I’ve set up an incident room in my head which is usually in my room which is where all the piecing together and flow charts and magic happens. When such unsolved crimes occur, such as the loss of a wallet, my wallet specifically, it takes me what seems like an age to piece together the movements of the loser (me in this case) and take note that I was actually there for pretty much all of the time, so i’ve no alibi to excuse me from the loss. I wasn’t drunk on cheap cider or high on dirty drugs, I was just a regular guy going about his daily and evening business sensibly and with popper buttons on his pockets to prevent the wallet dropping out of his pocket, and i’m pretty sure i propbably had my hands sunk into my pockets cradling the slowly softening leather of the wallet the whole time I walked the 50 feet from the curry house to the car. Ive checked the bank cards; no one has spent anything and apart from a website address and receipt I don’t think there was anything worthwhile stealing in there, certainly nothing to get someone further than kidderminster anyway.

After days of serious thought and trawling the bottom of my brain, i narrowed the location of loss to that 50 feet outside the curry house up to the car. The road is closed and yesterday I went into all the shops and asked if anyone had handed in the wallet, I even looked underneath all the traffic cones, like a lunatic to see if some kind soul had stashed it under one of them. That is the sort of job I need a deputy for, but I don’t think I could afford to pay them…