Page 50 of Hook, Line and Single

‘Yes, I’ve got “find my iPhone”, but you need another device to log into and he’s probably long gone already. I’ve read about these gangs that use scooters to get in and out before you even know what’s happened. What a bloody idiot I am, waving my phone around like a ditzy tourist without thinking of the consequences. Everyone knows what it’s like round here.’

‘You are not to blame,’ Cameron says firmly. ‘Right, let’s find a police station and report it.’

‘What’s the point? They won’t get it back.’

‘They may well not do, but you’ll need a crime number to claim on your insurance for starters, and I hate to be all boring and procedural, but the police will only have accurate statistics for the crime rate around here if people report them. There’s a tourist information kiosk over there. I bet they’ll know where the nearest police station is. Come on.’

I’m feeling decidedly shaky as I start to follow Cameron towards the tourist information kiosk, and he obviously notices because he takes my hand in his again. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he assures me. ‘They didn’t take anything else, did they?’

I do a quick inventory check and, although my bum bag is where it should be, I realise that my shoulder bag is also gone.

‘What was in it?’ Cameron asks when I tell him.

‘Nothing of any value. Sun cream, lip balm, stuff like that. Bastards!’

The assistant at the tourist information centre is more than helpful but explains that the nearest police station is a subway ride away and my mood only darkens when we arrive to find a large queue of people waiting to be seen.

‘Let’s leave it,’ I say to Cameron. ‘It was an old iPhone anyway and we haven’t got that long before we have to get back to the ship.’

‘I’m tempted to agree,’ he replies. ‘Let me try one thing first though.’ He pulls a small leather folder out of his pocket and approaches the desk, pulling me by the hand behind him.

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he says to the harassed-looking policewoman behind it and earning irritated looks from some of the people in the queue. ‘I’m a policeman from the UK and I wondered whether there was a quick way to report a crime. I know you’re probably swamped, but if there are some forms or something we need to fill in, I can just take them and do them for you now.’

She stares at him for a moment but, just when I’m convinced she’s going to give him an earful, she smiles.

‘¿Policía Ingles?’ she asks.

‘Yes, umm,sí.’

‘Un momento.’ To the obvious consternation of the person sitting in front of her, she pushes back her chair and disappears through a door behind her. Cameron turns to me with a quizzical expression, and I’m rather glad neither of us speaks Spanish as I suspect that whatever the poor guy the policewoman has just abandoned is muttering is not complimentary about us.

A few moments later, she reappears with a man in tow. She indicates Cameron and the man approaches him with a smile.

‘Welcome to Barcelona,Policía Ingles,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘I am Alejandro Martinez, the chief of police here. Let us go through to my office, where we will be more comfortable. Please.’

He opens the door and Cameron and I follow him through, down a wood-panelled corridor until we reach his office. He holds the door open for us and ushers us inside.

‘Please sit down,’ he says, indicating the chairs in front of his desk before walking round and sitting behind it. ‘How can I be of help?’

‘It’s only a small thing,’ Cameron tells him. ‘My companion here has just had her phone and bag stolen outside the Sagrada Família, and we felt we ought to report it. Unfortunately, time is short because we have to rejoin our cruise ship. I hope you don’t mind me cutting the line.’

‘Of course not.’ He turns to me. ‘Your phone, it is an iPhone, I think?’

‘That’s right. How did you know?’

‘They are the most popular for the thieves. Was it new?’

‘No. About five years old.’

‘Hm.’

‘What?’ Cameron asks him.

‘There are two types of people who steal phones around that area. If your phone had been new, I would have told you that it had almost certainly been stolen by an organised gang, and there would be no chance of getting it back. I would give you a reference number and send you on your way with an apology. But the gangs have no interest in a phone as old as yours, which means it’s probably been taken by an opportunist, and many of them are not very clever. Do you have the tracking feature?’

‘I do.’

‘Let us try it, shall we?’ He beckons me round to his side of the desk and, between us, we launch the website and I enter the login details. After a moment, a map shows my iPhone in a suburb towards the north-east of the city. Alejandro sighs expressively.

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