The evening went sour after that. I stuck it out for a couple of hours but I hate self-pity, especially mine, so I went out and did the next best thing to sticking my head in a bucket of cold water.

Unfortunately it had stopped raining while we were in the pub, so I settled for letting the freezing air sober me up.

Lesley caught up with me twenty minutes later.

‘Put your bloody coat on,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

‘Is it cold?’ I asked.

‘I knew you’d be upset,’ she said.

I put my coat on. ‘Have you told the tribe yet?’ I asked. In addition to her mum, her dad and nan, Lesley had five older sisters, all still resident within a hundred metres of the family home in Brightlingsea. I’d met them once or twice when they’d descended upon London en masse for a shopping expedition. They were loud to the point of constituting a one-family breach of the peace, and would have merited a police escort if they hadn’t already had one, i.e. Lesley and me.

‘This afternoon,’ she said. ‘They were well-pleased. Even Tanya, and she doesn’t even know what it means. Have you told yours yet?’

‘Tell them what?’ I asked. ‘That I work in an office?’

‘Nothing wrong with working in an office.’

‘I just want to be a copper,’ I said.

‘I know,’ said Lesley. ‘But why?’

‘Because I want to help the community,’ I said. ‘Catch bad guys.’

‘Not the shiny buttons, then?’ she asked. ‘Or the chance to slap the cuffs on and say, “You’re nicked, my son”?’

‘Maintain the Queen’s peace,’ I said. ‘Bring order out of chaos.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘What makes you think there’s any order?’ she said. ‘And you’ve been out on patrol on a Saturday night. Does that look like the Queen’s peace?’

I went to lean nonchalantly against a lamp post but it went wrong and I staggered around a bit. Lesley found this much funnier than I thought it really deserved. She sat down on the step of Waterstone’s bookshop to catch her breath.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Why are you in the job?’

‘Because I’m really good at it,’ said Lesley.

‘You’re not that good a copper,’ I said.

‘Yes I am,’ she said. ‘Let’s be honest, I’m bloody amazing as a copper.’

‘And what am I?’

‘Too easily distracted.’

‘I am not.’

‘New Year’s Eve, Trafalgar Square, big crowd, bunch of total wankers pissing in the fountain – remember that?’ asked Lesley. ‘Wheels come off, wankers get stroppy and what were you doing?’

‘I was only gone for a couple of seconds,’ I said.

‘You were checking what was written on the lion’s bum,’ said Lesley. ‘I was wrestling a couple of drunken chavs and you were doing historical research.’

‘Do you want to know what was on the lion’s bum?’ I asked.