Under false colours

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Nathaniel Drinkwater swallowed the watered gin with a shudder of revulsion. His disgust was not entirely attributable to the loathsome drink: it had become his sole consolation in the weary week he had just passed. Apart from making the water palatable the gin was intended as an anodyne, pressed into service to combat the black depression of his spirits, but instead of soothing, it had had the effect of rousing a maddeningly futile anger.

He pressed his face against the begrimed glass of the window, deriving a small comfort from its coolness on his flushed forehead and unshaven cheek. The first floor window commanded a view of the filthy alley below. From the grey overcast sky — but making no impression upon the dirty glass — a slanting rain drove down, turning the unpaved ginnel into a quagmire of runnels and slime which gave off a foul stench. Opposite, across the narrow gutway between the smoke-blackened brick walls, a pie shop confronted him.

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