A part of me wanted to tell the police officer that the reason I was riding the curb in my 2.0l Citron AX TDi at two thirty in the morning in the middle of winter, in a town I’d never heard of, was because I was looking for a place to skin up and I hadn’t been concentrating on the road. A part of me wanted to; the part that had had six or seven pints, a strong pill and a few joints. But the part of me that had to get up in the morning – presumably to present myself in court, steadfastly refused to do this.

“I must have lost concentration for a moment.”

“I see. And your friend? Why was he hanging out of the window?”

“He’s a little drunk ossifer.” I slurred slightly, but managed a smile. “We’ve been celebrating, and he’s had one too many.” I smiled again, a little nervously. “We’re friends” I said. I don’t know why.

“I see. What were you celebrating?”

“Birthday. A friend’s.”

“Same friend?”

“Yes sir,” I said confidently. Then, “no sir.”

“Have you been drinking?”

This question was always going to come and I figured that if the police produced a breathalyser I was finished, so I calmly told a few lies.

“I’m not going to lie to you officer, I had about three pints early in the evening and then switched to coke at about ten so I’d be sober enough to drive my friend home.”

The officer made a few notes on his pad and I sat nervously watching him, hunched up slightly and leaning forward, trying to get a look at his pad, with my hands held tersely in small balls in my lap. Had he bought it? My eye twitched slightly just as the officer looked up from his pad and I half winced, half gurned a hopeful plea bargain with my face inclined idiotically towards him. The other officer was talking to my friend who was sitting in my car a few metres away.

“I see,” he said.

I could smell the beer on my own breath. I noticed that the other officer was now walking towards the car I was sitting in. I smiled at the officer as he looked at me again. The pill had switched gears on me and in a moment I relaxed completely, fully reclining in my seat and opening my arms slightly; I ended up smiling for too long; it was probably only a few seconds, but when you’re being interviewed in a police car at three in the morning while your friend is hanging out of the passenger window of your very fast, black car just meters away from where you’re sitting, a few seconds too long is too long. Way too long.

“I s…”

The door next to my interviewer opened up.

“He wants a cigarette. He insists.”

“I see. Do you have any cigarettes?”

I was now watching the scene unfold with quiet delight. “Yes I do,” I said, but did nothing.

“Can we have the cigarettes please?”

“Yes you can,” I said, now smiling widely at both police officers. “Yes you jolly well can!”

This is super. Wait a minute. Did I say that or think it? I looked at the police officer sitting next to me in the hope of picking up a sign as to whether I’d thought, “this is super,” or said it. Nothing. Although he was holding his hand out for some reason.

“Right,” said the officer smartly, still holding out his hand. I nodded in what I thought was a sage manner and smiled in what I thought was a knowing way. A sharp bolt of fear went through me as I realised that I was supposed to act immediately and, in actual fact, I was about to act much too late for all intents and purposes. “I, eh…,” I floundered and then, without wanting to appear ruffled, I took the cigarettes out of my pocket and handed them to the police officer. It’s all over, I thought.

Or was it? As it happened, my friend was now behaving very badly indeed, much worse than before. He was hanging out of the window of my car, motioning wildly with his hands into the darkness, screaming for the officer to hurry up with the cigarettes. He was now acting so hammered that I appeared to be relatively sober. I must have seemed like the local vicar in comparison. A few cheeky ones, ho-diddly-ho, no-one’s to know.

The other police officer took the cigarettes, leaving the door open, and strode over to my friend. The scare I had had in not reacting to a simple request had sharpened my instinct and I now felt like we had a hope. All we needed was a miracle and we were home and dry.

The other police officer handed the packet of cigarettes to my friend in my car and began telling him in no uncertain terms that he needed to be quiet. He helped him roll up the window and then shut him inside the car. The officer in the car with me had watched his colleague sorting out my friend and then he began writing some more notes in his pad. As the other officer strode back towards us in the police car I saw the passenger window of my car roll down and in an instant my friend’s voice bellowing out into the cold, crisp night: “HEY. CAN I GET A FUCKING LIGHTER IN HERE, YOU CUNT?”

My blood ran cold and my head snapped ludicrously quickly towards the officer in the car; eyes wide a saucers, beaming high. Now we needed two miracles. I forced a smile.

“Your friend does appear to be a little worse for wear.” The officer made a few more notes and then, rather surprisingly, asked me for my lighter. I duly gave it to him. He then got out of the car and shut the door and met the other police officer, who was on his way back to the patrol car. Once they had delivered the lighter to my friend, they made their way to the back of the patrol car and stayed there for several very tense minutes.

The first miracle was that the police couldn’t find the breathalyser. The second was that they bought my story and let me drive away.

I drove very carefully for the rest of the night.

We were far too hammered to go home.