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moment. She gave Richard a level stare. He looked into her eyes and saw there what he was always looking for: that she understood. That she really understood. That sheknew this wasted go-round was just that; and that she – like Richard – had higher aspirations. Aspirations to a life that might appear dull, conventional, to Bell and his clique, but which was in fact full of love, security, trust – the important values. Ursula reached out a hand and gently rumpled Richard's blond curls. ‘You know what?’ she said.
    ‘W-what?’
    ‘You're sweet.’
    The old Chinaman who let them into the mouldering house seemed to be well known to Bell. He asked after the man's grandchildren, made reference to certain mutual business acquaintances. While this went on the rest of the clique remained backed up in the vestibule. Eventually they all shuffied on in. It was a warped, early-nineteenth-century house. At one time it would have been part of the old Limehouse rookery, a teeming, tri-dimensional dying space of interconnected alleys, courtyards and tenements; but now it stood alone, carved out from the past, teetering on the edge of the Docklands Enterprise Zone.
    The Chinaman led them through rooms that had not so much been decorated, as arrived naturally at abewildering number of styles. Some were hung with Persian carpets, others had pop posters tacked on the walls, still more were strip-lit and tiled, like toilets or Moroccan cafes. Everywhere the atmosphere was dank, dilapidated; and everywhere there were people taking drugs. Two Iranians sat on phallic bolsters, moodily chasing the dragon; on a velveteen-covered divan a gaggle of giggling upper-class girls – as out of their element as gorillas in Regent's Park – were high on E, stroking each other's hair; and as the clique climbed the stairs, they passed two black guys smoking crack in a pipe made from a Volvic bottle. ‘I prefer Evian myself,’ Mearns sneered as they tromped by.
    ‘Whassit t'you, cunt?’ came back at him; but the speaker's companion muttered, ‘Safe, Danny,’ and they let it lie.
    Later, Richard could barely recall the actual opium-smoking. It had taken place in an attic room, the sloping ceiling forcing the cliquers into a series of staggered postures, from upright to crouched to supine. The Chinaman spawned a daughter – or granddaughter, or great-granddaughter – who looked about eleven, and who did the business of priming the pipe, passing it round, cleaning out the dross, repeating the operation.

    Richard glared at Ursula, who was allowing Bell to cup the back of her head and guide the pipe's thick stem into her mouth. The image had an awful implication. Richard concentrated on the cracked paint of the skirting board, the furring of dust on the lampshade. Outside in the street a dog was shouting at a barking drunk. The thick, sweet, organic smoke filled the room. Like agitated children being given a narcotic bedtime narrative, the cliquers were calmed as it did the rounds.
    Then, the black guy from the stairs crashed in, smacked Mearns in the mouth and ran out. There was less pandemonium than might have been expected. Bell exited the room and found the Chinaman, who in turn got hold of his minder, a big Maltese guy called Vince whose nose had been cut in half and badly sewn together again.
    The Chinaman ushered them all back down through the warren of rooms, with much solicitous cooing. Bell was saying ‘No matter . . . No matter . . .’ in such a way, Richard understood, as to make the Chinaman feel that it mattered a great deal, and that something had to be done.
    More cabs were waiting outside – someone musthave used their mobile. The clique encabbed. As they pulled away from the house Richard saw the black guy. He was halfway down the area steps, and Vince appeared to be throttling him. Or perhaps – and the thought came to Richard as painfully as a sick bubble of gaseous indigestion squeezes between waist and band – Vince was