“Of course,” said Annie. “And we can bring about world peace and put an end to hunger and child prostitution while we’re at it, too. Get real, Gerry.” Annie started the car. “Come on, let’s have a ride down to Sunset Strip and see what’s shakin’, man. Who knows, there might even be a drink in it.”

WHILE THE shopping mall they had visited that afternoon had been shiny and new, and mostly empty, the Strip resembled a dilapidated, badly lit movie set for a summer night on the main drag in the deep south of America. It wasn’t so much the people, but the garish colors of the neons, streetlights and brightly lit shop windows all just a little distorted in a haze of pollution and humidity. Outside the Wytherton Arms an older crowd stood drinking pints and smoking and talking while a younger group weaved through the traffic and went into the Balti restaurant across the street. People queued outside the chippie next door to the pub and stood around to eat out of their cardboard boxes when they’d been served.

Shops and businesses lined both sides of the half mile or so between the overpass to the east and the canal to the west, all with grilles that could be lowered after closing time, some with their plate-glass windows protected even while they were open for business. At the far end, near the overpass, Annie could make out the outline of a small mosque with its minaret. The various payday advance and check-cashing merchants were all closed and barred for the day, though their signs remained lit. Among the other businesses were a bookie’s, two charity shops—Oxfam and British Heart Foundation—a halal butcher’s, an off-license, a nail bar, the Balti restaurant and takeaway, an exotic greengrocer, a newsagent, a shoe repair, Cash Generator, a hairdresser’s and a minicab office. Next door to the latter was a kebab, pizza and burger takeaway with a couple of tables out front where two youths in white shirts sat smoking and drinking Coke from the can, legs stretched out across the sidewalk so that anyone walking by had to step over them. Over the road was an old cinema festooned with garish Bollywood movie posters. There was no tattooist, as far as Annie could make out. Just by where they parked it looked as if a couple of buildings had been demolished and replaced by a swatch of balding grass and a couple of benches. No one was sitting there. Mingled smells of cumin and coriander infused the air.

“I’d put the Krook lock on, if I were you,” Annie said.

Gerry put the clamp on her steering wheel. “See that?” she said, as they got out of the car. “Sunny’s Kebab and pizza takeaway.”

“Burgers too,” Annie added. “Hungry?” Gerry pulled a face. “Not that hungry.”

“Foodie snob.”

Just as they started to walk away, a police patrol car pulled up by the side of the road and two burly uniformed officers got out, hitched their overloaded belts and approached.