‘Barry Warboys, you are accused of facilitating the entry of illegal immigrants into the United Kingdom. How do you plead?’

His voice was strong and clear, still the tone of a man who was accustomed to doing business, well used to every deal going his way.

‘Not guilty, My Lord.’

It was all over in five minutes and the disappointment in Court One was tangible.

You come for justice, red in tooth and claw.

And what you get are well-paid men and women in wigs and gowns and bewildering rituals that have not changed in over a hundred years.

Barry Warboys disappeared back into the ground like the punchline of a magic act. Up in the public gallery, those who had queued for seats since the middle of the night loitered as if something else might happen today.

But as I had told Nesha, nothing would. Even my colleague from the Serbian embassy seemed deflated.

‘Not murder?’ Dejan Jovanović said.

I shook my head. ‘Not murder,’ I said. ‘Trafficking.’

‘How long for this crime?’ he asked.

‘Fourteen years,’ I said. ‘Maximum.’

‘I need a cigarette,’ he sighed.

The courtroom slowly began to clear and we went out to Warwick Square. The enormous prison transport van was parked with its engine idling outside the back gates of the Old Bailey. Two uniformed prison officers stepped out with Barry Warboys handcuffed between them.

‘Do you know this girl?’ Nesha said, brushing past me, his voice shaking, as if the words were too much for his throat. ‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Hey, mister – do you know this girl?’

He was holding a photograph in his hand. A hard copy of that last selfie from Belgrade. A brother and a sister smiling for the camera just before they said goodbye forever.

‘Hey!’

I placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.

‘Nesha—’

‘This was my sister,’ he said, as one of the uniformed officers noted his presence and took a pace towards him.

‘Her name was Hana Novak and she was a nurse from Serbia,’ Nesha said.

Barry Warboys looked at the boy without pity or interest.

The uniformed police officer placed a closed fist on Nesha’s chest. The other officer helped Warboys on to the back step of the prison transport van.

And the boy was suddenly past him.

‘She was a nurse,’ Nesha said as he punched Warboys in the side of the neck.

‘Oh,’ said Warboys, falling sideways, trying to lift his arms to touch his neck but shackled by the handcuffs he wore, and off balance, so that when Nesha hit him in the neck again he went down hard, unable to hold his hands out to break his fall.