see because of the blood in his eyes. Michael could see, and he saw that the platform they’d arrived at had no barriers: you exited through the ticket office, and its glass doors were wide open, the rucksack passing through.