‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘Could I have a sandwich? What do you have?’

She had to stoop to see into the sandwich shelf, and she went through the list briskly.

‘Egg mayonnaise. Chicken tikka. Tuna and sweetcorn and… that’s it.’

‘Could I have the egg, please?’

‘Egg mayonnaise. Brown or white bread?’

There was even a choice of bread. The egg mayonnaise sandwiches had clearly proved unpopular.

‘Brown,’ he said quickly.

She put the box on a paper plate, with a serviette tucked under it. She placed a lid on the coffee cup, and used another, smaller one for milk tubs and sachets of sugar. She inserted a wooden stirrer, and set it all down carefully, close to Michael’s hands.

‘Biscuit?’ she said. ‘With the coffee?’

‘No, I mustn’t,’ he said.

He was about to say, ‘I’m trying to be careful,’ when he decided not to. The woman didn’t need any further information, and she had many more carriages to serve before turning around and dragging the whole apparatus back again. How many responses like that could she tolerate?

‘I’m being careful. Don’t tempt me! I’m sweet enough, thank you.’

She was working out his bill when he noticed that the boy in the sweatshirt had turned his head. It was still resting on the table, but he’d opened his eyes. Both were swollen, and the left one was so damaged it would hardly open at all.

He had a drowned look.

Nonetheless, he was staring at the sandwich. She had placed it quite close to where he’d been resting, and Michael saw that the skin round his ear and down his neck was a mixture of livid crimson, yellow, black and violet. The right side of his mouth was slightly open, because his lip was torn.

Michael handed over his third and last twenty-pound note, and took his receipt and change. The woman thanked him, and he thanked her so she thanked him again and moved on. Michael rearranged what she’d given him, putting the coffee by the window.

He said to the boy, ‘You don’t look well.’

He spoke softly. There was no idiot jauntiness, because the face was so badly marked it was upsetting him – and he found a quieter, gentler tone.

The boy, however, just grimaced – Michael saw his nostrils twitch and the lips effect a kind of sneer. Was it a smirk? Or a wince? Maybe it was just that quick, animal reaction to warn off a predator? He looked no more than fourteen – he had so much growing to do, but he looked lean and starved and the skin that wasn’t discoloured was unhealthily pale. His clothes would have fitted someone so much bigger: it was as if he’d put them on and shrunk.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Michael.

‘What?’ said the boy.

‘You don’t look very well. I think you need a hot drink.’