‘That would explain things,’ he said, reasonably, and he led me away to a curtained-off cubicle inside a tent. Here I consented happily to taking all my clothes off, all the while apologising for putting him out. It is no doubt because I am a white man, university educated, with the polite and helpful manner of a bookseller, that my experiences with the police have been positive, even when the situation has been negative. I admire their sense of purpose and the camaraderie they have with each other, and whenever they are processing me for whatever misdemeanour I have committed I always think how much I might like to join their ranks, if only I hadn’t just been caught doing something that precluded me from ever joining their ranks. ‘It can’t be very pleasant for you, this,’ I said, as he shone his torch up my bum.

‘Oh, you get used to it,’ he said. ‘If the person’s cooperative, it’s a quick process.’

The last thing my man did, now that I was fully dressed again, was to check the contents of my pockets, pulling up a couple of tubes of filter tips from my box, and glancing down inside.

‘Are you working late?’ I asked, as though he was an Uber driver taking me home.

‘Just till teatime,’ he said, and whether he spotted those small bags stuffed at the bottom of the packet or not he behaved just as if he hadn’t.

‘I’ll have to walk you through the gate,’ he said. ‘Or the dogs will go for you again. I’d stick your jeans in the wash when you get home if I were you.’

*