The advert said: ‘1991 BMW 740i. Owned previously by an elderly couple. Fully serviced. Fully loaded. New front windscreen. This car is immaculate. Quick sale required.’ In other words — at least, one sincerely hoped so — the vendor was in dire financial difficulties and forced to let his cherished motor go for a song. There was a photograph of the car. It might have been taken professionally for a full-page advertisement in a lifestyle magazine. In gleaming gun-metal grey, the executive saloon appeared to be in showroom condition. It was parked on rose-coloured brick paving outside a steel-and-glass luxury apartment block. The background of flaming bougainvillea, with a glimpse between the palms of a colonial-style gable end, suggested the leafy suburb of a Caribbean tax haven. There it was: the car of my dreams, and at £595 ono just within my price range. I rang the number.
‘Hello,’ said a gravelly, world-weary, unmistakably south London voice.
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