Category: Books

PROLOGUE It’s late afternoon, an overcast day in a South London cemetery. Stone memorials stretch into the distance – a few pristine, garlanded with fresh flowers, most neglected and crumbling, their etched assurances of eternal life forlorn and fading. One of the gravelled aisles is blocked by a gaggle of expensive cars – Mercs, Jags, a Bentley – as well as several undertakers’ limos. The cars’ drivers, bulky men in suits and shades, lean back against their vehicles, grim-faced, watchful. A couple of them surreptitiously smoke, cupping their hands over the glow of their cigarettes. Around one freshly dug grave there’s a straggling group of mourners, gazing at an ornate coffin. Most are old men, grey-haired but hard-eyed, their ageing bodies camouflaged by well-cut suits. Some are accompanied by well-preserved wives their own age. Others by younger, thinner, blonder women. Several are in wheelchairs, but they too share the grim-faced look of the others. Also among the mourners are several older women, clearly on...