She strode on ahead as I paid the bill. Her confidence, of a gimcrack kind, had been restored. Her patients rarely spoke back to her, and she had been unnerved by my questions, aware that even if Duncan Christie was innocent she had in some way been lying to herself. But an unusual cover-up was taking place, parts of which I was being allowed to see.

We crossed the central atrium, skirting the giant bears with their patched fur and get-well offerings of treacle and honey. Customers wandered by, like tourists in a foreign city. There were no clocks in the Metro-Centre, no past or future. The only clue to the time was the football match on the overhead monitor screens. Arrays of floodlights shone through the black haze, and the screens at either end of the ground carried the familiar face of David Cruise, a retail messiah for the age of cable TV.

We left the Metro-Centre by one of the exit-only doors, and walked towards the car park. Groups of sports supporters were leaving the dome, bearing the banners of local ice-hockey and athletics teams. They formed up among their four-wheel drives, and marched away in step to the evening’s venues.

Following Julia’s directions, we set off through the empty office quarter of the town, moving past entrances sealed with steel grilles.

‘They’re waiting for something,’ I commented. ‘Where are we going?’

‘South Brooklands. I know a short cut. You’re happy with one-way streets?’

‘One-way? Why not?’

‘The wrong way? It saves time. Risk nothing, lose everything.’

We passed the magistrates’ court, then turned into an area of discount furniture stores, warehousing and car-rental firms. The football stadium seemed to remain for ever on our left, as if we were circling it at a safe distance, uneager to be drawn into its huge magnetic field.

‘Okay.’ Julia leaned into the windscreen. ‘Turn left. No, right.’

‘Here?’ I hesitated before passing a no-entry sign guarding a street of shabby houses. ‘Where are we?’

‘I told you. It’s a short cut.’

‘To the nearest police pound? Doctor, always wear your seat belt. Is this some sort of courtship ritual?’

‘I bloody hope not. Anyway, seat belts are sexual restraints.’

I looked out at the modest houses, with their deco doors and windows, a fossil of the 1930s now occupied by immigrant families. A terrace of small semis stood by untended front gardens, battered vans parked on the worn grass. Everything was bathed in the intense glare of the stadium lights, as if the area was being interrogated over its failure to join the consumer society. Whenever they glanced from their windows, the east European and Asian tenants would see the giant face of David Cruise smiling on his silver screens.

‘Let’s get out of here.’ I braked to avoid a cavernous pothole. ‘What a place to live.’

‘You’re talking about my patients.’ Julia shielded her eyes from the glare. ‘Mostly Bangladeshis. They’re very ambitious.’

‘Thank God. They need to be.’

‘They are. Their biggest dream is to be cleaners and janitors at the Metro-Centre. Remember that when you next have a pee . . .’

We moved to the fringes of the residential area, and passed an ice-hockey arena for the second time, forced to slow down when a group of banner-waving supporters blocked the road. Three hundred yards from the football stadium, among the slip roads that led to the motorway, was an athletics ground laid with a lurid artificial track, bathed in the same intense glare of lighting arrays. Groups of supporters stood in the street, awaiting the result of a long-distance race.

‘Why don’t they go in?’ I asked Julia. ‘The stands are almost empty.’

‘Maybe they’re not that interested.’

‘Hard to believe. What are they doing here?’

‘They’re enforcers.’

‘Enforcing what?’

We reached a crossroads, and turned left into another residential district. The football match had ended, and spectators were spilling out into the streets surrounding the stadium. David Cruise was alone again, talking to his double at the far end of the ground about a range of men’s colognes and grooming aids. Fragments of the sales pitch boomed through the night air, drumming like fists against the windows of the cowed little houses.

‘Julia, we keep heading back to the stadium. What exactly is going on?’

‘The Brooklands story. Look out for an old cinema . . . don’t worry, we’re not going to hold hands in the movies.’

The first spectators passed us, men and their wives in St George’s shirts, good-humouredly banging the roofs of the parked cars. Part of the crowd had broken away from the main body, and was moving down a street of small Asian food wholesalers. The men were burly but disciplined, led by marshals in red baseball caps, shouting into their mobile phones. The crowd marched behind them, jeering at the silent shops. A group of younger supporters hurled coins at the upstairs windows. The sound of breaking glass cut the night like an animal cry.

‘Julia! Seat belt! Where the hell are the police?’

‘These are the police . . .’ Julia fumbled with the catch, losing the buckle in the dark. She was shocked but excited, like a rugby girlfriend at her first brutal match.

Cars were coming towards us, driving three abreast, headlights full on. Behind them came a pack of supporters in full cry, brawling with the young Asians who emerged to defend their shops. Someone was kicked to the ground, and there was a flurry of white trainers like snowballs in a blizzard.

I swung the wheel, throwing Julia against the passenger door, and slewed the Jensen into a parking space as the cars swept past, slamming my wing mirror with a sound like a gunshot. Somewhere a plate-glass window fell to the pavement, and a torrent of razor ice scattered under the running feet.

The crowd surged past us, fists beating on the car roof. An overweight and thuggish man bellowed into his mobile while launching kicks at an elderly Asian trying to guard the doorway of his hardware shop. The supporters strode in step, chanting and disciplined, but seemed to have no idea where their marshals were leading them, happy to shout at the dark and trash whatever street they were marching down.

‘Julia! Don’t leave the car.’

Julia was hiding her face from the men calling to her through the passenger window, urging her to join them. I opened my door and stepped into the street. On the opposite pavement a middle-aged Asian was down on his knees, trying to steady himself against a vandalized parking meter. A thin-faced youth in a St George’s shirt danced around him, feinting and kicking as if he was taking a series of penalties, cheering and raising his hands each time he scored.

‘Mr Kumar . . . !’

I seized the young man by the arm and pushed him away. He shouted good-humouredly, happy to let me have a go at the next penalty. He danced off, feet scattering the broken glass. I helped Mr Kumar to stand, then steered the bulky man towards the service alley beside a small cash-and-carry.

‘Please . . . my car.’

‘Where are you parked? Mr Kumar . . . !’

He was dazed and dishevelled, gazing over my shoulder at the crowd as if trying to grasp who exactly they were. Then he glanced into my face, recognizing me with an appalled stare.

‘No . . . no . . . never . . .’

He broke away from me before I could reassure him, heavy arms thrusting me aside, and stumbled into the darkness of the alley.

TRYING TO CATCHmy breath, I followed him into the next street. The marchers were returning to the stadium, and car doors slammed as they sounded their horns and drove away. Mr Kumar had vanished, perhaps taking refuge with local friends he had been visiting. Young Asian men were sweeping glass from the pavement into the gutters, smoking their cigarettes as they listened to the night.

I walked along the deserted street, lost in the glare of the stadium floodlights. Across the road was a disused cinema, a 1930s white-tile Odeon like a shabby iceberg, for years a bingo hall and now a carpet warehouse.