'They had to close them, the council did. A pensioner, male, goes inside, and a girl follows him.

She's offering a blow for fifty pence. He's in the cubicle, panting, gasping, she's doing it. What else is she doing? Doesn't need her hands for a blow, her hands are on his wallet, inside his coat. She's got it, she's off and running, and his trousers and his pants are down round his ankles. He's too embarrassed, poor sod, to come charging out and chase her – if he could. The council closed the toilets.'

And after they'd done their walking, Ivanhoe Manners would come back with him to flat thirteen on level three and they'd use the chess set that the social worker had given him. And with the chess games came the monologues that Malachy seldom interrupted.

'This is where the real war is, a war worth fighting.

I never been to Afghanistan and I'm not going to Iraq.

But they don't seem to me as places that matter, not to me. Maybe, just possible, we can win a war in Afghanistan or in Iraq, but sure as hell we're losing the war at our doorstep. You go up to the top of block nine and look all around you. From that roof, you'll see wealth and power and Parliament, you'll see where all the big people make their money. You'll see the City – banks and insurance, you'll see the ministries, fat cats running your life – but if you look down by your feet, you'll see where the war is. The Amersham is a dump ground for dysfunctionals. You shouldn't be here, Malachy. No, you shouldn't.'

It was seven weeks now since Ivanhoe Manners had last called by.

Days slipped away in which Malachy went nowhere, spoke to no one. What drove him from flat thirteen most often was that the fridge was empty – no bread, no milk, no coffee, no meals for one. But every fourteen days, regular, the first and third Thursday of each month, he was invited next door for tea.