Fullalove’s inner-city hovel had become ridiculous. The hallway was stacked with books, piled one on top of another, as if bookcases had never been invented. And having negotiated access, it was to find every room similarly stuffed with books, some on shelves, but most in cardboard boxes or stacked against the walls. The hovel had always been stuffed with conspiracy theories, Cold War espionage narratives, analyses of imperialist adventures and Islamic resistance, histories of the secret services of the world and so on. Now, from what Plant could see as he squeezed past the open boxes, the holdings had expanded to include political philosophy, pornography and manuals of sexual deviance. Or maybe the varieties of sexual experience. Plant was unclear in his mind whether deviance was a superseded category in official pluralism, or had been reinstated.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Plant complained, standing in the hallway, peering into the allegedly spare room. No other word for it. Not one he could think of, anyway.