‘How d’you feel about drugs, Mr Hardy?’

‘I’m all for them — caffeine, alcohol, paracetamol…’

‘Please don’t be flippant. You know what I mean.’

I did know what he meant, but sometimes I just can’t help being flippant. Sometimes too, it helps to give me a handle on what sort of a person I’m dealing with. Flippant back is one thing, serious and impatient is another. Martin Price was serious. He’d phoned mentioning the name of a client who’d mentioned my name to him. Not a bad conduit to me, especially as I remembered the client and he’d paid well. We’d set up this meeting at the coffee shop on Glebe Point Road next door to the Valhalla Cinema. He’d seemed a bit surprised at the venue, but then again I’d been a bit surprised at his chosen time — 8 a.m. on a Monday morning. I’d explained that the place was closer to where I lived than my office and that I wasn’t what you’d call an early morning person.

So there we were at a table out on the street with two long blacks. He was in his expensive but slightly wrinkled business suit, and I was in my jeans and leather jacket where wrinkles don’t matter. He was tallish like me, in fair physical condition like me, with a full head of hair and cleanshaven — again like me. There the resemblance ended. We’d only been there a couple of minutes and he was on his second cigarette. My last cigarette had been back when they cost about a quarter of what they cost now. Price had an almost full packet of Camels. He put it on the table along with his lighter — all loaded up and ready to fire.

‘You mean hard drugs — cocaine, heroin, speed, maybe ecstasy, although I’m not sure the last two qualify. I’m not all for them — dangerous, and life’s dangerous enough as it is.’

‘Exactly. Well, I believe… no, I know that my daughter’s selling them. And I mean heroin.’