In The Salisbury Review Dalrymple offers a slice of modern London:

As I passed Euston Square station, I paused to listen to a tall black man, with the seat of his grey flannel tracksuit perched half-way down his buttocks, talking loudly into his mobile phone and gesticulating wildly for emphasis…

I could hardly be accused of eavesdropping, since the young man was speaking so loudly in a public place. His tone was aggrieved, not that of injured innocence but of injured guilt, which of course is a very much stronger emotion.

‘They’re trying to say I hit this white bloke and he went down. They’re not looking at what led up to it. It must be on CCTV, but they’re just not looking.’

It must have been on CCTV because everything these days is on CCTV. He paced up and down in his agitation. Evidently he had attacked someone in a station.

[‘]My train was in three minutes! Three minutes! And they’re trying to say…’

Note that a slice indicates only one small portion of something.