Under their influence, everything familiar about the café had gone. They had ripped it all out. The neon sign was gone, leaving only trailing cable above the door. Even the smells of stale fat and hot meat had gone, hauled away with the dismantled catering equipment; instead, the air in the street immediately outside reeked of sawn wood, sophisticated adhesives and cheap sealants; it was reverberating to the shriek of the angle-grinder, the snap of nail guns, the thud of music. You could hear this work they were doing broadcast itself across Hightown until, reflected by the ruins of Geoffrey
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