Charlie Muffin jarred stiff-kneed along Cheyne Walk, head bent to concentrate upon the pavement cracks. Easy to make a straight line; always had been. Just fix on the pavement joins and left right, foot either side, like the police-station tests in the old days, before the breathalyzer. Done it a dozen times pissed as a monkey. Never pulled department weight, until it became absolutely necessary. Rarely had been. Always able to make the straight walk, enunciate the trick phrases from the card, without denting the words. Sherry’s a difficult one, when you’re Brahms and Liszt. Always clever to use that. Just a sherry, officer, maybe two. National service reunion: get together with the boys; you know the sort of thing. Should have remembered the pills, of course. Trying a new treatment, for the migraine. Nasty business, Malaya: nasty wound, too. Not much to talk about, really. Lucky to have made it, so the doctors say; should have warned me about the pills though, silly buggers. Terribly sorry. Guarantee it won’t happen again. That a Korea ribbon? North Africa! Christ, now that must have been a war. ’Course it won’t happen again, officer. Solemn promise.

Bit different now. Couldn’t defeat the progress of science: blow into the bag, pee in the bottle, blood smear under the microscope and there you were, fucked without a kiss.