But James wasn’t looking at me anyhow. He had the money spread out on the desk in front of him and he was scribbling something on a piece of paper and talking to himself under his breath. Even though I couldn’t hear much of what he was saying, I did hear a few words like numbers, pension, times two, no bloody wonder, and lots of other stuff that didn’t make any sense to me. I also definitely heard a few curses in there.

After one last robbing bastard James did a really hard full stop with the pen and then started counting out some of the money. He got to seven of the fifties and then stopped and then counted one more and said, danger money, right, Norman? I didn’t know what was going on really, but I nodded because I thought if I just agreed with him it might hurry things up a bit.

Then he started talking again and quite loudly. So that’s three hundred and fifty quid plus our danger money. That’s what I’m taking. That’s about four weeks of my dad’s pension at one seventy-five a pop, added together and divided by two. Fair do’s, I reckon, Norman. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be checking James’s adding up, but even though I’m pretty good at maths I didn’t even get to the four times a hundred and seventy-five part in my head because he was still talking.

My dad lost the whole lot, right, he goes, but I reckon gambling’s a mug’s game at the best of times and even if you’re not being diddled there’s a fair chance you’re going to lose. So what I did was split the difference, aye? Fifty-fifty. Rounded it down to what might have happened if the silly old bugger had put the lot through the pokies. Plus three fifty is exactly what he owes on his moorings so I reckon it’s all coming out in the wash. Ye ken, Norman?

I’m telling you now I had no idea what he meant, but we had the keys to his moped and his dad’s money and all I knew was I wanted to get as far away from the Whiskey-a-Go-Go as fast as possible. Faster even. Before we ended up coming out in the wash and dryer ourselves. James started putting the money back in the drawer and I thought maybe we were finally going, but then he suddenly stopped and looked down into the very back of the drawer and pulled out a thin notebook with a blue cover. He started flicking through it and every time he turned a page he banged the desk with his other hand and let out few robbing bastards and some other stuff.

I bloody knew it, he goes. This place is totally crooked and it’s all in here in black and white. I wanted to say, actually, it was in blue but I wasn’t quick enough because he said, right, hang on a wee sec and then we’re off. I couldn’t believe it was going to be another wee sec before we made our getaway, which meant it was probably actually going to be at least a billion times longer, because that’s what adults do.