He looks bad, as though he has been in the wars, in a serious fight that he did not win. His face is roughed up, the integrity of the skin broken through, made ragged and livid; a cut lip, an eye bruised black, raw grazes on all the face’s hard, sharp, vulnerable edges. He’s wearing a petrol-blue suit that once must have looked immaculately sharp. Now it’s flayed out of shape, torn at the knees, streaked and clotted with ominous, sick substances. And under the suit there’s a white T-shirt, stained with dark islands and archipelagos of what can only be blood.
Then he sees the muggers and the man in the cashmere overcoat. He watches. He approaches. There’s some discussion, he finds the gun in his hand, the muggers are running, except for the one he’s managed to catch, and then the victim is telling him to stop, and he’s stopped, and there’s a map in his hand, an A–Z with all the streets obliterated and he’s saying, ‘You’re going to tell me there’s a really simple explanation for this, aren’t you?’