He was pleased about that. It had been a good collar, and more, he had a deep dislike of the gangs. The racecourse terrorists, as the newspapers called them, had originally confined themselves to extorting bookmakers, cheating racegoers, and fighting one another over who got to do those things in which area, but their size and reach had grown markedly since the war. The Sabini gang alone could call on some three hundred men in Clerkenwell, Finsbury and King’s Cross. Since the same area only had a policing strength of around six hundred, that was too damned many gangsters jockeying for power, offering ‘protection’ to shopkeepers and bookmakers, sticking their fingers into nightclubs and gambling dens and other such pies. Aaron had read of the problems in Chicago and New York, with their areas where the law’s writ didn’t run, and he did not want to see it happen in London.

He did not, therefore, mourn Nippy Nicholls’ death, but he did relish the opportunity to send Dapper down as he deserved.

It mostly went well, except that Dapper’s barrister made a spirited and deeply insulting attempt to suggest that the King’s Cross police in Aaron’s person favoured their local gang over the interlopers from Birmingham. Aaron kept his temper despite the provocation, the judge slapped it down hard, and Dapper got twenty years.

It was a good result. Less good were the newspaper stories the next day. Not much else was on, and Aaron found his picture in several of the papers, along with a lot more of his life story than he wanted.

“Firebrand Fowler’s Son Abandons Unions, Takes On Gangs,” Detective Constable Challice read aloud in the mess. “That’s a bit tortured. Sabini Gang ‘Protected In High Places’ with quotation marks so it’s not libel. That’s not very nice, but the article isn’t too bad overall. Oh my goodness, listen to this. ‘The latest heartthrob isn’t a film star: he’s a policeman. Darkly handsome DS Fowler’s Italian good looks—’”

“You have to be joking,” Aaron said.

“No, honestly, it’s in the Pictorial. They’ve done a sketch. You look like Valentino. Well, you don’t,” she added with a critical glance, “but the sketch does.”