She was a thirty-year-old Filipina and everything about her proclaimed that she was a high-flying London businesswoman – the giant iMac, the well-thumbed copy of that morning’s Financial Times on her desk and her black-rimmed glasses. The only thing that made her look as though her career possibly was not in the financial sector were the tattoos that I knew ran down her lower inner arms.

Ginger’s studious face broke into a smile when she saw me and then faded immediately she saw Whitestone.

‘Max,’ she said. ‘How can I help?’

There was a scented candle in a small glass holder on Ginger’s desk and it disguised the smell of Peking duck that drifted up from the restaurant below. Whitestone stared thoughtfully at the flame, leaving it to me.

‘It’s about the lorry we found this morning, Ginger,’ I said.

‘One hundred metres away from where we are now,’ Whitestone said, picking up the scented candle.

‘It’s terrible,’ Ginger said in an accent that hovered somewhere between Manila and Manhattan. ‘I left flowers.’

‘Big of you,’ Whitestone said. She put down the candle. ‘Remind me again how it works.’ She gestured towards the door. ‘You know. Your Social Introduction Agency. What would I find if I Googled Sampaguita?’

Ginger glanced at me and then back at Whitestone.

‘You will not find Sampaguita online. We leave no digital footprint.’

‘We? That’s the royal “we”, is it? Or do you mean you and your whores?’

Ginger folded her hands. ‘What I mean is that I prefer to make personal contact with clients,’ she said pleasantly.

Whitestone almost smiled. ‘In other words, you pick up men in bars and then you put them in touch with one of your girls?’

‘I introduce men to women. That’s what I do. And I pay my taxes—’

Whitestone lifted a hand to silence her.

‘Spare me the waffle about how respectable you are.’ She nodded at me. ‘I know that you and Max are friends. And I know that you have helped him – and our people – in the past. But here’s the problem. You run a prostitution ring.’ She again raised a hand. ‘You can call it what you like, but we both know that is what it comes down to.’ She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose and nodded to the window. ‘And first thing this morning a dozen young women who were being brought into the country to make a living on their backs – whether they knew it or not – were found at the end of this very street. And now they’re all dead.’

Ginger took a breath.

‘It’s a tragedy. But it’s nothing to do with me.’