This one was reel eel of a case. Every time he thought he’d gotten hold of one of those clues it just slipped away, leaving a greasy residue on his fingers, slimy , like afterbirth of a cow, hot and wet and sticky. He knows it’s not like television where the CSI labs in ultra fluro white discover clues in what seem to be nano seconds- try more like nano months. Inside him is a shifting tectonic plate of dissatisfaction with the slowness of progress on certain cases. They’re sitting in a compactus in his brain and eat away on his steely mind as if it were a rusting drainpipe. He flips over the mental files of current cases on the go and is transported back to crime scenes where cameras click and whirr and portable lights flood footpaths and houses with artificiality, just like this world he lives in. It’s relentless, taking a toll on his physical and mental health – even when he gets away the cases come with him.

He longs for it to be as simple as it was in the days of Columbo – his favorite TV detective. Back then forensics came down to a chalk outline around a body and a finger print or two. None of this alien landscape of today with people trapsing about in full body suits for fear of ‘crime scene contamination’. He still uses his nouse , his contacts and bites down hard on cigarettes while he waits for the next installment. Maybe it’s time to start sucking on lollipops like another famous TV detective from the Columbus era. Kojak’s domed shining head pops into his minds eye. Cool, suave, always one step ahead of the crooks, but as we’ve already mentioned reality doesn’t work that way; it’s fighting your way through layers of filth and underworld slime, through odourous crackhouses and dealing with drug infested liars and cheats.