‘You be here when I get back,’ I told Zach.

‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no intention of leaving this vehicle.’

There’s a number of different ways to handle the initial approach to a member of the public, ranging from the insinuating yourself into a conversation to warming up with a pre-emptive smack on the head with your baton. I decided to go for bold and authoritative, because that usually has the best effect on long thin nervous streaks of piss like Kevin.

I squared my shoulders and advanced with my warrant card in full view.

‘Kevin Nolan,’ I said. ‘Can I have a word.’

It was perfect. I caught him just as he was picking up crates. As soon as he recognised me as police he gave a startled jump and literally looked left and then right, as if contemplating a runner. Then he collected himself and opted, boringly, for sulky belligerence.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Relax,’ I said. ‘I’m not here about the parking fines.’

He grunted and put the crate he was carrying into the back of the van.

‘What are you here about?’ he asked.

I asked him about the pottery fruit bowl he’d allegedly sold to the stallholder in Portobello Road.

‘Earthenware,’ he said. ‘Is that the stuff that looks like it’s not painted?’

I said it was.

‘What about it?’ he asked and stuck his finger in his ear and twisted it a few times. I wondered if his head was going to hinge open.

‘Where did you get it?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘Don’t look at me like that, honestly I don’t remember. Some geezer traded it to me in a pub – I must have been half cut anyway because it was a fucker to shift.’

‘Look, I’m not interested in its provenance or anything,’ I said.

‘Its what?’

‘Its provenance,’ I said slowly. ‘Whether it was stolen or not.’

‘It was tat,’ said Kevin. ‘Why would anyone want to steal it – you couldn’t give it away.’

I gave him my card and told him to phone me if anything similar turned up. I took some encouragement in the fact that he didn’t just ostentatiously throw it away in front of me. I went back to the Asbo where Zach asked me if I’d got what I wanted.

I expressed my displeasure at the current state of my investigation as I started the car up and tried to figure out where the exit was.

‘I don’t know why you’re so interested in this bowl,’ said Zach. ‘It’s not exactly your objet d’art is it? It’s not even a very pretty colour.’