Sea View Heights, Beckenham was one of those streets where everyone painted their house numbers on their wheelie bins in big white letters but still got them stolen anyway. Pawser drove slowly, dodging the potholes and the odd discarded nappy bag. Being situated close to the centre of Beckenham both nomenclatures, Sea View and Heights seemed perhaps a little optimistic to him. The properties were all run down terraces that looked to have been targeted about ten years ago by a mob of double glazing and Japanese knotweed salesman. The only sign of any community spirit appeared to have been a bulk purchase of fake stone cladding and a shared horticultural interest in dandelion cultivation. The cladding was peeling and the dead dandelions wilting in the few front gardens that hadn't been concreted over in an attempt to accommodate the rash of luxury cars that now occupied the pavements.

Pawser drove the car to the small turning area at the bottom of the road. Two youths lolling back on a sofa on the pavement drinking cans of maximum strength larger yelled 'Poof' at Killerman when he looked across at them. Ignoring their jeers Pawser spun the car deftly around and set slowly off back down the road to pull over where they had a good view of the front of Number 2 which had been identified by Dirk as the lair of the nefarious forger, Freddy the Fingers.

Pawser had chosen a Land Rover from the pool, a big four wheel drive vehicle. A pleasing choice, he considered. The car parked in front of them was a white Lexus and two black Range Rovers were bumped on the kerb behind, offering them a handy bit of urban camouflage. No one would notice them staking out Freddy's place.

After a moments solace Killerman began whistling tunelessly to himself and rummaging through the pockets of the car following the long established practice of discovering what useful snacks had been left in the car by the previous team. They then entered into detailed negations over who would go and get the first coffees in from the Co-Op they had spotted round the corner.

As they began the most vexatious stage of their negotiations one of the drunken yobbos staggered up the road behind them. He stopped at the car's window and banged on the roof, 'Come on mate open up!'

'Any funny business Killerman, don't muck about just shoot him.' Pawser muttered beneath his breath.

Killerman's moustache bristled in pleasurable anticipation. He slowly opened his jacket to allow easier access to his gun.

'I'm only joking Killerman. You know that don't you?'

Killerman looked somewhat disappointed and slumped back into his seat.

The hoodie pressed his face onto the window, stuck his tongue out and wriggled it over the glass and then banged his fist on top of the car again.

'Actually Killerman you can shoot the little bastard if he hits the car again.' Pawser wound the window down.

The hoody pushed his head through the window and had a good look around the inside of the car. It was all Pawser could do to resist a sudden urge to wind the window up and trap his head against the roof.

'Blimey ladies, you took long enough to get here. What did you do? Drop off at M&S to pick up some finger snacks and a copy of Vogue. It looks like you forgot the horse box as well, chummy's.'

Up close Pawser could see he was wearing large gold earring of the type once popular with 17th Century Corsairs and a Breitling, once popular with flash gits. This one had a particularly large face, big numbers and luminous hands. The sort of timepiece favoured by the lads of the Surveillance Section, S5 of the Yard.

'Is this all the Yard can run to these days, two pissed up blokes prancing about in their best Woolworths gear wearing fake watches?' Pawser responded coldly.

'Well at least we've made some attempt to blend in. You two look like Charles and Camilla on an outing to the Chelsea flower show.' The Officer looked hacked off at Pawser's fake watch jibe.

'Blend in? Did you bring the sofa with you or were you just making the most of the natural surroundings?'

The Special Branch man shrugged his shoulders and checked his watch to see if he could determine whether or not he'd been flogged a dud. 'Spoke to your duffer back at the office. He's given us the heads up. So is it back or front ladies?'

'We'll have the front if you don't mind. Will you be taking the sofa with you?' Pawser gestured back down the road.

'Naw, I saw a couple of leather chairs in a skip around the back. We'll pull them out and get stuck into the meths. If we get enough down us we may just get past the first selection stage for MI5. Channel two OK?'

Pawser nodded, 'Oh and don't forget your girlfriend, he's probably missing your tongue down his throat by now.'

The S5 man nodded and made pretence of staggering off just pausing long enough to give the car a hefty kick as he crossed the road.

'I could still shoot him,' volunteered Killerman eagerly.

'Better not or we'll have the Chief Constable on the phone whinging about his investment in surveillance staff and the waste of taxpayer's money.' Pawser leant forward and turned the receiver to Channel two.

Pawser and Killerman sat for the rest of the afternoon watching the tooing and froing of the residents of Sea View Heights. Killerman played with the buttons on the radio or whistled old 70's tunes to himself, much to Pawser's annoyance. A stream of dog walkers entered and left the premises they were watching leading them to speculate on the nature of voucher distribution scams.

Pawser had found an old tartan blanket in the boot of the car. To stave off the cold he tucked it around his knees, pulled his fur hat down firmly over his head then settled down to read the obituaries in the paper.

