This was not a political party. It was an army.

The purpose of the display, Lloyd figured, was to give them false authority. They wanted to look as if they had the right to close meetings and empty buildings, to burst into homes and offices and arrest people, to drag them to jails and camps and beat them up, interrogate and torture them, as the Brownshirts did in Germany under the Nazi regime so admired by Mosley and the Daily Mail’s proprietor, Lord Rothermere.

They would terrify the people of the East End, people whose parents and grandparents had fled from repression and pogroms in Ireland and Poland and Russia.

Would East Enders come out on the streets and fight them? If not – if today’s march went ahead as planned – what might the Fascists dare tomorrow?

He walked around the edge of the park, pretending to be one of the hundred or so casual onlookers. Side streets radiated from the hub-like spokes. In one of them he noticed a familiar-looking black-and-cream Rolls-Royce drawing up. The chauffeur opened the rear door and, to Lloyd’s shock and dismay, Daisy Peshkov got out.

There was no doubt why she was here. She was wearing a beautifully tailored female version of the uniform, with a long grey skirt instead of the breeches, her fair curls escaping from under the black cap. Much as he hated the outfit, Lloyd could not help finding her irresistibly alluring.

He stopped and stared. He should not have been surprised: Daisy had told him she liked Boy Fitzherbert, and Boy’s politics clearly made no difference to that. But to see her obviously supporting the Fascists in their attack on Jewish Londoners rammed home to him how utterly alien she was from everything that mattered in his life.

He should simply have turned away, but he could not. As she hurried along the pavement, he blocked her way. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ he said brusquely.

She was cool. ‘I might ask you the same question, Mr Williams,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you’re intending to march with us.’

‘Don’t you understand what these people are like? They break up peaceful political meetings, they bully journalists, they imprison their political rivals. You’re an American – how can you be against democracy?’

‘Democracy is not necessarily the most appropriate political system for every country in all times.’ She was quoting Mosley’s propaganda, Lloyd guessed.

He said: ‘But these people torture and kill everyone who disagrees with them!’ He thought of Jörg. ‘I’ve seen it for myself, in Berlin. I was in one of their camps, briefly. I was forced to watch while a naked man was savaged to death by starving dogs. That’s the kind of thing your Fascist friends do.’

She was unintimidated. ‘And who, exactly, has been killed by Fascists here in England recently?’

‘The British Fascists haven’t got the power yet – but your Mosley admires Hitler. If they ever get the chance, they’ll do exactly the same as the Nazis.’