“Just wanted to get it clear,” said Lancaster, “so you wouldn’t go away thinking I was bent or anything.”

“Why would I think that?”

He winked. “Oh, there were plenty that were. Vice, Obscene Publications, the Sweeney. Oh, yes. It was all just getting going then, ’63, ’64, ’65. There are some naive buggers who look at it as the beginnings of some new age of enlightenment or something. Aquarius, call it what you will. Fucking hippies, with their peace and love and beads and long hair.” He sneered. “Know what it really was? It was the beginnings of the rise of organized crime in this country. Oh, I’m not saying we hadn’t had gangsters before that, but back in the mid-sixties, when Reggie and Ronnie were at their peak, you could have written what your average British copper knew about organized crime on the back of a postage stamp. I kid you not. We knew bugger-all. Even ‘Nipper’ Read, the bloke in charge of nailing the twins. Porn was coming in by the lorryload from Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands. Someone had to control distribution—wholesale, resale. Same with drugs. Opening of the floodgates, the mid-sixties. License to print money. Maybe the hippies saw a revolution of peace and love in the future, but people like Reggie and Ronnie only saw even more opportunities to make cash, and ultimately all your hippies were just consumers, just another market. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. Your real criminals were rubbing their hands in glee when flower power came along, like kids given the free run of the sweetshop.”

This was all very well, Michelle thought, but a man with a bee in his bonnet, the way Lancaster seemed to have, could be difficult to get information from. Lancaster ordered another Guinness—Michelle asked for coffee—and sat back in his chair. He took a pill from a small silver container and washed it down with stout.

“Blood pressure,” he explained. “Anyway, I’m sorry, love,” he went on, as if reading her mind. “I do go on a bit, don’t I? One of the few benefits of getting old. You can go on and on and nobody tells you to shut up.”

“Bill Marshall.”

“Yes, Billy Marshall, as he was called back then. I haven’t forgotten. Haven’t seen or heard of him for years, by the way. Is he still alive?”

“Barely,” said Michelle. “He’s suffered a serious stroke.”

“Poor sod. And the missus?”

“Coping.”

He nodded. “Good. She always was a good coper, was Maggie Marshall.”

Maggie. Michelle just realized that she hadn’t known Mrs. Marshall’s first name. “Did Bill Marshall work for Reggie and Ronnie?” she asked.

“Yes. In a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of people in the East End worked for Reggie and Ronnie at one time or another. Fit young geezer like Billy, I’d’ve been surprised if he hadn’t. He was a boxer. Amateur, mind you. And so were the Krays. They were into boxing in a big way. They met up at one of the local gyms. Billy did a few odd jobs with them. It paid to have the twins on your side back then, even if you weren’t in deep with them. They made very nasty enemies.”