This lament for the dirtier, more dangerous city of thirty years ago was familiar Pierce territory, echoed in all his books and Vice pieces. And I was sympathetic to those angry, melancholy swipes against the rising tide of glass and waistcoated private security and Byron burgers. They had made me a fan of his. I had been sympathetic, before I knew the truth about Night Traffic. But that city had been before my time. I had been a child, growing up two hours away (by the faster train), where the whole of London was an exquisite, hazardous mystery. I was fascinated by a prior London I had never seen myself. I thought I was angry about that London disappearing – as angry as Pierce. But what if I was not? What if I was angry, and sad, about something else, and London was no more than a setting?

‘You think they should have kept the estate as it was?’ I asked.

‘Why not?’ Pierce fired back. ‘I bet the buildings were sound. Beautiful, in their way.’ He turned his gaze to what remained of the slab block, stretching back to the entrance of Winterzone.

‘But it was a sink estate,’ I said. ‘Crime. Neglect. Uninhabitable.’

‘People lived here, though, didn’t they?’ Pierce snarled. ‘And where are they now? Not fucking here, that’s for sure, not in this fucking crowd.’

Resentment smouldered in the pit of my being. I had blundered onto the wrong side of an argument, or had been manoeuvred there, and it wasn’t fair. I desired, in a flash, to tear off Pierce’s mask, and savage him in print, like one of the demolition machines that were methodically going about their business above. I wanted to gouge into his facade of authenticity and concern, and show that it wasn’t as solid as it appeared. But I distrusted my motives. My revenge-lust was genuine enough – but I would also be playing the social-media takedown game, whereby if I could explode the myth of someone like Pierce, I would set myself up as being even more authentic and concerned than he ever was. I would absorb his stature and make it my own – while being no less a fraud.

More than anything I wanted to sit and drink. It had been a while, even with the refresher in Pierce’s flat, and my legs were getting shaky. I wanted to be back across town; the fridge was full, but time was still an issue because a certain amount of drinking had to be done before I could go to bed. I don’t go to sleep, not any more – it was a matter of scheduling my blackout.

But I couldn’t leave, and I couldn’t tear Pierce apart – not without a recording, or some kind of leverage. I needed Pierce on the record.

‘Let’s get a drink,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to watch this.’