I squared up my shoulders and marched back into the House of Doveston. I was not in the bestest of moods.

The shop interior was something to see and once inside I saw it. It was like a museum, everything displayed behind glass. A staggering selection of imported tobaccos and the largest variety of cigarettes I have ever laid my boggling eyes upon.

I have never been much of a poet, but standing there amongst the wonder of it all, I was almost moved to verse.

There were showcases glittering with pipes and snuffboxes,

Cabinets of match—holders, ashtrays and cigars.

There were tall glazed cupboards of rare tobacco pouches.

There was snuff of every blending in a thousand tiny jars.

I wandered and wondered and gaped and gazed. There were items here that were clearly not for sale. These were rare collectors’ pieces. The pouches, for instance. And surely here was the famous calabash smoked by the magician Crowley. And there the now-legendary Slingsby snuff-pistol, fashioned to resemble a Derringer. And that was not Lincoln’s corn-cob, was it? And that was not one of Churchill’s half-smoked Coronas?

‘It bloody is too,’ said a familiar voice.

I turned around and saw him. He stood there, large as life, bigger than life. I looked at him and he looked at me and each one saw the other.

He saw an ex-convict, dressed in the garb of a scarecrow. The exconvict’s hands were crudely tattooed, as were other body parts, but these were hidden from view. The ex-convict’s head was shaven, his cheeks scarred and shadowed by a two-day growth of beard. The exconvict’s frame was lean and hard and muscled. The ex-convict looked far older than his years, but had about him somehow the look of a survivor.

I saw a businessman. A successful businessman. Dressed in the garb of a successful businessman. A Paul Smith suit of linen that crumpled where it should. A gold watch by Piaget, that clenched the tanned left wrist. Brogues by Hobbs and haircut by Michael. Another two-day growth of beard, but this ‘designer stubble’. The successful businessman’s frame was going on podgy, but he looked far younger than his years.

And the look of a survivor?

Yes, I think so.

‘Edwin,’ said the Doveston.

‘Bastard,’ I replied.

The Doveston grinned and I saw a gold tooth winking. ‘You made short work of my door supervisor,’ he said.

‘And I shall make short work of you too. It is payback time.’

‘Pardon me?’ The Doveston stepped back a pace.

‘Seventeen long years I served for you.’

‘I did my best to get you out.’

‘I must have missed the explosions.’

‘Crude stuff,’ said the Doveston. ‘I couldn’t bust you out. You’d have had to spend the rest of your life on the run. But I set you up in prison, didn’t I? Always kept you well supplied with money and snout.’

‘You did what?’

‘Five hundred cigarettes a week.’

‘I never got any such thing.’

‘But you must have got them. I sent them with the press cuttings and I know you got all those, I’ve seen the archive. Very nice work you did on that. Well put together.’

‘Just hold on, hold on.’ I raised a fist and saw him flinch. ‘You sent me cigarettes? With the press cuttings?’

‘Of course I did. Are you saying that you never got them?’

‘Never.’ I shook my head.

‘And I suppose you never got the Christmas hampers?’

‘No.’

‘Oh,’ said the Doveston. ‘But you must have got the fresh salmon I sent every month.’

‘No fresh salmon.’

‘No fresh salmon.’ The Doveston now shook his head. ‘And why are you dressed like that, anyway? You’ll be telling me next that you never received the suit of clothes and the wristwatch my chauffeur delivered to the prison when he picked up the archive. And where were you when he came to pick you up? Did nobody tell you what time he was coming?’

I shook my head once again. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards,’ I shouted. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’

The Doveston made the face that says ‘poor little sod’.

‘I shall have to write a very stern note to the prison governor,’ he said.

‘A stern note? No.’ I gave my head another shake. “Why don’t you send him a nice box of candles instead?’

‘A nice box of candles.’ The Doveston winked. ‘I think that can be arranged.’

He led me upstairs to his flat. I will not bore the reader with a description. Let us just say that it was bloody posh and leave it at that.

‘Drink?’ asked the Doveston. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Smoke?’ asked the Doveston. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ ‘Canapé?’ the Doveston asked. ‘What the fig is that?’

‘Just something left over from the party I’d organized for you last night. It’s a pity you missed it, I’d set up a couple of really cracking women with lovely long legs. Gorgeous Herberts they had on them too.’

‘Herberts? What are Herberts?’

‘Bums, of course. Fifth generation Brentford rhyming slang. Herbert rhymes with sherbert. Sherbert dips, fish and chips. Chip off the block, sound as a rock. Rock’n’roll, bless my soul. Sole and turbot rhymes with Herbert. It’s simple when you have the knack.’

‘Have you seen much of Norman lately?’ I asked.

‘Once in a while. He keeps himself busy. Very into inventing he is, nowadays. Last year he invented a machine based on Einstein’s Unified Field Theory. He teleported the Great Pyramid of Cheops into Brentford Football Ground.’

‘How very interesting.’

The Doveston handed me a drink, a fag and a canapé. ‘Tell me this,’ he said. ‘If you thought I’d stitched you up, why did you continue to work on the Doveston Archive?’

I shrugged. ‘Hobby?’ I suggested.

‘Then tell me this also. Is there any chance of you taking a bath? You really pong.’

I took a bath. I shaved and I dressed in one of the Doveston’s suits. I had to clench the belt in a bit around the waist. But the Doveston said it looked trendy. His shoes also fitted and by the time

I was all togged up, I looked the business.

Emerging from the bathroom I found myself gawping at one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

She was tall and slim and svelte. Her skin was clear and tanned; her legs were long and lovely. She wore one of those ‘power-dressing’ suits that were so popular in the Eighties. Short black skirt and jacket with the Dan Dare’ shoulders. She balanced herself upon five-inch stilettos and her mouth was so wide that you could easily have got your whole hand in there, even if you were wearing a boxing glove.

‘Hello,’ she said, exposing more ivory than a big-game hunter’s holdall.

‘Hello to you,’ I said and my voice echoed from the back of her throat.

‘Are you a friend of Mr Doveston?’

‘The bestest friend he ever had.’

‘You’re not Edwin, are you?’

‘That is the name he likes to call me.’

‘Well well well.’ She looked me up and down. Then up and down again. And then she looked me halfway up. ‘You’ve got a hard-on there,’ she said.

I grinned painfully. ‘I have no wish to offend you,’ I said, ‘but I don’t suppose you’re a prostitute?’

She smiled and shook her head, showering me with pheromones. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I’m shamelessly immoral. There’s not much I won’t do for a man in a Paul Smith suit.’

I made small gagging sounds.

‘Aha,’ said the Doveston, striding up. ‘I see you’ve met Jackie.’

‘Ggggmph. Mmmmph,’ said I.

‘Jackie’s my PA.’

‘Flash Gordon, actually. But then I had been in prison.

I nodded in a manner suggestive of comprehension.

‘You don’t know what a PA is, do you?’

I shook my head in a manner suggestive of the fact that I did not.

‘Pert arse,’ said the Doveston. ‘Let’s have some drink and fags and all get acquainted.’