The tablet was showing the Bunk logo, cheerful italic sans-serif capitals pushing into the future. The many-pointed star around the B was spinning as the software loaded: a sight familiar to anyone who has used Tamesis, Roamero, Trenchr, or any of Bunk’s other apps. Then, a welcome screen: a picture of the wall-map with HI, OLIVER! In big, friendly letters over it. TOUCH ANYWHERE TO BEGIN. I touched the screen. A login box appeared.

WHOOPS! YOU DON’T HAVE PERMISSION TO DO THAT.

PLEASE VERIFY BUNKMATE I.D.

‘Yeah, it doesn’t work any more,’ Pierce said. ‘I’ve been locked out. I guess F.A.Q. doesn’t want me mucking around in Tamesis now that it’s live and everyone uses it. We had a bit of a falling-out and I don’t think he trusts me any more.’

This was news to me. When Quin had mentioned Pierce back when I interviewed him last summer, it was to name him an inspiration, collaborator and friend. ‘An agent of the true city,’ Quin called him. A couple of weeks ago he had suggested I interview the author, leaving no impression that the ardour had cooled.

‘What did you fall out about?’ I asked.

Pierce shifted in his seat uncomfortably. ‘Various things. I found out he was writing navigation software for the Met.’

‘For the Met? The police?’

‘Yeah. They’ve got this drone – unmanned aerial vehicle – kind of a prototype. Except it doesn’t work. It’s junk. They – the Met – thought part of the problem might be the onboard software. And since mapping is Bunk’s big thing, Quin’s big thing – Roamero, Tamesis, all that – they asked him to take a look. All hush-hush. The trouble with Quin is curiosity. For all his radical pose, he’d agree to anything if it meant being able to poke around inside the hot brain of a police vehicle. He was embarrassed about it and he told me – partly because he wanted to excuse himself for having agreed to take a look, I think – that it was a total turkey. A dodo. Classic bureaucratic fuck-up. Barely up to the job of finding a lone pick-up in the desert, let alone spotting who’s carrying the knife outside a Camden pub. “It’ll never do what they want it to do,” he said. And’ – Pierce gestured towards the TV, which was turned off – ‘it turns out he was right.’