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Russell Square is one of the odder areas of London. Squeezed between Euston Road to the north and Holborn to the south, it doesn’t have enough shops to be commercial and it doesn’t have enough houses to be residential. Instead it has a mix of universities and hotels, rich tourists and poor students rubbing shoulders in the busy streets. It’s supposed to be “literary,” associations from the old Bloomsbury group, though given that you’d have to be a millionaire to own property there nowadays I doubt you’ll find many artists living in the place.

What Russell Square does have a lot of is education: English-language schools for the expats, colleges for the students, and the British Museum for everyone. It was one of the colleges I’d come for, a long hulking brown-and-beige cinderblock called the Institute of Education, and as I approached I reflexively scanned ahead, searching for danger. I didn’t find anything and I didn’t expect to, but for some reason I found myself hesitating as I drew level with the front doors. For a moment I thought about turning away, then shook my head in annoyance and headed inside.

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