'There's a bloke here who died having a coffee enema,' Pawser remarked peering through his glasses at the newsprint in the slowly diminishing afternoon light. 'Imagine that, your family walking in to find you lying on the floor with the old percolator bubbling away and bit of garden hose running from it up your exhaust pipe. Pretty embarrassing hey? Oh no I suppose not, you'd be dead.'

'I wonder if it matters what type of coffee bean you use? I think I'd go for something rich and flavoursome or smooth and mellow. Maybe a dark little number from Arabia would hit the mark,' mused Killerman.

'I'm getting at little concerned about you Killerman. Don't expect me to turn up if you ask me around to share a coffee. I couldn't bear the thought of knocking on your front door to be welcomed by the sight of you standing there with two lengths of garden hose in your hand,' sniffed Pawser. He shook the paper out and continued reading. 'If I was his wife I'd probably be more concerned how long he'd been doing it. All those years buying the best ground beans at your husband's insistence. On weekend when your friends were around quaffing coffee from your state of the art percolator, he'd slip out saying he was going to have a quick fag. While you were passing round the After Eights, he'd be in the garage, arse hanging off the side of the freezer, tube up his jacksi, sky high on Mexico's best.'

Killerman nodded thoughtfully then put down the packet of sherbets lemons he'd been eating and studied Pawser. 'Looking at you just then Pawser reminded me of my old aunt Nonnie. She'd tuck herself up in front of the fire in her old rocking chair, wrap a blanket around her knees and Horace would bring her hot toddies while she read me the obits. How we used to laugh.'

Pawser put down his paper to savour this temporary distraction from his rapidly encroaching somnolence.

'I remember once,' continued Killerman, 'an article catching her eye about a chap in South Africa who had died after being attacked by a shark on a beach off Cape Town. It had caught Nonnies attention because Uncle Mooho had been out there at the time .The Africans had taken this chap to Winnie Mandela hospital. Seriously injured, lying on his death bed, he gasped out for them to bring him a phone. With shaking hands he'd managed to dial a number. Unfortunately when they whipped his mask off to talk to his loved ones, they'd had him on a mixture of oxygen and helium which made him sound like Mickey Mouse on speed. All he had time to utter was, 'Tell Aggers I ran over the tortoise and I'm sorry,' before he was cut off. He then rolled over and died.'

'Too bad eh?' sympathised Pawser wondering where Killerman was going with this homely Tale from the Riverbank.

'For sure,' agreed Killerman. 'Nonnie laughed until the tears ran down her beard. Then it occurred to her that Uncle Mooho used to call her Aggers and we hadn't seen the tortoise since the day he left to go to Africa.'

'So they didn't know who he was?'

'We'll no apparently he was half delirious when they pulled him from the water after been attacked by the shark. He was naked apart from a set of water wings. There was nothing on the beach except for a towel and they couldn't retrieve the number he dialled in the hospital.'

'Bad luck eh. Sometimes your toast just doesn't land butter side up I suppose.'

'I suppose,' said Killerman rather forlornly,' I tell you what I think, that it was our butler who took the call. Probably thought it was a prank so he cut off uncle before he could say who it was. Afterwards we wondered if uncle had taken the swimming shorts off because he always got the galloping trots when he travelled overseas.'

'Did they ever find them?'

'Oh yes. They found the shark a few days later washed up on a beach with Uncles shorts stuck over its head. Uncle always liked a snug fitting pair of shorts, he couldn't stand his bell clappers flapping around. I suppose the shark found that out the hard way, they certainly stopped him flapping about. The shark was bought by an American. The last thing we heard it was on show in a museum in the mid west, Dr Banham's Museum of the Bizarre. Still with uncle's shorts on his head. It's quite a draw apparently.' Killerman looked exceedingly satisfied with this outcome, having been very close to his Uncle Mooho.

'I'm sure he would have been pleased. I supposed it was that or running the risk of having them buried with him. Spending eternity trapped in a six foot box with a pair of rancid swimming trunks can't be the best of alternatives,' reflected Pawser. 'I wonder which way I'd prefer to go, human percolator or right up there with my head stuck inside your uncles trolleys.'

'Oh I'd go for the coffee exit every time?' said Killerman emphatically.

'Why?'

'Well with the coffee you would gently drift off to the burbling of the percolator and smell of exotic coffee and believe you were lying by a babbling crystal stream in Cuba with the aroma of freshly harvested coffee beans blowing through the jungle whilst being caressed by a sun kissed local virgin. Or alternatively you could slip away with you head up uncles shorts believing you in a field hospital in the Crimean War lying beneath a stained cotton sheet with a strong smell of dysentery invading your nostrils, knowing that Gunnery Sergeant; 'have you seen the size of my artillery' Pratt had just disappeared off to enjoy the womanly pleasures of your last love, nurse Veronica Allgood.'

'Wise words Killerman. Wise words indeed,' nodded Pawser reflectively. He turned on the car's interior light, rummaged in the central console, pulled out a pen and started his crossword.

About four pm just as the light was beginning to fade and Pawser was completing his crossword the radio squawked. He threw the paper on the back seat, winked at Killerman, 'We're on,' and picked up the receiver.