Between me entering the shop and leaving three minutes later, the sky has bloomed from a dark bruise to the blow-to-the-head glow of a computer screen, and the rain is thick. The few people visible are clotted in shop doorways, staring up at the sky like peasants in an illuminated manuscript. I am alone on the pavements, John Wayne in a ghost town of pedestrianised shopping streets, feet sliding in his flip flops, plastic bag of M&S soup and Nice biscuits hanging from his curled fingers. All he’s thinking about is how quickly he can get back to the saloon, and whether his Amazon order of comic books might arrive there today.