‘He was in his school’s chess team,’ she said quietly. ‘And the following Tuesday he was due to play in a semi-final against some other school, and he wasn’t able to do that. Being dead, he didn’t turn up, and… presumably someone else had to sit in the chair and move all the pieces. Another example—’

‘Ayesha?’

‘Another example of him not living on is that we’d booked a summer holiday together. We were all going out to Mumbai to meet relatives we hadn’t seen for ages. Mumbai, then up to Pune, and then to a hill station – an expensive holiday, and… Kristin didn’t go. None of us did, but Kristin wasn’t able to go because he wasn’t “living on” any more. He was in the ground, because God must have been looking the other way, or…’

‘Or what?’

‘Well. It struck me that God might not actually exist.’

They stared at each other.

‘I stopped being an agnostic some time ago,’ said Ayesha. ‘I no longer think, Oh! Who knows? Maybe there’s a creative energy in the world, a spiritual dimension. I realise now what the real problem with God is. You see, there simply isn’t one.’

‘Ayesha, nobody can explain suffering like that.’

‘Of course they can.’

‘How?’

His voice was gentle. He had put his face into the fire, and was holding it there. But I am not merciful, thought Ayesha. He asked about Kristin. He wears the dog collar, bragging about his idiot, comfortless religion. He started it, the fucker. Let him have it.

‘We live in a godless world,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s the truth of it, because random accidents happen and… this train could be about to derail. This train could collide with another, or there could be a person in this carriage with a bomb, about to cause maximum suffering as encouraged by some crackpot ideology, which will be based on a god, needless to say. It doesn’t need much explanation, does it? Until, funnily enough – until you bring God into it. Then it all falls apart because it’s so patently absurd. I mean, if God exists… Christ, he must have hated my brother and our family.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Because Kristin died, aged thirteen. And that guitar… That guitar is no longer needed, so the idea that God brought you and me together and is trying to patch things up in some way, after the event…’ She laughed. ‘It’s so insane, and so obscene, that I can’t think of anything else to say.’

‘How are your parents coping?’ he said.

‘What?’

They had stopped at a station, and still he held his face to the blowtorch.

‘What?’