Halfway through our second year, Fleas disappeared. The story we got was that he had been kicked out for being caught with hash on him – cue jokes about how you can put the skanger in a uniform, but you can’t put the uniform into the skanger – but I didn’t fall for it: Fleas was way too sharp for that. A few years later, when I got pulled off a desk to spend a few weeks being Fleas’s cousin Rachel who would be only delighted to take a suitcase full of drug money to his boss’s friend in Marbella, it turned out I’d been right all along. The sting went like clockwork, a few bad guys went down, and me and Fleas had a blast. Before I went back to my desk, we made Rachel an e-mail address so we could get in touch, if we ever needed to. We’ve never needed to before.

We take the coffee and sandwiches into the sitting room and stretch out at opposite ends of my sofa, with our feet up and our plates balanced on our laps. I’ve lit the fire; the wind is still going, but the thick walls turn it faint and almost cosy. ‘Ahhh,’ Fleas says, wriggling his shoulders comfortable against the cushions. ‘This is lovely, so it is. I’m gonna get myself a nice place like this, one of these days. You can teach me how to do it up.’

Which reminds me. ‘How’d you know where to find me?’

‘Ah, now. Where would you be if I hadn’t?’ He gives me his crinkly grin. ‘Murder now, yeah? The big time. How’s that going?’

Meaning he’s been asking after me, when he gets a chance. ‘Grand. Beats giving out penalty points.’

‘How’re the lads? Any crack?’

I can’t tell what that means. His face, full of food, gives away nothing. ‘All right, yeah,’ I say. ‘What’re you at these days?’

‘You know yourself. Bit of this, bit of that. Remember your man Goggles? The little fat fella with no neck?’

‘Jaysus, him.’ That makes me laugh. ‘You know he kept trying to chat me up, right? Every time you left me on my own, there he was, edging over and telling me he loved tall birds and the littlest jockeys have the biggest whips. He was always so bickied he kept forgetting he’d already tried and got nowhere.’