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and blue on the asphalt. Then they come here and park next to each other, to show off in-car entertainment systems that are worth more than the vehicles themselves. Slide-out televisions and boom-boxes and amplifiers and sat-nav and DVD players and speakers that would grace any home entertainment system. These are the sort of kids who watch movies like
Tokyo Drift
and imagine that there is a link between themselves and the movie guys with their tricked-out Skylines and Scooby-Doos and Evos. Delusional. And they know it. They’ll never have a Skyline with a fifty-grand engine job and nitrous oxide injectors and stuff. Not coming from around here they won’t. But they can spend less money and have exactly the same tricked-out entertainment systems, so that’s what they do. And that’s their link.
    Who’s deluded though? Didn’t I just say that I’ve been to see the latest Jason Bourne movie and I’m looking to see what gun he carries? Like I think that because I have a gun under my bed I’m in some way part of the world that Jason Bourne inhabits. At least with that lot and the hot hatchbacks, they dream about emulating a world that actually exists. I’m associating myself with a world of spies and assassins that I’m sure is merely a fantasy. And yet I just called
them
delusional. I should just get rid of that gun.
    Actually, it’s quite cold this evening. I stick my hands in my pockets as we walk out of the bright lights of the multiplex and the arcades and cross the huge car park that surrounds the complex like an oversized moat. The car park itself is well lit with pools of orange light cascading down from high grey metal lamps.
    ‘You not going to wave?’
    Andy has stopped and is craning his head as though he is scanning the heavens.I know exactly what he’s referring to as I watch him pull stupid faces and wave in grand flourishing gestures. He’s making a show for the CCTV cameras. On tall metal poles at regular intervals are the plastic globes containing cameras that can spy on every square inch of the retail park. Andy is right to remind me; it’s part of our ritual when we come here. So I wave half-heartedly , even though I’m not really in the mood, before sticking my hands back into my pockets against the cold of the evening.
    ‘Do you think anyone is ever actually watching?’
    Andy is hurrying after me now. I stop and wait for him.
    ‘I wouldn’t know.’
    How can any of us know? In England we’re watched by CCTV cameras more than any other people in the supposedly free world. There are more than four million CCTV cameras in Britain, and there’s been stuff in the papers that lots of themhave zoom lenses and listening devices. They say that during a typical day, you probably turn up on a CCTV camera as many as three hundred times. But I don’t know anyone who feels safer or less scared because of this.
    ‘Do you know who actually runs these cameras?’
    I shake my head and shrug.
    ‘Could be the people who own the retail park.’
    I’m just guessing. It could also be a private security company hired out to monitor the area. It could be the local authority. It could even be the police.
    ‘Do you think they actually work?’
    ‘Depends on what you think they’re meant to do.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    I’m surprised that Andy has to ask. He’s pretty bright – smarter than me I’d say.
    ‘Well, do you think they’re here to keep an eye on what’s going on, so that they can spot any criminal activity?’
    ‘You’d think so wouldn’t you?’
    Andy says that in a way that tells me he doesn’t actually think that at all; he’s just being provocative. I won’t disappoint him.
    ‘What about that girl who was raped behind the carpet place three weeks ago?’
    I point at the giant modern warehouse-showroom a couple of car parks away but still looming large and grey through the orange glow of the lighting.
    ‘Right behind there, at about this time of night when there were people