‘I had been at this lovely party, this book launch,’ Pierce said. ‘Another clever little novel, by someone I know. It’s here somewhere. I blurbed it. People I know, authors, friends, publishing people. They were all very full of praise for Murder Boards. How real it was, how important it was. The London novel they wanted, they needed. And I was lapping it up. I loved it. To be considered … I don’t know, in touch with a particular kind of realness, grittiness, authenticity. I know I keep coming back to that word, but … And the next morning …’

He took a swig of his own beer, and it foamed energetically in the bottle. ‘The party had been in the upstairs room of this pub, a refurbished pub, walls all painted this rich green-grey colour probably called “snail tongue” or “wax jacket twilight” or something, this big industrial clock on the wall, blackboards everywhere, steel furniture made to look like it’s spent forty years in a machine shop but you know it’s brand-new, bearded blokes in plaid shirts on either side of the bar. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a nice fucking place, but a fantasy, yeah? An utterly conformist effort to look original. And when I woke up, I thought: I am that fucking pub. I’m a fucking fraud. I’m producing a simulation for a few coddled readers to feel like they’re getting something real.’

It made sense. But it also did not make sense. ‘So you decided to be a fraud?’

Pierce’s face twisted into a pained smirk. ‘Yeah. I suppose that’s about the measure of it. I wondered what would constitute something real. Then I decided to invent that.’

‘Was it a kind of revenge?’

‘No. No! On who, the readers? Publishing? Those people? No. I love those people. I am those people. That’s not it. At least they’re looking for it. The trouble is, they want it so bad, they see it everywhere, where it’s not. There are two kinds of reality, yeah? More than two. Occupying the same space.’ He gestured at the map. ‘Layers. Heterotopia. The same environment, experienced completely differently by different people, in different circumstances, at different times of day. And night. There are other people out there. We didn’t used to have much contact with them. But now, we can hardly even see them. That’s how we have reshaped the city, how we have structured our mental environment. Sitting here writing about the other people, I might as well be writing about knights in armour. It’s imagination. And they are right there. Right! There! But the walls of the bubble are so strong …’

‘It sounds as if you were depressed,’ I said. ‘Are you?’

Pierce shrugged. Or rather, I thought he shrugged, but in fact he was pulling his phone from his trouser pocket.

‘Our ride is here,’ he said.