Right, my lad, I thought. You don’t know it, but you’re about to join another army. It’s a very small army, but it doesn’t rely on volunteers and you can’t buy yourself out. By golly you can’t.

I told myself, watch this one. He’s not green, but it turned out easier than I expected. Soft sod squatted down on my kitchen floor to fondle the ruddy animal and I let him have it with the Kit-E-Kat tin. Well – trained to kill, see. Know the exact spot to go for.

And d’you know something? That lad looks a hundred per cent better with a short back and sides. His mum would be proud of him.

So I fetched a coffee from the pizza bar and we shared it and Ginger told me about Captain Hook.

‘Seems this guy, Probyn’s his real name, buys six beat-up old narrowboats a few years back for a song, intending to do ’em up and hire ’em out for canal holidays, but when he finds out how much it’ll cost to do ’em up he decides not to bother. He has a better idea. He’s seen all the kids sleeping rough and he thinks, I know. Floating doss-houses, right? Dry kips, out of the wind, safe from crazies, no hassle from the fuzz – three quid a night. So he rips out all the fittings to maximise floor space or deck space or whatever, and works out he can cram sixty kids on each boat – all under cover. Six boats. That’s three hundred and sixty kids at three quid. One thousand and eight quid a night. Of course it doesn’t work that way in practice. He’s hardly ever full, even in winter, because it’s not easy to score three quid and anyway some kids can’t stand being closed in, but he’s doing okay out of it just the same.’

Ginger broke off for a gulp of coffee and I said, ‘But surely there’s regulations? Fire and that? Is it legal, what he’s doing?’

Ginger shrugged. ‘Fire, health and hygiene – he must be well out of line, but nobody’s bothered. I mean, he’s getting kids off the streets, see? Packing ’em away where the tourists can’t see ’em, so the powers that be turn a blind eye.’

‘And where is this? Where’s he got these boats?’

‘By Camden Lock. D’you fancy it? Out of the weather for once?’

I shrugged. ‘Sounds okay, yeah, but I’m low on dosh. Three quid for a kip’ll clean me out.’

‘No worries.’ He grinned. ‘I met this guy today, owed me a tenner. He didn’t have it but he gave me seven. We’re laughing.’

‘He must be working.’