Rouge seemed strangely unhappy with the empty bed.  I was pretty satisfied. And mightily relieved.

I’ve always been intrigued by the phrase “assisting police with their inquiries”.  Sounds like going the rounds of doorknocking neighbours or doing a bit of research down at the library or the local SP bookie or taking a peep down a microscope over in forensics.

But somehow this inquiry was refusing to stay on the rails.  I was having myself on.

Rouge knows a lot about what must have gone on last night.  More than me.  And she was half keen to see some serious shit sticking to my blanket.

Her exercise of having me “assist police with their inquiries” was not panning out and I sensed that the ride back was going to be less cordial and more bitter lemon.

True to form, I wasn’t picking any winners and when we got downstairs, Rouge took the wheel of the Falcon.  Jail took the passenger seat.  And I took pole position on the footpath.  She motioned to Jail to roll down the window.  She took out one of her frog gaspers and lit up.  I could see she was full of gaul; was unhappy.  And she spoke across him.  “I smell a rat, Foodge.  A rat with a gold tooth.  A rat that goes to the same dentist as you.”  Rouge kicked the 351 into life and made it shrink into the distance.

I was contemplating my return trip.  It wasn’t the kind of neighbourhood where taxi drivers with any expectations of either making a quid or getting home at the end of the shift were likely to cruise around.  I was quickly running out of JW Red and aspirin and things were not looking a lot better than earlier in the day.

You don’t need to look to recognise a Charlie Davidson.  The gut-shifting rumble of the big twin heralds the arrival of an individual with no want for an image consultant or a personal trainer.  The hog delivered unto me one of the Hells Angles from the Pig’s Arms.  It was Rex.  But everyone called him Pi.  He was a big dude.  Maybe 3.14 times my radius squared.  A careless person might have thought of him as being a ‘thick-set square’.

I was more car-less than careless and Pi’s pillion seat beckoned.  Pi lived his life within the confines of a narrow circle of friends and locations.  His mum’s place, the Angles club house and the Pig’s Arms.  I was confident that we were heading for the pub.  I had another surprise coming.

Pi dropped the hog into a 180 degree arc and pointed us towards the clubhouse, affectionately known as “Highbury” – otherwise famous as the home ground for another Arsenal.

It occurred to me then that riding without a helmet was probably one of my lesser worries.