I stared at him. My beer was gone – I didn’t quite know how that had happened, and I didn’t like my chances of being served another, as a go-home vibe was building around the festival. And I wanted to go home, but first I wanted Pierce to finish his thought, to say what it was he was circling around, so again I let the silence talk.

‘If we picked the right targets.’

‘We?’

Pierce rubbed the bristles on his chin. ‘We’ve been going about this all wrong. I’ve been trying to create this authentic experience – look, you can roll your eyes all you want, but that’s what I’ve been saying all along, that’s what I’m looking for, something real – but the city hasn’t been cooperating. Because it’s an experience with an active side and a passive side. And you can’t actively be the passive side, the side it happens to. But you can be the active side, the one that makes it happen. That would be no less authentic, no less contrived, right?’

My voice dropped to a hiss. ‘You want to go out and mug someone?’

Pierce nodded. ‘Sure. Why not. We can see it from the inside, that way. And put a bit of fear back on the streets. Hey – it might even be therapeutic for you. Work out some of those demons, yeah? Getting mugged is one of the reasons you drink, right?’

On a very superficial, limited level that was true, but it was also untrue, a crass simplification. But I did not want to get into that.

‘What about atonement?’ I asked. ‘What about making amends for Night Traffic?’

‘I’m starting to think that atonement might, in fact, not be the right approach,’ Pierce said. ‘I’m entertaining alternatives. If the mob can’t be appeased, perhaps it can be baffled.’ He brightened, and tapped the barrel-top in front of me with his index finger. ‘It’ll make a great piece for you. I only wish I was the one writing it.’

I felt a scabbed scratch reopen with a jab of pain as my face contorted in response. ‘I’m not taking part in this!’

‘You’re an observer, you’re golden, blameless,’ Pierce said. ‘You’ve been manipulated by the devious Oliver Pierce, I don’t know. If I could guarantee to you that the person we chose absolutely, undisputedly deserved to have the fear put into them …’

‘Oliver, no.’

He jumped in, not letting me elaborate on my refusal. ‘One attempt. Tomorrow night. And in exchange … A signed confession. For your editor, right? To put in the vault. I’ll bring it with me tomorrow. Full cooperation. You can ask what you want, on the record, you’ll get the exclusive. Signed and sealed.’