By the time we make it down there the show’s started. A woman in sparkling bright green high heels, red hair that’s got to be a wig, and a few scraps of fabric the same colour as the shoes strategically dotted around her body, is listlessly going through her act. Her eyes, when you glimpse them, show just how far away she is. Not that the punters seem to notice, they’re still drinking and cracking jokes with each other, all the while allowing their eyes to feast on the woman’s body.

We walk up to the table where the man known as Snake is and stand right in his view.

‘Fuck are you?’ he asks. ‘Out the way, babe.’

‘I haven’t been called that in a long time,’ I tell him. ‘What’s your name?’

He looks me up and down with a curl of the lip. Doesn’t respond.

‘What’s your name?’ Vermeer repeats.

‘Snake.’

‘Your real name.’

‘Didn’t you hear?’ says one of his companions, a man in a patterned shirt, enough buttons undone to show the tattoos rising up from his chest to his neck.

Vermeer flashes her badge. ‘Get lost,’ she says without even looking at him. ‘You as well.’

Snake stares at her, picks up a toothpick out of a little ceramic holder on the table and tries to dislodge something, probably imaginary, from between his teeth. Finally he nods and both men get up and walk away, taking their tall glasses of beer with them. The tattooed one glares at her as he goes past. Vermeer gives him the best fuck-you smile I’ve ever seen.

Once they’ve gone Vermeer speaks again. ‘Bit too seedy in here. Let’s go outside.’

Snake blinks in the light. The lighter flicks on with a chirp and he brings the writhing flame to the cigarette end dangling from his mouth. He takes a big draw. A long reverberating ship’s horn blares across the water behind him. I look up to see the same cruise ship I’d seen from Nellie’s gliding along the IJ, heading for open water. People on the deck wave towards land even though no one’s returning the greeting.

‘Yeah, I remember the guy,’ he’s saying. Now he’s away from the others he hasn’t exactly become cooperative, but there’s a little less bravado in his manner. ‘He was really aggressive, basically kicked off and got us all thrown out.’

‘And that wouldn’t be anything to do with you dealing drugs?’ Vermeer asks.

‘I’m not dealing anything, just there enjoying the show with a couple of mates.’

‘Every day?’ I ask. ‘Doesn’t it get a bit boring?’

‘I like watching women dance, what can I say?’

‘Did he ever buy from you before?’ Vermeer asks.