They eased gently away from the kerb, and the next moment the driver was heaving the vehicle carefully over the railway tracks, determined not to jolt her precious load. The tracks stretched left and right to vanishing point – and Michael had time to look in both directions, and see the width of his new world. He was on his way to Bacup, but he’d never heard of it. A road sign mentioned Burnley Town Centre, but they were going in the opposite direction, uphill, and they were soon on some kind of ring road, or bypass. There was a lot of traffic, but they seemed to switch lanes effortlessly and suddenly they had taken a turning at random and were spinning off to the right, past an old mill. This was where the dark, satanic mills had stood, of course – for this was England’s pleasant land. The houses were dropping away now, and they were moving out of the town.

He was totally lost, and the red sun was caught in a web of bare, black trees. It was unable to stop sinking, and he could see dry-stone walls overgrown with thorn hedges, and the fields seemed surprisingly small. Some contained sheep – the grass sloped upwards, and he glimpsed the occasional farmhouse. They passed a telephone box, and a pub that wasn’t open yet – if it was going to open at all, for it had an abandoned look.

They picked up another passenger, who knew the driver well enough to exchange quick, interested enquiries – and once again the bus didn’t move until the newcomer was seated. The driver checked her mirror and wasn’t in a hurry: it was more important to ensure nobody got hurt. At once, the road turned back on itself, and they were climbing even higher. He caught views of wide skies, and the sun’s rays had reached that point when they painted layers of cloud: there were ridges of deep pink, so part of the sky was deeply furrowed and even bloody. The driver found a lower gear and took them to a hilltop, and suddenly the cultivated land fell away and they were out on the wildest of moors – just as he’d predicted. Michael realised he had crossed a border into sheer wilderness. They were driving into wilderness, and the light was fading quickly – even as he watched, the clouds above were losing that bright, dramatic red as if the batteries were dying. The day was draining away into darkness.

He would be abandoned in some tiny town.