‘A pure heart. You might have to wait a bit for your cheque.’

Viv mimed shock. I shook his hand and left the house in Lilyfield from where he runs his slimmed-down business. He had heart trouble a while back and his wife monitors him closely. After the trouble I’ve given him over the years, I think she’d like to see me out of the picture, but Viv and I go back a long stretch. She knows that I do him good in a way, keep him in touch with the gritty stuff, and I make sure to give her my charm on full wattage.

I went for a wander around the streets with no destination in mind, just to do some thinking. The appeal process had taken eight months. No income and the usual bills flowing in. Funds were low and winter was coming on- heating costs, a close-to-leaking roof to have fixed and the Falcon needed attention. At least the mortgage was cleared and my daughter Megan was in paid employment as a doctor in a hospital series on TV. Not that she’d ever been a drain because I hadn’t even known about her until she was almost twenty, but there had been the odd sling and in its own way acting is as precarious a profession as private enquiry.

I think best when walking or drinking and best of all when walking towards somewhere to have a drink. I headed for a pub I knew in Victoria Road. The wind had an edge to it and I buttoned my blazer. The loss of my licence had closed doors. For years some of the big private enquiry firms had tried to recruit me and I’d knocked them back. Same story with security companies. Those lines of work were out now except, perhaps, as some sort of consultant. I didn’t fancy that. It meant briefing people twenty years younger than me and writing reports-office work. In the past I’d done some casual teaching in the PEA course at a TAPE college. It wasn’t a bad sideline gig-talking about old cases, bringing along the odd cop and crim to talk to the classes, scouting locations where things had gone down-but I couldn’t see the TAFE people employing me again.