My mother punctuating the silences with compliments and praise, she can’t have been right in the head, or could she possibly have been taking the piss? How I wish it were so. Truth is, she was the worst kind of criminal. She supported him in his tyranny of bullying and beatings, encouraged him in the nurture of those fuckin’ pigeons. The face of gentility and aspiring middle class, she was the public face of the beast. After he took his dive, she became a professional widow, leapt into black weeds and wore them like a trophy. ‘Hey – see me – not only had I a husband but I buried him and of course, there’ll be no other man.’ As if anyone would have the cow. I got the fuck away from her as soon as I was able and it wasn’t soon enough.

Long before the psychologists, the heart-juicers came trippin’ along with fancy names like dysfunctional, our family unit was full fledged fucked.

The old man’s Christian name was Alistair. Not that he’d a drop of Christianity. He had a framed tapestry in our pokey hall which said:

MAN PROPOSES

GOD DISPOSES

Yeah.

Alistair the righteous, the unholy more like. ‘Don’t think he’d planned on bein’ ‘smote’ from a three-storey building in Battersea, not a howl down from the dogs’ home. One might say he was indeed begot, or is it begat. Whatever, well creamed any road. The doorbell went. I didn’t recognise him at first, then he spoke.

‘Dave, how are you lad, have you forgotten me?’

Then it clicked. Noble, the noble savage.

‘Chief Inspector.’

‘One and the same, I must put my hand up, cop a plea. That’s police manual humour to put Joe Public at ease.’

‘It works, or is it to put him off his guard?’

‘Might I step in?’

‘Have you a warrant?’

Took him aback. I added, ‘Just kiddin’, come on then.’

He had a cheap raincoat and even cheaper aftershave. No, the cheapest. It comes free with the litre bottles of bleach.