Leo looked up from the sofa where he was reading The Call of the Wild to Marlon, and shook his head in disbelief.

‘But what should I have done?’ I said, unable to keep the resentment out of my voice.

‘Stuck one on him,’ Leo said, and turned back to the book. ‘There is a patience of the wild – dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself.’

I opened the door before the police could ring the bell.

‘Hello, sir,’ the old cop said. ‘Sergeant Cooper and this is WPC Patel.’

The young female cop muttered something.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Sergeant Cooper. ‘PC Patel. I keep forgetting we don’t have WPCs any more!’ He beamed. ‘Senior moment! May we come in?’

It wasn’t a question.

He was already stepping over the welcome mat.

‘You could have killed someone today, sir,’ the old copper said, almost conversationally.

I had to laugh at that. ‘I could have killed someone? Me? Do you know how fast that cretin was driving?’

PC Patel looked at my kitbag where I had dumped it in the hall. There were a pair of red 16-ounce Cleto Reyes boxing gloves on top. She picked one up and showed it to Sergeant Cooper, as if it was evidence.

‘Like your combat sports, do you, sir?’

‘It’s just to keep fit. I don’t hit anyone, if that’s what you mean. I punch bags, and mitts, and thin air. Not people.’

‘Well, you hit that car with a bottle, didn’t you, sir? You hit that all right, sir.’

I was learning the police use sir as a synonym for you fucking dickhead.

I suddenly felt sick with shame. Sergeant Cooper was right. I was a dickhead.

Sergeant Cooper told me that the driver in the Smart car wasn’t pressing charges. But they wanted to scare me. And they wanted to see me. And they wanted me on file. And they wanted to give me a warning.

Leo made tea for everyone. Marlon showed PC Patel Buddy’s full repertoire of amazing tricks – slowly laying on his side at the vague promise of a treat, basically – while Leo and the old cop were soon talking man to man, the urgent fraternal whispers of two tough but wise old boys who knew how the world worked.

‘The car was definitely fast,’ Leo muttered in the kitchen as he and Sergeant Cooper sipped their tea. ‘No need for that bottle – no, of course not. He’s home all day, you see. Lost his job. Too much time on his hands. Yes. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’

They were talking about me like I was some kind of mad housewife obsessed with the minutiae of life on my little street.

And maybe they were right. Maybe that is what I had become.

Sergeant Cooper chugged down his tea and came to say goodbye.

‘I don’t want to see you again,’ the old cop told me, his voice with that sudden teak-hard tone that comes so easily to officers of the law. ‘Do we understand each other, sir?’