Come with me, back to about 1992. I've come back to civilisation after, well, losing it in a fairly major way in 1990. We won't go into the silly Government Corruption Thingy, except to say that one of the Chaps From The Old Department told me (much later) that my allegations were right on the button, and the Yes Minister blokes were just too embarrassed to make a fuss. Let's just say it's taken me a long time to learn that Justice doesn't prevail unless it waits outside with a cosh.

Thanks to having been a bit fast and loose with my money due to a bad friendship choice, I'm renting a backyard shed about 20 feet by 10 feet, with a 6 foot ceiling (watch the silly man dive around the light bulb as he walks to the end of his shed). I get use of the bathroom and kitchen when the main tenant is home. Like the little black and white cat, I don't exist, and must not be seen when the landlady visits. Tenant (it's my ex, Ms Violent, from a few previous tales) and her boyfriend are the official population of the place, and although I pay a third of the rent, I haven't had to cough up for bond or utility deposits. It's what I can afford, so it's what I must choose.

Then the boyfriend leaves. (There was actually a loose fraternity of Violent's ex-boyfriends, and we once dissuaded one recent ex from topping himself.)

No problem, Violent will get another person in. She places an advert at the University, and from the applicants, she chooses The Arty Kiwi.

I'm going to have to preface my remarks by saying all people from UnZud are not complete bastards. In fact, a Kiwi mechanic, at about the very same time, did a thousand dollars' worth of work on my van, on trust alone, so I could do a bit of roadie work and pay him off gradually from the proceeds. Top bloke!

The Arty Kiwi was a long, blonde streak of divide-and-conquer, and he was simultaneously irking me and flattering Ms Violent from the word Go.

He was on some form of visiting arts fellowship, which immediately promoted him to demigod status as far as Ms V went: she was forever ingratiating herself with artists and chefs, to the point where she was in fairly bad credit trouble buying dinners and art.

So, what with her spending moolah faster than she earned it, me being on the dole or roadying, and the Kiwi eking out his "fellowshup", the household was fairly penurious. The usual conditions of a shared house were the norm: milk was anybody's, and everybody supposedly had their own toiletries in the bathroom.

Seeing how things went in the kitchen ("Dairy-fed Kiwi" was the phrase that jumped immediately to mind), I became a little wary when my shampoo seemed to be disappearing at an alarming rate. At the same time, Ms V, quick to blame me (horrid Not-An-Artist that I was) for most little things, lashed out at me for using her shampoo!! I merely said it wasn't me, and pointed to my shampoo in the bathroom. "Big deal", said she, pointing to Kiwi's shampoo bottle...

...which I picked up when she'd left the room. It was, of course, empty: it had probably been doing decoy duty for a while.

Now I'm not a vain chappie. Though time has now turned the locks to silver, I've kept a good head of hair even now. I was using Revlon Flex at the time, mainly because it was cheap for a decent shampoo. The important thing is the colour and consistency of Revlon Flex, viewed through its frosty-but-clear bottle: it looked a lot like honey...

...or like motor oil. I decanted my shampoo and added a little of Mr Mobil's finest to the empty, which I put back in the bathroom.

It was a treat to look at Arty Kiwi the next day: he was not so much crestfallen as, well, quiff-stricken. When he'd finished glowering at me, given up on the attempt to provoke an argument or fight, and gone out, I cleaned the shower recess. It wouldn't do for somebody else to have an unfortunate slip as well....

***

Anyway, time marched on. I was lucky enough to land another fulltime job. Ms Violent was going overseas for eight weeks, courtesy of a cashed-up relative. I figured I could put up with Kiwi for that much time, seeing I was getting a bit of band work with the van at night and was barely home. Ms Violent asked me to drive her car a couple of miles a week, just to keep everything from locking up, flatspotting tyres, etc. No problem, said I.

Not long after she arrived back, I'd saved up enough to move into a nice place with a couple of friends. Eight-foot ceilings... "Sheer Bloody Looxury!" as the Monty Python Yorkshireman said.

Kiwi left a week or so before me. He apparently moved into a squat, and had forms forwarded to Ms Violent's address so he could claim a rent rebate for that address while living rent-free at the squat. I'm a bastard: I saw the Housing Dept address on the envelope, and I knew exactly what the yellow form was for, so of course I sent it back. He apparently showed up, all indignant, a few days after I'd moved.

***

I should probably have introduced Gordo, The Amazing Memory Cop, earlier in the story. Gordo was hell for having facts, rego plates and figures on hand: I met him back in the days when I worked at The Rather Corrupt Government Place. Guvvietown being such a microcosm at the time, it will come as no surprise that Mrs Gordo worked in the same office area as Ms Violent.

Not long after she'd returned, Violent was retrieving her car from the basement car-park at her workplace, when Gordo arrived to collect his wife. Cursory greetings were exchanged, and Gordo went into his Data-Retrieval Trance, or whatever Gordos do when being Walking Criminal Databases.

"Violent, there's something about your car. I think I remember that a car of that description and approximate number being seen in the vicinity of a couple of break-and-enters around town."

He promised to phone later, and lo, it was so. Said car was fairly unique for age, model and colour, and it did match the description given of a car used in a few housebreaks.

You're guessing what happened next. Yep, Ms Violent, screaming like a bloody banshee, calls me up at my new workplace. HOW DARE I use HER car for criminal purposes while she was out of the country?

So I asked for a few locations and dates.

Oh dear, can't be me. I was at work. What's better, I was at work in a secured building, and had access logs to back me up.

At last, she had to admit it. The Kiwi was a toe-rag.

It's a bloody good thing I don't wait around for apologies.