Rube: ‘It’s ‘cause today’s just a lot of amateur stuff. Anything with four legs’ll get a run. It’s a wonder there aren’t any poodles out there.’ He glances at me seriously. ‘Our fella can run but. Take my word for it.’

Tosser cop: ‘Is that the one that looks more like a rat?’

Accomplice gorgeous cop: ‘But he runs like the clappers, they reckon.’

In any case, while the tosser cop takes our money, walks away, throws his sausage roll bag in the bin and makes the bet, the following things happen: Rube smiles incessantly to himself, the accomplice cop has her hands on her honey hips, and I, Cameron Wolfe, imagine making love to her — in my sister’s bed of all places.

It’s disagreeable isn’t it?

Yet.

What can you do?

When the cop comes back, he says, ‘I put ten on ‘im myself.’

‘You won’t be disappointed,’ Rube nods, accepting our ticket. Then he says, ‘Hey, I think I’m gonna dob you in for this — puttin’ bets on for minors. It’s a dis-grace.’

(In all the time I’ve known him, my brother has never said just simple disgrace. He has to say it in two parts. Dis and grace. ‘Dis-grace’.)

‘So what?’ the cop says. ‘And besides … who y’ gonna tell?’

‘The cops,’ Rube answers, and we all smirk a little, and head for the open grandstand.

We all sit down and wait for the race. ‘This You Bastard better be good,’ the cop announces, but no one listens. You can cut the air with a knife, as the trainers, gamblers, thieves, bookies, fat guys, fat girls, chain smokers, alcos, corrupt cops and juvenile punters all wait, with their scattered thoughts scattering on to the track.

‘It does look like a rat,’ I say, when the greyhound we’ve chosen trots ferret-like and scrawny past us. ‘And what the hell are clappers, anyway?’

‘I don’t know,’ the cop says.

Rube: ‘We don’t know what they are, but we know they’re fast.’

‘Yeah.’

The cop and Rube are inseparable now. Best mates. One has a uniform and black, close-cropped hair. The other is in rags, stinks of sweat and No-Name cologne and has wavy brown-blond hair that staggers towards his shoulders. He has eyes of stomped-out fire, a wet nose that sniffs, and he has bitten claws for fingernails. Needless to say, the second one is my brother. A Wolfe, a dog, through and through.

Then there’s the female cop.

Then there’s me.

Drooling.

‘And they’re off!’