Guv paused the video. He surveyed the whole room slowly, letting his gaze slip over Larry and David who both let out big sighs of relief. The video had been stitched together using bodycam footage, rough and jerky, but enough to show the armoured car pulling up next to our broken-down minibus. The driver of the armoured car, this good Catholic boy raised in an orphanage, he was out like a shot to lend assistance to Sid and Joe-Joe, a pair of the butchest nuns you will ever see.

The second guard was more of a challenge, but Guv’s legendary research and psychological insight were up to the challenge.

Enter: me, dressed as a Neanderthal Father Christmas.

Apparently this guy’s father, something of a mouth breathing high forehead troglodyte had done a runner, on Christmas day no less, whilst dressed as Santa Claus. That got him out of the van advancing menacingly in my direction.

Which left guard number three in the back.

Guv whipped his gaze back to Larry and David who both sat bolt upright in alarm. He stared for several seconds, before finally beginning to shake his head lightly in disgust.

Larry and David quailed in the force of his glare.

Softly, Guv said, ‘Calypso. Wasn’t I clear?’

Larry hissed to David, ‘See, told it was a typo.’

Guv looked at him.

‘A typo…?

‘Yeah, for Calypo.’

‘Calypo…?’

Larry nodded happily. ‘The lolly. Cardboard tube, squeeze the end, you get more lolly?’

Guv was staring in disbelief.

Through gritted teeth, David said, ‘It’s spelt Calippo, you idiot, so how can it be a typo?’

Faintly, Guv said, ‘How would a lolly get the guard out of the back of the van?’

Larry stared at the table.

Guv said, ‘Well?’

Without looking up, Larry in a tiny voice said, ‘Physiological mind games, innit. That time at the beach, he wanted a lolly, it’s only fifty pence, but his Daddy wouldn’t buy him a lolly, and he felt so…’

Larry’s voice tailed into silence.

Guv bent over his laptop, bringing up a picture of a winsome young girl in loose chiffon.

He said, ‘Calypso: a nymph from Greek mythology.’

Next he brought up the picture of an equally winsome young man lost in corded navy sweater.

He said, ‘Security guard number three: a pHD in classical studies, with a one hundred thousand word dissertation on the subject of the role of women in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, now reduced to driving around in the back of an armoured truck. He would have had that door open the second he clapped eyes on Larry dressed as Calypso the nymph. David, your job was to stop the guard brutally murdering Calypso.’

Guv began to shake his head in disgust.

He said, ‘Who knows, maybe he was thirsty, maybe a lolly would have worked.’

He set the video playing once more.

Enter: Larry and David. They both wore virulent Hawaiian shirts above Bermuda shorts. Larry was carrying a guitar, and David had a pair of polished chrome bongos slung around his neck.

Guv let the video play, the pair of them singing away and sashaying their hips, their audience the bemused looking third security guard peering through the porthole in the side of the van.

Faintly, Guv said, ‘But Calypso music…?’