END OF STORY

Today there are probably more London criminals per square acre on the Costa del Sol (or Botany Bay as it is known to the locals) than in all of Westminster. And Little- Eyed Dave's seafood restaurant outside Torremolinos is becoming the in place with your more high-profile type of ex-blagger and his lady wife.

Little-Eyed Dave is a friend of my father and the nearest thing the expat criminal fraternity there has to a society hostess. As he used to dabble in armed robbery, he knows all the faces - the older ones, anyway. "There were some great characters about in them days," he says, of the Fifties and Sixties. "And you wouldn't catch any of them mugging old ladies like they do now."

In fact, to hear him talk about villainy in the Fifties and Sixties, you'd think it was the golden age of chivalry and him and his mates were the knights of the round table. "Billy Hill? Old Hilly? Scholar and a gentleman." "The Richardsons? Nice family. Help anybody."

Little-Eyed even claims to have met Ronnie Kray once, in The Blue Plaice, a south London fish-and-chip shop run by contract killer Alfie Gerard.

When I was a kid, if we happened to drive past the Blind Beggar in Whitechapel, my old man used to point to it and say, with reverence: "That's where Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell for calling him a fat poof."

As my father was not normally didactic, I paid more attention to this information than otherwise, and to this day the life and times of the Kray twins has remained one of my unhealthy obsessions. So when Little- Eyed first told me he'd met Ron Kray, I was agog.

"You've met Ronnie Kray!" I said. "Well, come on then: what did he say?" "He told me to pass the salt," said Little-Eyed.

Technically, of course, Little-Eyed ought to reach for his mobile and dial 091 (for El Plod) if a known criminal turns up asking for a table for two; but I've seen Little-Eyed welcome dangerous fugitives on to his premises with all the discreet courtesy of a Boodles doorman.

When me and Sid were there last week, we could tell that Little-Eyed had a face in, because as soon as he saw us he ducked into a boxer's crouch and started bobbing and weaving as if he was coming out for round one.

"Back on the Sanatogen then, Dave?" I said.

"Look over there," he said, as we went into the dining-room. Sitting at the far table was one of Britain's famous horizontal heavyweights from the early Sixties. He and his small orange wife were surrounded by some fairly sinister-looking characters, and their wives and girlfriends. I only recognised the heavyweight. Their table was a forest of empty wine bottles and they were starting to get a little boisterous.

Sid and I stayed at the bar. Little-Eyed put one of his Supertramp CDs on, and opened another bottle of rioja. He took it over to the heavyweight and presented it to him, compliments of the house.

"Babe, why don't you just go over and stick your nose up his arse?" said Maureen, Dave's wife, as she went by.

I'm not usually sensitive to atmospheres, but there was something nasty in the air. The heavyweight's eyes were black and hard and I thought he was looking for trouble. Little-Eyed seemed oblivious, star-struck. He just leaned on the bar and said to me, "My, my, Jel. If the devil cast his net here this afternoon, he'd have quite a haul."

But when the heavyweight started throwing glasses, Little-Eyed didn't hesitate. He went over with a big kitchen knife and told him that if he and his party didn't naff off there and then, he'd slice what was left of his face off. And the heavyweight and his party went like lambs. I couldn't believe it.

"Heroes all gone, babe?" said Maureen, who'd been in the kitchen and missed it all. Little-Eyed waggled his eyebrows at me as he drained his glass.