I’m eating dinner in a café in Bairro Alto, the charming cobblestoned old quarter of Lisbon, on a mild spring night. Just outside, three drug dealers are working the corner. The oldest is about fifteen, the youngest maybe eleven, and they’re selling little bags of grass, hash, coke or heroin. I know the menu, because they offered it to me as I walked by on my way in. Occasionally a policeman will wander past, nod at them and walk on.

A window on the second floor of the squat apartment block above them opens up and an old lady leans out. She yells something at the dealers in Portuguese, they yell something back and she throws a black plastic bag down to them. The youngest dealer picks it up and sprints off with it, and I blink, certain I’ve just seen a sweet little old lady execute a Baltimore-style stash-house dead drop. Curiosity gets the better of me and I ask the lead dealer what was in the bag.