The person on the train just kept saying "I believe" over and over and over. He sat hunched with his hands stuffed inside his anorak and rocked back and forth as he spoke. He had come into the carriage, from the connecting one, a few minutes after the train had left the station.

There’s always one, Paul thought. Thank God, it’s only a twenty-minute journey.

Paul struggled to ignore the man. He had read the football program from cover to cover and could give a recital if asked. His view out the window didn’t help. The 18:30 shuttle from Chester to Crewe offered a featureless landscape and the night reflected the carriage lights, turning the windows into a hall of mirrors.

The window-mirrors showed Paul and the chanting man as the only people in the carriage. Not many had traveled the two hundred miles from Watford to Chester for the FA Cup playoff. The game was supposed to be, and was, a walk in the park--the 4-0 victory earned Watford a fourth round place.

Paul couldn’t ignore the man’s mantra any longer and took a seat in front of him.

"You alright, mate?"

"I believe," he repeated, not seeing Paul.

Why am I doing this? Paul tapped the man’s knee. "C’mon, mate. It can’t be as bad as all that."

The man stopped rocking and stopped chanting.

Paul felt like a bomb disposal engineer when the device stops ticking. His throat sphinctered and he couldn’t swallow.

Slowly, the man looked up and his gaze bored into Paul.

"I believe."

"What do you believe?"

"I believe this train is going to crash."

His throat wasn’t the only part of his body sphinctering now. "How do you know?"

"I know trains. This is a Class 155." He proceeded to reel off a meaningless specification.

Oh, Christ--a nut and a trainspotter. This is going to be a long trip. He should have known. He was dressed like one. How many times had he seen these guys from a train window with their camcorders, cameras and notebooks trying to jot down some irrelevant information about every passing train?

"Are we going to derail, or something?"

"No."

"So, what’s wrong with this train?"

"These trains may look new, but they’re refits on old rolling stock. They aren’t built to modern safety standards. The driver’s cab isn’t fitted with a dead man’s switch."

"I doubt that’s very important. It’s such a short journey and this thing doesn’t seem to go over forty."

Maybe that was the problem with being an expert, having the ability to foresee trouble, even if it didn’t happen, was a heavy burden to carry. Whoever said, "ignorance was bliss," was right. Paul hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary to alert his fears.

"Look, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s not like the driver’s dead."

"But he is." The man removed his hands from inside his anorak. Blood covered his hands and a bloody penknife bounced off the floor.

Paul stiffened and backed up in his seat.

"I wanted to drive the train. I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it before. But, he wouldn’t let me and there was a struggle. He should have let me drive the train." The man paused. "Do you believe this train is going to crash?"

"I believe," Paul replied over and over and over.