My ears are leaping off their fittings. I want to tell him that I know about the Vasilievs, but I don’t want to detract from his moment.

‘The detective says there is this crime family in the city calling themselves the Vasilievs, headed by a guy called Sergei Vasiliev. Not big time, but not small either. Every now and then, the rumour mill attributes a murder to them. The police don’t have anything on them, but they seem to be a presence.’

Now Tom looks at the screen. ‘The police believe they are professional hitmen. If you want someone whacked, you go to the Vasilievs.’

He looks up at me. ‘Word has it that they have a link to this area, but it’s kind of vague. People with connections to the family have been seen up this way. They kind of stand out, because the country is the last place these sorts of people like to go to. Anyway, the police do a bit of research into the Vasiliev family. They ask their sources, follow up rumours, conduct an internet search, or whatever they do. It turns out that the Vasilievs don’t exist. There is no Vasiliev crime family. No credit details, no tax numbers, no bank records, no passport record, and so on. The only Vasilievs they can find are a couple of oldies living quietly in the west, and some grannies in nursing homes.

‘The Vasilievs don’t exist?’ All my theories have just been quashed under Tom’s polite heel. He holds a hand up to steady me.

‘They’re fake, but they exist, if that makes sense. Sergei Vasiliev isn’t a real person. The guy who turns up every now and then pretending to be Sergei is someone else. He’s like a pretend tough guy. The way the detective explains it, he’s a bit of an idiot. The police back off from the case, because nothing makes any sense and there is no real evidence.’

I’m going to need to go over this again. ‘So someone has made up the Vasiliev family as a front for their, what? Business? Organisation?’

‘I guess so, but the police don’t know what to do with this sort of information. There are no bodies and no genuine accusations. The Vasilievs are a false name for something that doesn’t exist. Their guess is that if you’re going to be in the business of having people whacked, it’s better for your brand to be a crime family called Vasiliev that lives in the shadows, rather than crazy brothers who live in a caravan at the back of their parents’ house in the suburbs.’

When I look confused, he shrugs and says, ‘Just an example.’

‘Can’t they go undercover? Find out who is what?’

‘Maybe, but, according to the detective, they can’t really justify spending money and time on something so vague.’