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the wind moaning through the fence, he looked down at London.
    He looked for a long time. The whole skyline seemed unfamiliar. After a few moments he managed to pick out Nelson’s Column, the Old Bailey, St Paul’s; and beyond them the Monument and the Barbican. But all around, in white sprouting groups of three and four, he saw tall intrusive blocks that had not been there before. One grew from Covent Garden, several beside the river, many more in the area that must, he thought, be the City. He stared, puzzled, then turned back. The guide had paused, and was standing wary and paternal as the children pressed round him against the fence. He was a short, square, elderly man; Queston tried not to smile as he noticed the enigmatic word m.o.p. neatly embossed in gold on the peaked cap.
    ‘What are those towers all over the place?’
    The guide looked at him reproachfully. ‘You wasn’t listening to me, was you? ’ He had eyebrows of white wire; the long upcurving hairs at their corners beat time gently as he spoke.
    ‘No, I’m afraid not. Sorry.’
    ‘Well now,’ the guide paused deliberately, exacting proper penitence. ‘If you had of been listening to me, you’d have heard me say they was the true new heart of London.’ He produced the words with a flourish, as if expecting applause. Queston waved a hand impatiently.
    ‘Well, but what are they? Offices, I suppose.’
    ‘Offices! ’ The man looked shocked. ‘No—they’re homes.’
    ‘Flats, you mean? All of them?’
    ‘Every one.’ He looked at Queston pityingly, with a hint of suspicion. ‘You a foreigner, then?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well then. Those blocks, they’re the London Plan. You know.’
    ‘What plan?’
    ‘Struth—’ the guide said in disbelief. ‘Well. All them flats, see, they’re full of London families. Thousands of them. Real London families, born and bred. You’re not a Londoner, now, are you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No. You couldn’t live in one of them, see. The Ministry put them up special. Been going on for years now, it has, the Plan. Funny you not knowing about it. That beats all, that does.’ The suspicion increased; the eyebrows twitched like antennae.
    Queston said hastily: ‘I haven’t been to London for some time. Amazing how out of touch one can get.’ He clucked his tongue sycophantically, an amazed bumpkin. ‘Really, I had no idea all this was going on.’
    The man was mollified; he dropped back without reluctance into his explanations. ‘Too many people going out to live and coming in to work, they said. So they stopped the big chaps building offices, and started moving firms away to other towns, and they built flats instead. The waiting lists were long as your arm right away. Still are. People who’d been shovelled out to them new towns wanted to get back, see. I come back from Harlow meself—been moved out there donkeys’ years ago, back in 1959. We had a nice little house, but it wasn’t like the old smoke. So we got on the list, and now we’re back. Took nine months, mind. But we got back in the end. Three generations Bermondsey, I am. O, they’ve done a good job, the Ministry.’
    ‘So no one is to live in London,’ Queston said slowly, ‘but the Londoners.’
    ‘S’right.’ The man nodded approvingly. ‘Born and bred. Mind you, there’s a good few outsiders here still. But they’re going. Old Mandrake, he knows how to get what he wants.’
    Queston looked at him sharply. ‘Mandrake?’
    ‘The Minister,’ the old guide said. He lifted his uniform cap to settle it more comfortably on his head, and Queston’s attention was drawn again to the gold lettering round its band.
    ‘What are those initials on your cap?’
    ‘The Ministry, of course. Ministry of Planning. That’s what I’m here for. Everyone asks about the Plan when they come up here.’
    ‘Ministry of Planning? ’ For a moment Queston did not understand. Then he added slowly: ‘I see. So the Ministry of Town and Country Planning