There was all five and a half feet of Frankie himself, with his slicked-back hair and thin moustache, and a crackle of danger in the air around him. He was in his mid-thirties, but with the teeth of a man twice his age, and the swagger of a man half of it. A scar curved upwards from one corner of his mouth, giving him a permanent half-smirk. It had been there for as long as Bruno had known him, yet still looked red and raw, and wept a milky white fluid in the summer months.

“You should see the other guy,” Frankie joked, whenever the scar was mentioned.

That was impossible, of course. No one had seen the man responsible in years. No one would see him ever again.

Frankie’s nephew, Paco, was tall and skinny, with a mop of ginger hair that wasn’t yet committing itself to any sort of style. He carried a clipboard like a prop, holding it balanced on one arm while he fiddled idly with a well-chewed ballpoint pen.

There was no air of danger hanging around Paco. Everyone around here knew that he was nothing without Frankie. Were his uncle not around, Paco wouldn’t so much melt into the background as go running towards it, crying and insisting he was sorry. Insisting he’d had to do those things, that he’d been a victim of Frankie’s just like everyone else.

And yet, Bruno had watched Paco sniggering away as Frankie had done his stuff. He’d seen the glee in the boy’s eyes when a till had been emptied, or a window had been smashed, or a finger had been broken.

Frankie was a bully, yes, but most folks Bruno knew hated Paco more. At least Frankie was up-front about what he was, and what he’d done.

And what he very well might do again.

The third man was someone new. He was so large that he must have ducked to get through the door. His skin, which was almost the colour of coal, seemed to absorb the glow of the shop’s fluorescent lights, making the whole place seem darker.

His face was so blankly impassive he might well have been sleeping, were it not for the fact that he was slowly cracking each of his knuckles in turn, like he was limbering his fingers for something nasty.

“Frankie,” Bruno said. An attempt to keep the fear from his voice failed during take-off. The other men couldn’t fail to notice.

“Mr Capelli!” Frankie cried, holding his hands out wide. “C’mere you. Get in here.”

Bruno didn’t move. Not at first. Not until Frankie made beckoning motions with both hands, and the grin on his face became something dangerous. Only then did he shuffle closer. Only then did he let the other man pull him in close for a hug.