He stepped over discarded syringes and scorched concrete where fires had been lit. He kept his eyes down so that he saw the least. In the low light of the afternoon on level three, the rain cut over the wall and splattered on his face but he did not feel it. The majority of the entrances, two out of three, had closed grille gates on the entrances, as if it were valuable to have the further protection of the barricades. The plastic numbers of flat thirteen were askew on the door. He waited for it to be opened but was told it was his, his place, and he could goddamn do it himself. He went into the one-bedroom unit, his home, his refuge. For a moment, like sun on his face, he felt the relief as if, through the door, he would be safe from the sneers and the jibes, the fraudulent compassion… There was a living room, a bathroom, a bedroom and a kitchen, and a door that could be closed against the world. His rucksack and the plastic bags from the supermarket were on the floor.

'Well, that's it. That's what you get from Ivanhoe Manners, something or nothing. Depends on your opinion. I say it again – it's your choice. You can blow it or you can make it work. If I hadn't seen you then you were dead, finished, a heap of rubbish… but I did see you, and knew you were worth helping, and I saw your shoes… and I needed the bed at the hostel.'

There was no handshake. He was given a brown envelope, felt the coins and the folded banknotes in it and was told it would tide him over until he was back in the system. Ivanhoe Manners was gone out through the door, didn't bother to close it behind him.

He looked around the room, seemed to see nothing but the bulk of the big West Indian striding away down level three, and the tears ran down his face.

The voice ripped into him: 'Just a few words, friend, so we get off to the right start and understand each other… Heh, I'm speaking to you.'

Behind him, by the door to flat fourteen, was a short, pudgy man, mid-forties, in a tight suit, shirt collar straining round a reddened neck and a tie that had slipped. He swiped away the tears and blinked to clear them. Half hidden, masked by the shoulder, he saw a sparrow of a woman, seventy at least, might have been older.