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vehicle runs on diesel, can go twice round the clock and still run sweet as a nut, never has any trouble getting an MOT and can go down Oxford Street without getting pulled by the Bill? I’m surprised Ford are still solvent.
    Werewolf, as you’ve probably guessed, likes riding in the back and shouting directions. He also waves to the pedestrians. I must have a word with him about that one day.
    We made it down to the Garden with the minimum of fuss, all things considered, and I found a half-inch of parking space on Henrietta Street. I turned Armstrong around before parking him (Rule of Life No. 277: always park facing the way you’re likely to make a quick exit), and turning through 180 degrees is another thing you can do in a cab in London without getting honked at.
    â€˜So where do we find this mate of yours?’ asked Werewolf, his eyes following the buttocks of a young lady metronoming her way down the pavement.
    â€˜Given the time of day, the barometric pressure and this morning’s horoscope for Aquarius, there’s a fair chance he’ll be in the Punch and Judy.’
    â€˜Would that be a public house by any chance?’
    I could see Werewolf in the driving mirror. He still had his eyes on the pavement.
    â€˜There’s some dispute about that in certain quarters, but roughly speaking, it is.’
    â€˜Then what are we doing here?’
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    We found Bunny in the downstairs bar of the Punch and Judy, and he and Werewolf got on like a house on fire.
    Bunny is one of the few people I know good enough to play as a busker in Covent Garden and, more to the point, he’s actually gone through the audition all the others impose. Anyone who doesn’t go through the right channels soon finds accidents happening. You know the sort of thing: guitar strings suddenly catch fire, sax reeds get Dutch Elm disease, amplifiers turn out to be more use as microwaves, so forth, so fifth.
    â€˜So how much can you make here?’ Werewolf asked him in between gulps of stout.
    â€˜Well, it’s mostly tourists round here. A lot of Dutch birds, the odd Yank, though they tend to go round in pairs, perhaps …’
    â€˜No, Bunny,’ I said soothingly. ‘How much? Not: who?’
    â€˜Oh.’ All innocence. ‘About a ton and a half on a good day. ‘Course, that’s if the bloody mime artists aren’t around. They screw up the traffic flow something rotten.’
    Bunny sipped orange juice, and I poured myself some alcohol-free lager. That was the second (and last) sensible move I made that day after brushing my teeth.
    â€˜And what about the police?’ Werewolf pronounced it pol-lis.
    â€˜No problem,’ said Bunny.
    And he was probably right. Busking isn’t actually an offence in British law, but obstruction is, and that’s what they do you on. London Transport police, on the other hand, just move you on, though they’re not so worried about the buskers as about the fly boys selling suitcases full of pirated cassette tapes. I tend to be more philosophical about them, as the tapes are so badly and loudly recorded that I reckon it’s a plot to blow the eardrums of all the ginks on the tube wearing impersonal stereos. More power to their elbow, I say.
    â€˜So where do I get my instrument, then?’ asked Werewolf, but not before he’d got another round in. He gave me a withering look as he handed over another non-alcoholic lager to me.
    â€˜Cricketer’s lager,’ he said scornfully.
    â€˜Eh?’ said Bunny.
    â€˜Gives you the runs,’ I explained.
    â€˜Oh. Five-string banjo, wasn’t it?’ Bunny the professional. If it didn’t involve women, Bunny’s sense of humour was strictly limited.
    â€˜That’s the ticket. Got one?’
    â€˜No, I only deal in reeds and brass, but Tiger Tim will give you the loan of one for a tenner.’
    â€˜He sounds just my sort of man,’ grinned Werewolf. I