Problems, Problems

The Customs House stood on the north side of the dock basin, a Victorian pile lit up this morning like a cruise ship nobody had asked for. Between it and the water ran a stretch of granite quay, wet and black, and along the edge eight lamp-posts. Five were dark.

Blue tape ran across forty metres of open edge where the old railing had come out for the festival stage. In its place, a few lengths of orange mesh and a sign: REPLACEMENT RAILING ON ORDER.

"Wet night, wine at the reception, power chair, unlit edge," said a uniformed constable, with the weary kindness of someone repeating a sentence he'd already been told to use. "Sad. Nobody's fault, really."

"Somebody took the railing out," you said. "Somebody switched the lamps off. 'Nobody' is quite an achievement."

The constable didn't answer. Jonah, beside you, counted the dark lamps out loud and then wrote the number down.