‘Steve had a bar in Brentwood called Studs that went up in flames. The insurance company howled but in the end it was put down to an electrical fault. So he walked and started the Champagne Room with the insurance money. This is Steve.’

Edie hit her keyboard.

On the big HDTV a man appeared, looking furtive and hostile as he emerged from a courthouse into blazing sunlight. He was an overweight thirty-something with fair hair, cropped close and thinning. I stared hard at Steve Warboys and tried to see his grandfather in him. Paul Warboys was a proud, lean, fit man even in his old age. Apart from the almost-albino pallor that all the Warboys clan seemed to share – although for decades old Paul had toasted his milky complexion with a Costa del Sol tan – there was little family resemblance. Steve Warboys had none of the swaggering charisma of his legendary grandfather. Steve looked like exactly what he was – a small-time thug trading on the family name.

‘The Warboys dynasty is scraping the bottom of the gene pool with young Steve here,’ Whitestone said. ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s not a people smuggler. In fact, I’d say it makes it quite possible. This herbert ever come up on your radar, Max?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘How long since Asuman Ata worked in the Champagne Room?’ Whitestone said.

‘Ten years,’ Edie said.

‘Who runs girls in this town?’ she said.

‘The Turks in the north,’ I said. ‘The Somalians in the south. The Yardies in the west. The Bangladeshis in the east. The idea of one of the old family firms being involved in prostitution sounds unlikely. But maybe I’m wrong. We don’t expect the Krays and the Richardsons and the Warboys to be anywhere these days, apart from our local cinema. And perhaps that’s a mistake. Asuman Ata – Mrs Jenkins – tells us that the girls in the Champagne Room were all illegals in her day.’

Whitestone nodded. ‘And it’s worth checking if that is still the case. Since Mrs Jenkins jumped off the back of a lorry, this country has had the greatest wave of migration in its history. There’s certainly no shortage of new recruits and only one possible reason to stick with the illegals.’

‘Why would they risk prosecution by employing illegals?’ Billy said.

‘Because in the end a lap-dancing club is no different from a major corporation,’ Whitestone said. ‘Every boss on the planet loves a docile workforce.’

I arrived home to find Scout already in her pyjamas, Stan out for the count and Mrs Murphy clutching a well-thumbed copy of Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin.

She handed it to me.

‘This is the diary of a worm,’ I read to Scout. ‘Surprisingly, a worm not that different from you and me. Except he eats his homework. Oh, and his head looks a lot like his rear end.’

We grinned at each other.