“So you don’t want a brief?” I asked.

“No I do not want a sodding brief,” said Smith.

“You seem in a hurry. You’ve got somewhere to go?” asked Stephanopoulis. “Somebody waiting for you perhaps?”

“What is it you want?” asked Smith.

“The thing is, we want to clarify your involvement in a number of crimes,” said Stephanopoulis.

“What crimes?” asked Smith. “I was a respectable businessman back then, I owned a club, that was it.”

“Back when?” I asked.

“The old days,” said Smith. “Isn’t that what you’re asking about? Because I was a respectable businessman.”

“But Smithy,” said Stephanopoulis. “I don’t believe in respectable businessmen. I’ve been a copper for more than five minutes. And the constable here doesn’t think you’re respectable either, because it happens he is a card-carrying member of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and so regards all forms of property as a crime against the proletariat.”

That one caught me by surprise and the best I could manage was “Power to the people.”

Smith was staring at us as if we were both mad.

“So,” I said. “You were involved in a lot of crime back then, Smithy?”

“I wasn’t an angel,” he said. “And I’ll put my hand up to having to deal with some less-than-salubrious elements in my day. That’s one of the reasons I moved abroad—to get away from all that.”

“Why did you come back?” I asked.

“I got a yen for dear old Blighty,” he said.

“Really?” I said. “You told me that England was a shit hole.”

“Well, at least it’s an English-speaking shit hole,” said Smith.

“He ran out of money,” said Stephanopoulis. “Didn’t you, Smithy?”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “I could buy you and all the senior officers in this station and still have enough left over for a flat in Mayfair.”

“Make me an offer,” said Stephanopoulis. “I could get a new chicken run. And her indoors is always asking for an extension to the conservatory.”

Smith, who wasn’t about to say anything that could be misconstrued or digitally edited into an admission of guilt, gave us a suitably ironic smile.

“If it wasn’t the money,” I said, “why’d you come back?”

“I went to Marbella because I’d made my wedge,” he said. “I’d retired. Got myself a nice villa for me and the wife and I ain’t going to kid you life was sweet, away from the rain and all the shit. Everything was good until the fucking ’80s when the Russians started turning up. Once their snouts were in the trough there was shootings and kneecappings and a man wasn’t safe in his own home. I thought, if I’m going to put up with this bollocks I might as well do it back in London.”

“Marbella’s loss is London’s gain,” said Stephanopoulis. “Isn’t that so, Constable?”