He hadn’t taken the train home, because an airline was experimenting with cheap flights – you could fly for a pound. He’d taken the bus to the airport, and before long he had exchanged his seat on that for seats in various waiting areas – then it was a seat that rose up into the air, and there was England way below with all the roads and railways laid out like a map. For a while you could see the intersections, and the loops and curves – and then it was covered over in cloud. He smiled about it now, but it was the only time he’d ever been on a plane hoping it would crash. How selfish! But he remembered that hope so vividly, because even as he felt concern for the other passengers, he was wanting a nosedive to oblivion.

They landed softly and safely.

He came into the arrivals hall feeling sheepish, and aching with the knowledge of what he’d lost. She was right to bail out, and he would never ever doubt that: Elizabeth had saved herself, as he’d saved Amy. In the lift he saw that there was a chapel in the basement, so despite his annihilating disbelief in all gods, Christian or otherwise, he decided to find it – and it wasn’t easy to find. It was beside the lost-property office, neat and tiny, and knowing he was the only one there he let himself go for a moment. He sat on yet another chair with the tears plopping onto his trousers, sobbing as hard as he’d sobbed on the platform at Bromsgrove, perhaps – or maybe harder. He was back in school, sobbing his twelve-year-old heart out, and did it matter?

No. A hand had been placed on his shoulder, and it was the minister – whom he hadn’t even seen. He’d thought he was alone, but the minister had appeared out of nowhere for the once-a-day service and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, just like Mr Trace. He stood behind him, and the hand was warm.

‘Lay down your burden,’ said the minister quietly. ‘Come unto me, and lay down your burden.’

That was all he said, and Michael remembered the infinitely soft, unassuming tone of love. He had held the hand for three or four seconds, and then let it go.

Now, he needed to get more drunk – it was the only solution.