‘It’s good that those people are less in danger now – that’s good. But the trouble is that it let the Mumfords off the hook; they can buy up the neighbourhoods, they can exploit places that had a reputation for crime to make a profit on the property market without ever fearing that crime themselves, and they can walk around at midnight, braying and accumulating. And the little old lady and the poor kids get robbed another way.’

‘What are you saying?’ I said.

‘Why did you buy my books, read my essays?’ Pierce asked. He didn’t stop for an answer. ‘Because you saw the city the same way I did. Just like a lot of other people. You’re angry too. That’s what I’ve been describing: the city out of balance, lost to the rich, the oligarchs, the hedgies, the trust-funders.’

I thought of Pierce’s flat, bought with his inheritance, and I stayed silent, because being angry at Pierce was futile. He was a hypocrite, of course – and so was I, working at the magazine, paying my rent, peddling the modern urban lifestyle, taking part in the whole ghastly orgy of property and consumption even as it drained my pockets and my hope. I should just get out, fuck the lifestyle, but I wanted in, I wanted in so very much, I wanted to be one of the guys cheerfully necking one beer to wash down a £15 burger at 11 p.m., talking about boxsets and exhibitions; I wanted that so much, it had destroyed me. It made me hate them so very much, the ones who were in, the owner-occupiers, the owners, the occupiers, the ones who had raised the bar so high that only daughters of Russian gas tycoons could enjoy themselves, and even they were chasing around after a city that was dying, even as the developers raised parodic imitations of it for their amusement. So was Pierce right? Was fear all it needed?

‘You talked about this with Quin?’ I asked. ‘How did this come up with Quin?’

‘It’s like I said,’ Pierce said. ‘No one’s angrier than Quin. I think he’s trying to do something about it with Tamesis, but I can’t tell what. Are you angry?’

I thought of my flat, and the dust that filled my mouth with every breath, the pulverised waste of my neighbours’ dedication to hammering every last pound of value from their plot. Sixty per cent of my salary went on that flat, and I couldn’t even repaint it to cover the hairline cracks that multiplied through its plaster. Yes, I was angry. Of course I was angry. But what was the remedy? Even if fear was needed, what did that mean in practice?

‘What are you getting at?’ I asked.

‘If it could be correctly targeted,’ Pierce said, ‘perhaps a little more street crime wouldn’t be a bad thing.’