‘Thank you,’ said Michael. ‘Do you know why we’ve stopped, by the way?’

‘Red signal. Service from Worcester coming through.’

‘Right.’

Then, as if they hadn’t spoken, the guard moved on.

‘Tickets, please, all tickets,’ he said – and Michael pushed the one he’d bought over to the boy, who said nothing at all.

Michael remained silent, too. He was wondering who the boy lived with, and what might be waiting for him when he finally got home. He wanted to know who had assaulted him, and why – but he couldn’t ask.

‘We have to work,’ he said quietly.

The boy ignored him.

‘We can’t not work,’ he said. ‘We cannot throw ourselves away.’

He wanted to say more. He wanted to say, ‘We might meet again. We might bump into each other some time in the future – it’s not impossible. Will you have recovered when we do, and moved on? We can, surely… but what if we can’t?’

He wanted to take the boy’s hand, but Morris was staring out of the window.

Michael wondered if he dared write his number down and hand it over.

‘I don’t know you,’ he could say. ‘But it seems to me you need someone. If you need more help, I will help you – because you’re young, and something bad has happened to you. I don’t know what you’ve done, but nobody deserves to be beaten the way you’ve been beaten. That doesn’t mean I can help, because maybe I can’t – but you can trust me.’

He went to speak, and then thought better of it.

Inside his bag was a pen – but he couldn’t make the move. To pass on his number would be too much like a proposition, or the act of a mad evangelical who was saving souls. On the other hand, who was looking out for this one? Who was waiting for this poor, injured boy, worrying about him – longing for his safe return? What if there was nobody?

Michael set his bag on his knees, and opened it. The pen was there, in a pocket – but still he didn’t dare.

‘I’m alive, Morris,’ he said. ‘I want to live.’

Morris turned and looked at him.

The left eye was all but closed, while the right one seemed to gleam. The train was moving slowly forward again, and Michael pulled out the pen and the first piece of paper he could find. It was the leaflet that had guided Maria to Higher Lee Ridge. As he removed it, he saw a flash of bright orange. There was a tangerine left after all, and it had lodged itself beneath his spectacles case.

He put it on the table.