‘The coat. Let me see you put this coat on. Come on. Do it.’

He slipped out of his XL leather jacket and struggled to fit into the size-8 winter coat. He managed the arms, sort of, just about, but the worn-out material groaned and split with the strain as it tried to stretch across his broad back.

I looked down the hard shoulder. Billy was emerging from the darkness with a bedraggled gang of dark-skinned men. The two women in their hijabs followed behind at a demure distance. He had rounded up perhaps half of them. I nodded to the back of the lorry and Billy started loading them back in.

I turned to Lee Hill.

‘Do you know what the sentence is for trafficking people for labour and other exploitation under the Asylum and Immigration Act?’

‘Bruv, I had no idea they were in the back of the lorry!’

‘Twelve months to fourteen years. You could do twelve months, no sweat, but I don’t fancy your chances with fourteen years. The good news is, that’s only if you are found guilty. Only if the jury thinks you are lying through your back teeth about knowing nothing about what was in the back of your lorry.’

‘I want a lawyer.’

‘Get a good one. Who paid you to bring those people in?’

‘Anarchists,’ he said. ‘You know – they don’t believe in borders. They think all men are brothers. They don’t believe in the nation state, as such. They think that if we invite the Third World to come and live here, then mankind will all live happily ever after in a fairer world.’ Billy and I stared at each other. It might even be true.

‘What’s the name of the anarchist group?’ I said.

‘Imagine.’

‘Imagine?’

‘Like the John Lennon song.’

He began singing the chorus.

‘Stop singing or I swear to God I will arrest you now,’ I said.

I took out my phone and called up the photograph of Hana and Nesha Novak. Their smiling faces huddled together in the Belgrade night, the unsmiling profile hovering behind them like a bad moon.

I showed it to the lorry driver.

‘Not a bad-looking woman,’ he said.

‘I want you to look at the man in the background.’

‘OK, bruv.’

‘He’s a lorry driver. Like you. Exactly your kind of lorry driver. The scumbag kind.’

‘Bit harsh, bruv, bit harsh.’

‘Ever seen him on your travels? Dunkirk? Calais? Dover?’

‘He’s an ugly bastard, I’ll give him that.’

‘And who are you? George Clooney?’

He gave me back my phone.

‘Don’t recognise him.’

I slipped my phone into my pocket.

‘So is that who you work for?’ I said. ‘This anarchist group? Imagine?’

He snorted at the very thought.

‘Those mad hippies? I’m self-employed, bruv. A small businessman.’

I nodded.

‘You work for me now,’ I said.

We stared at each other.